How Rollic hit 2B downloads for its hypercasual video games

Rollic has crossed two billion lifetime downloads throughout its portfolio of hypercasual video games, or accessible titles which you could play in a minute or much less.

Whereas hypercasual video games have had a difficult time prior to now yr, Istanbul-based Rollic was in a position to enhance its viewers and engagement with extra use of dwell operations, on-line leaderboards, seasonal occasions and customizable characters. Rollic has now launched 19 video games which have hit No. 1 or No. 2 within the U.S. App Retailer.

I talked with Rollic CEO Burak Vardal, who cofounded the corporate in 2018. Zynga acquired the corporate in October 2020 for $168 million, after which Zynga itself was acquired by Take-Two Interactive this yr.

Rollic started including dwell providers to its titles in 2021 with the launch of the first-ever dwell on-line leaderboard in Hair Problem, the rewarded advert “Undertake a Pet” function in Excessive Heels, and seasonal vacation occasions throughout six of its video games.

Up to now in 2022, Rollic has debuted 14 video games which have ranked within the top-10 most downloaded video games within the U.S. App Retailer, together with Automotive Lot Administration, Espresso Stack, Colours Runners, Hoard Grasp, Crowd Evolution, and Fill The Fridge.

Right here’s an edited transcript of our interview with Vardal.

GamesBeat: Inform me extra about your historical past at Rollic, and the historical past of Rollic as nicely.

Burak Vardal: We co-founded Rollic, two companions and I, again in December 2018. It’s fairly a younger firm. We began as a hypercasual sport writer, and we’re nonetheless a hypercasual writer and developer. For the reason that starting we’ve launched greater than 200 titles in complete. The most recent information is Rollic passing 2 billion downloads worldwide in July. We’ve launched greater than 15 titles that reached first place in the US app retailer and worldwide app retailer.

GamesBeat: How many individuals are on the staff now?

Vardal: Proper now we’re 165 folks. The entire staff is in Istanbul. However in fact we work with a number of third occasion builders as a writer. We have now many product managers, sport managers, who work on the ideation and manufacturing of video games. Then now we have builders, artists, and different conventional sport firm divisions.

GamesBeat: How a lot of your portfolio is inner versus exterior improvement?

Vardal: Our exterior improvement community is large. Proper now about 90 % of our manufacturing is coming from our third occasion developer companions.

GamesBeat: Did an important deal change for you after the Zynga acquisition? What’s totally different?

Vardal: Hypercasual is a completely totally different world. After we joined Zynga, they didn’t have a hypercasual division. We joined as a brand new sub-genre of cell video games, which is usually a bonus when becoming a member of an enormous like Zynga. However our imaginative and prescient for cell gaming–the variations between sub-genres like informal and hypercasual within the present market are very small. Video games have gotten nearer to one another. We’re creating extra media round our video games, extra ranges, extra content material. Informal corporations are looking for scalable ideas like hypercasual does.

Becoming a member of Zynga was an enormous benefit for us. We have now the tradition of at all times producing one thing new in an ongoing method. Zynga has this franchise tradition, which is straight reverse, associated to managing dwell video games for a really very long time and constructing a lifetime of greater than 5 years for his or her titles. That was one thing we didn’t have. Our method of conceptualizing video games and doing scale assessments was a brand new factor for Zynga. The combination was an enormous win for each corporations. Rollic’s scale is greater than thrice greater now in comparison with after we joined Zynga. I can say that it’s all gone nicely.

GamesBeat: Hypercasual — I hear folks say some hyperbolic issues about it lately. I bear in mind Frank Gibeau saying that one of many issues about Rollic that’s useful to Zynga is that it brings a unique type of consumer in entrance of them that they weren’t in any other case aware of. They weren’t reaching that type of consumer. That turned essential at a time when there was much less visibility due to Apple’s IDFA modifications. Once you don’t know the place you’ll be capable to supply customers, having an important funnel for customers by means of hypercasual is essential. That helped shield the corporate. It regarded like that usually labored. However Zynga did face an affect that it talked about in a while from IDFA. Finally it offered to Take-Two, which assured a extra steady atmosphere wherein to function.

I’ve heard different folks say that hypercasual can also be affected in some methods by IDFA, which to me didn’t at all times make sense. Some folks say that hypercasual is dying due to IDFA. That reasoning doesn’t sound correct. However I assume the query is, what are a few of the macro traits affecting hypercasual? How have you ever seen this a part of the business change?

Vardal: Being within the kitchen of these items, on our facet issues look a bit totally different. I’d say completely reverse. To start with, hypercasual as a style is the results of the consuming habits of the world proper now. Persons are consuming issues very quick. Their consideration span is decrease than at any time earlier than. Persons are on the lookout for totally different, however enjoyable mechanics and leisure for 10-Quarter-hour a day, after which they need to transfer on to a brand new factor. In case you analyze TikTok, that is what TikTok is, proper? You spend a number of seconds on a video, have enjoyable, and transfer on to a brand new one. You don’t spend 50 minutes on it.

That’s a very powerful level. For a sport style to succeed on a mass scale, it ought to symbolize the consuming habits of the world. Subsequently, I believe hypercasual won’t ever die, as a result of these consuming habits received’t change. The second factor is, since hypercasual video games are being performed by actually everybody, the impact of audience-related focusing on measurements is way decrease on the hypercasual scale. We’re not on the lookout for a particular viewers. We’re on the lookout for everybody. Subsequently, in our world, we don’t have a lot depth to our viewers evaluation. When you might have 2 billion downloads, how particular can the viewers be? It’s everybody. You may’t phase that viewers. Our totally different video games entice totally different folks, however within the complete funnel, hypercasual is a dwelling organism that’s nonetheless rising. The primary motive is that large scale based mostly on the consuming habits of the world.

GamesBeat: Is advert income in hypercasual being affected by any main traits?

Vardal: There are results, in fact, however usually it’s based mostly on seasonality. The great thing about advert income in gaming, although, is that it’s at all times optimizable. In case you see a softness over a few days, it’s very simple to get out of that and create new methods behind your sport. It’s based mostly on CPMs. It’s based mostly on different corporations paying for it, not people. The supply of advert income is coming from the advertising spend from different corporations, whereas in-app purchases come from particular person spending. That’s the principle distinction. The development variations in advert income are a lot decrease than in different monetization methods.

At Rollic we’re all advert income. We like it. Within the present basic financial construction of the world, advert income might have extra benefits as a result of, once more, it’s indirectly affected by what’s within the pockets of people. I believe advert income in gaming will proceed to develop sooner or later, each within the quick time period and long run.

GamesBeat: I’ve been taking part in this Idle Siege sport from Gameloft obsessively for some time. It reveals me adverts each time I need to do one thing – if I need to velocity up gaining a degree, I can select to see the advert or spend in-game forex. I don’t know whether or not selecting the advert makes me an excellent buyer or a horrible buyer. I haven’t spent any cash on the sport thus far. However I’m at all times clicking the adverts.

Vardal: I believe the query is for you. Would you wish to spend 4 {dollars}, or would you want to observe an advert? Each consumer is totally different. The longer term lies in giving customers the prospect to decide on. That’s pretty, as a result of you’ll be able to both spend money or you’ll be able to watch adverts. Some wish to spend cash and a few wish to spend time watching adverts. Our job as sport corporations is to foretell which makes the larger LTV, predict that you simply’re a non-spender, and optimize the adverts we serve you accordingly. That’s most likely what they’re doing, and it’s what we do. If the consumer isn’t keen to purchase one thing, we perceive that in a short time, so we begin providing them advert alternatives to earn extra within the sport. That’s a win-win for each events.

GamesBeat: You don’t thoughts earning money in some way.

Vardal: After all. It’s higher than not monetizing you in any respect. With the present CPMs, we’re seeing a constructive development after IDFA. Advert income LTVs have gotten a lot increased. I believe that in some unspecified time in the future they’ll be competing straight with in-app buy LTVs, which is nice. There are some customers watching greater than 500 adverts in our video games per 30 days. They like it. The entire LTV could be very near an in-app spender. It’s all about monetizing correctly with out having a detrimental affect on the consumer expertise. It’s finest to offer the consumer the prospect to decide on.

GamesBeat: Are there predictions you can also make going ahead, whether or not for the remainder of the yr or in 2023? What do you see taking place with hypercasual at an business degree?

Vardal: On the highest degree, a number of consolidation is going on. Take-Two, Zynga. You may see this happening within the gaming world. However different large corporations that aren’t in hypercasual but are nonetheless making an attempt to know it. In the meantime, corporations like Zynga that have already got a hypercasual division, they’ve the benefit when it comes to scale. The key phrase for the longer term in hypercasual, it’s nonetheless rising. I can see an affordable proportion development in hypercasual companies. However the trick behind that development alternative is hypercasual sport corporations changing into higher sport designers and creating higher video games.

That is nonetheless gaming. When it’s not console or large informal titles or MMORPGs, I believe generally folks depart apart the significance of making a greater sport. However it’s the identical for hypercasual. If you need development, you should make higher updates, extra options, greater daring beats, extra scalable ideas with higher long-term retention. Within the present world, for Rollic, with the quantity of ideas we check and analyze each month, I believe now we have the largest benefit in creating higher video games in comparison with different corporations. That’s the largest issue proper now. We have now an enormous quantity of expertise to know what to supply subsequent. That’s a number of leverage that solely hypercasual corporations have proper now.

The expansion, particularly in cell gaming, lies in how rapidly and efficiently we will use our knowledge and our expertise to create higher video games. We are able to’t do it with the video games we produced three years in the past. We have to enhance ourselves yearly. The longer term lies in merging the tradition of recent in hypercasual with the tradition of dwell to make higher video games. That’s how I see the way forward for cell video games on my facet.

GamesBeat: Did you ever make use of any Zynga IP? Do you suppose it’s potential that you may make use of Take-Two IP going ahead?

Vardal: For the hypercasual enterprise, it’s not essentially related. We’re doing a number of very fast prototyping and fast testing with new ideas each month. Within the short-term future for Rollic and hypercasual, IP mergers aren’t trying very related to our enterprise. However in complete with Zynga and Take-Two, it makes a number of sense.

GamesBeat: What’s Turkey like in the case of the studio neighborhood there? Is there nonetheless a number of startup exercise?

Vardal: Rollic was one of many foremost freewheels of the Turkish gaming startup ecosystem. After we began as a sport writer in 2018, early 2019, there have been just a few studios in Turkey making video games. They had been making an attempt to publish their video games with international publishers, and their success price at that was very low. Earlier than Rollic, there have been solely two video games launched by a Turkish studio by means of a world writer. We launched greater than 200 titles with greater than 80 totally different Turkish studios within the final three years.

After all, with out expertise it’s unimaginable, however I believe the gaming tradition in Turkey is an ideal match for founding gaming startups. Nearly all of Rollic’s present manufacturing is in Turkey. We’re nonetheless transferring ahead with our Turkish studio companions, who we’ve recognized since their foundations and labored with very carefully. A few of them are pc engineers. A few of them come from PC sport corporations. A few of them come from international console sport corporations. However they’ve all come to create a brand new Turkish sport firm, on the extent of a startup with 5 or 6 folks, and that’s sufficient for hypercasual. I really feel like hypercasual gives the muse of the Turkish gaming ecosystem, after which we’ve seen a number of profitable sport corporations developing with extra funding. The Turkish gaming ecosystem will proceed to develop sooner or later.