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 that you may play in a minute or much less.

Whereas hypercasual video games have had a difficult time up to now yr, Istanbul-based Rollic was capable of increase its viewers and engagement with extra use of stay 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 stay companies to its titles in 2021 with the launch of the first-ever stay 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.

So far 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 effectively.

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 recreation 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 USA app retailer and worldwide app retailer.

GamesBeat: How many individuals are on the staff now?

Vardal: Proper now we’re 165 individuals. The entire staff is in Istanbul. However after all we work with a number of third get together builders as a writer. Now we have many product managers, recreation managers, who work on the ideation and manufacturing of video games. Then now we have builders, artists, and different conventional recreation firm divisions.

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

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

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

Vardal: Hypercasual is a very completely different world. Once we joined Zynga, they didn’t have a hypercasual division. We joined as a brand new sub-genre of cell video games, which is mostly a bonus when becoming a member of a large 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. Now we have the tradition of all the time producing one thing new in an ongoing manner. Zynga has this franchise tradition, which is immediately reverse, associated to managing stay 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 manner 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 3 times greater now in comparison with after we joined Zynga. I can say that it’s all gone effectively.

GamesBeat: Hypercasual — I hear individuals say some hyperbolic issues about it lately. I keep 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 acquainted with. They weren’t reaching that type of consumer. That grew to become essential at a time when there was much less visibility due to Apple’s IDFA adjustments. Whenever you don’t know the place you’ll be capable of supply customers, having an awesome funnel for customers via hypercasual is essential. That helped defend the corporate. It regarded like that usually labored. However Zynga did face an impression that it talked about afterward from IDFA. Finally it offered to Take-Two, which assured a extra steady setting during which to function.

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

Vardal: Being within the kitchen of these items, on our aspect issues look a bit completely 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. Individuals are consuming issues very quick. Their consideration span is decrease than at any time earlier than. Individuals are in search of completely different, however enjoyable mechanics and leisure for 10-Quarter-hour a day, after which they wish to transfer on to a brand new factor. When 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 crucial level. For a recreation style to succeed on a mass scale, it ought to symbolize the consuming habits of the world. Subsequently, I feel hypercasual won’t ever die, as a result of these consuming habits gained’t change. The second factor is, since hypercasual video games are being performed by actually everybody, the impact of audience-related concentrating on measurements is way decrease on the hypercasual scale. We’re not in search of a selected viewers. We’re in search of everybody. Subsequently, in our world, we don’t have a lot depth to our viewers evaluation. When you’ve 2 billion downloads, how particular can the viewers be? It’s everybody. You possibly can’t section that viewers. Our completely different video games entice completely different individuals, however within the complete funnel, hypercasual is a residing organism that’s nonetheless rising. The principle cause is that huge 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, after all, however usually it’s based mostly on seasonality. The fantastic thing about advert income in gaming, although, is that it’s all the time optimizable. When you see a softness over a few days, it’s very simple to get out of that and create new techniques behind your recreation. 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 primary distinction. The pattern variations in advert income are a lot decrease than in different monetization techniques.

At Rollic we’re all advert income. We adore it. Within the present normal financial construction of the world, advert income might have extra benefits as a result of, once more, it’s in a roundabout way affected by what’s within the pockets of people. I feel 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 recreation from Gameloft obsessively for some time. It exhibits me adverts each time I wish to do one thing – if I wish to velocity up gaining a degree, I can select to see the advert or spend in-game foreign money. 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 all the time clicking the adverts.

Vardal: I feel the query is for you. Would you prefer to spend 4 {dollars}, or would you want to observe an advert? Each consumer is completely different. The long run lies in giving customers the possibility to decide on. That’s beautiful, as a result of you possibly can both spend money or you possibly can watch adverts. Some prefer to spend cash and a few prefer to spend time watching adverts. Our job as recreation corporations is to foretell which makes the larger LTV, predict that you just’re a non-spender, and optimize the adverts we serve you accordingly. That’s in all probability what they’re doing, and it’s what we do. If the consumer just isn’t prepared to purchase one thing, we perceive that in a short time, so we begin providing them advert alternatives to earn extra within the recreation. That’s a win-win for each events.

GamesBeat: You don’t thoughts being profitable in some way.

Vardal: In fact. It’s higher than not monetizing you in any respect. With the present CPMs, we’re seeing a optimistic pattern after IDFA. Advert income LTVs have gotten a lot greater. I believe that in some unspecified time in the future they’ll be competing immediately 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 adore it. The whole LTV could be very near an in-app spender. It’s all about monetizing correctly with out having a adverse impression on the consumer expertise. It’s greatest to present the consumer the possibility 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 trade degree?

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

That is nonetheless gaming. When it’s not console or massive informal titles or MMORPGs, I feel generally individuals depart apart the significance of making a greater recreation. But it surely’s the identical for hypercasual. In order for you development, it is advisable to 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 feel now we have the largest benefit in creating higher video games in comparison with different corporations. That’s the largest issue proper now. Now we have an enormous quantity of expertise to grasp 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 are able to use our information and our expertise to create higher video games. We will’t do it with the video games we produced three years in the past. We have to enhance ourselves yearly. The long run lies in merging the tradition of recent in hypercasual with the tradition of stay to make higher video games. That’s how I see the way forward for cell video games on my aspect.

GamesBeat: Did you ever make use of any Zynga IP? Do you assume it’s potential that you possibly can 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 wanting 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 group there? Is there nonetheless plenty of startup exercise?

Vardal: Rollic was one of many fundamental freewheels of the Turkish gaming startup ecosystem. Once we began as a recreation writer in 2018, early 2019, there have been a number of studios in Turkey making video games. They had been making an attempt to publish their video games with international publishers, and their success fee at that was very low. Earlier than Rollic, there have been solely two video games launched by a Turkish studio via a worldwide writer. We launched greater than 200 titles with greater than 80 completely different Turkish studios within the final three years.

In fact, with out expertise it’s not possible, however I feel 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 identified since their foundations and labored with very carefully. A few of them are laptop engineers. A few of them come from PC recreation corporations. A few of them come from international console recreation corporations. However they’ve all come to create a brand new Turkish recreation firm, on the extent of a startup with 5 or 6 individuals, 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 recreation corporations arising with extra funding. The Turkish gaming ecosystem will proceed to develop sooner or later.