CASUAL REPORT Competitive Research and Actionable Product Recommendations - Rackcdn.com
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CASUAL REPORT Competitive Research and Actionable Product Recommendations
TABLE OF CONTENTS
IMPACT DRIVER 3
Hero Mission Event
Raya and the Last Dragon in Disney Magic Kingdoms
Product Insights
APRIL
IMPACT ANALYSIS 8
Casual Event Impacts
Most Impactful Mission Events
MARKET WATCH 11
Breakout App
2021
Home Design App Comparison
Notable Feature & Event Releases
Notable Content Releases
APPENDIX 17
Endnotes
L&G Puzzle Personas
Premium Partnerships
Puzzle Mechanics Taxonomy
IMPACT DRIVER
Features and events that boost revenue, retention, or downloads
3
SIM > EVENTS > MISSIONS
Hero Mission Event
Raya and the Last Dragon in Disney Magic Kingdoms
4
REVENUE ANALYSIS
Disney Magic Kingdoms' revenue was +86% and downloads were +99% 16Do16D during the Raya and
the Last Dragon event. The two previous iterations of this event, Highland Games and The Mandalorian,
boosted revenue +93% 22Do22D and +141% 17Do17D, respectively.
Disney Magic Kingdoms
$100K Revenue Downloads 15K
The Mandalorian Highland Games Raya and the Last Dragon
$80K 12K
Daily Downloads
Daily Revenue
$60K 9K
$40K 6K
$20K 3K
10/25/20 11/8/20 11/22/20 12/6/20 12/20/20 1/3/21 1/17/21 1/31/21 2/14/21 2/28/21 3/14/21 3/28/21
XDoXD = X days over X days.
Graph data is iOS, U.S. only.
5
FEATURE TEARDOWN
Players earn currency and materials from a variety of missions, collection goals, and sub-events. These
resources allow players to buy new characters that unlock additional missions.
Details
1 2
• Players complete missions to earn currency and materials (1 and video).
• Characters collected from this event and past events each unlock their own missions.
• Some missions require multiple characters to complete.
• Players spend currency and materials to purchase new characters (2 and 3).
• One character, Namaari, can only be bought with premium currency and is available from the start.
• Four other characters become available to purchase as players progress through missions.
• Some characters also have timers that must expire before they can be purchased.
• Once purchased, characters grant rewards and activate their own missions. 3 4
• Players can buy buildings, chests, and a parade float that award currency and materials (4).
• Buildings can be upgraded to award more materials.
• Characters and buildings purchased by players fulfill collection goals for additional rewards (5).
Sub-Events
• Light in the Shadows awards currency each time a challenge is completed (video).
• Once completed, the challenge unlocks again in two hours.
• Players can spend premium currency to skip the timer (6).
5 6
• Striking Gold ranks players based on trophies earned by visiting buildings or completing challenges.
• Get off My Beach! ranks players based on the number of crabs they clear from their kingdoms.
Additional Information
• See the Raya and the Last Dragon, Highland Games, and The Mandalorian libraries for more images
and videos.
6
PRODUCT INSIGHTS
Give players a reason to spend early. 1
Getting players to invest at the start of an event increases the likelihood that they'll keep spending due to the sunk cost
fallacy.1 In Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney Magic Kingdoms made missions scarcer at the beginning of the event, then
drove early purchases by releasing a purchasable character that unlocks extra missions.
When designing purchasable characters, consider also adding perks that passively boost progress throughout the
event to drive more early purchases. FarmVille 2: Country Escape took this approach during the Mail Match and Egg
Packing Competition events—which helped grow revenue market share +52% and +34% WoW—by selling temporary
characters that awarded rare resources at higher rates (1).
Design collection items with aesthetic appeal and meaningful functionality.
In Disney Magic Kingdoms, players must use characters collected from current and past events to access missions. By
giving players something to do with their characters, Disney Magic Kingdoms also gives players a reason to revisit their
collections. This makes characters more meaningful by helping players form memories with them over time.2 2
Functional cosmetic items drive revenue in other apps as well. The FarmVille 2 events mentioned above also award
permanent character skins with small but useful boosts. Characters released during Disney Emoji Blitz's Villain Events
have special abilities and unlock certain levels, contributing to an average +54% 5Do5D revenue boost across three
events. In Bingo Bash's Fish n' Chips collection feature, players collect fish that grant a variety of bonuses when fed (2).
Character-specific features and events like Raya and the Last Dragon are a growing trend
across genres, but they are especially prominent in RPGs.
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes' Clash on Kamino event (+40% revenue 2Wo2W) lets players try out a new hero before
unlocking it; AFK Arena's Hero Growth Bundles (+20% 2Mo2M) unlock rewards and purchase offers as players level new
heroes; and Summoners War's New Monster Update Special Event (+86% 25Do25D) includes challenges that both
unlock new heroes and use those new heroes once they've been unlocked.
For more analysis of mission events, check out our Missions Guide.
7
IMPACT ANALYSIS
Investment and revenue trends for feature and event releases
Tracked puzzle apps: Angry Birds 2, Best Fiends, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Candy Crush Jelly Saga, Candy Crush Saga, Candy Crush
Soda Saga, Cookie Jam, Disney Emoji Blitz, Farm Heroes Saga, Fishdom, Gardenscapes, Gummy Drop!, Home Design Makeover,
Homescapes, June's Journey, Lily's Garden, Lost Island: Blast Adventure, Matchington Mansion, Panda Pop!, Pet Rescue Saga, Solitaire
Grand Harvest, Solitaire TriPeaks, Toon Blast, Toy Blast, and Wizard of Oz Magic Match
Tracked simulation apps: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Cooking Fever, Cooking Madness-Kitchen Frenzy, Diner DASH Adventures,
Disney Magic Kingdoms, FarmVille 2: Country Escape, Hay Day, Klondike Adventures, SimCity BuildIt, The Sims Mobile, and Township
Tracked lifestyle apps: Chapters: Interactive Stories, Choices: Stories You Play, Covet Fashion, Episode - Choose Your Story, Kim
Kardashian: Hollywood, Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen, and My Story: Choose Your Own Path
8
COLLECTIONS AND MISSIONS LEAD POPULAR EVENT RELEASES
Collections and missions outperform other frequently released casual event types like custom design
and purchases. Mission events perform especially well in sim apps, averaging +29% revenue market
share WoW in sims compared to +3.5% in the casual market as a whole (sim impact not shown).3
Revenue Market Share WoW (Past 12 Months) Event Releases (Past 12 Months)
Competitions Competitions
Collections Collections
Missions Missions
Quests Quests
Challenges Challenges
Clubs Clubs
Levels Levels
Custom Design Custom Design
Purchases Purchases
Rewards Rewards
Accelerators Accelerators
-4% 0% 4% 8% 12% 0 50 100 150 200
Impact models are made by Liquid & Grit by combining our data with revenue data from Sensor Tower.
Only event types with 20 or more standalone releases are shown.
9
WoW = Week over week.
SIM APPS DOMINATE TOP MISSION EVENTS
Sim apps accounted for 16 of the top 25 mission events released in the past year. The two previous
iterations of the Raya and the Last Dragon event—Highland Games and The Mandalorian—were
particularly impactful. We don't yet have market share data for Raya and the Last Dragon.3
Top 10 Most Impactful Mission Event Releases (Past 12 Months)
App Event Release Date Revenue Market Share (WoW)
Disney Magic Kingdoms Highland Games 12/17/20 +263%
Disney Magic Kingdoms Lunch on the Loose! 10/8/20 +183%
Disney Magic Kingdoms The Mandalorian 11/12/20 +130%
MandoMondays Out of This World
Disney Magic Kingdoms 11/9/20 +121%
Sweepstakes
Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen Deepsea Secret 11/14/20 +88%
Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen Garden of Spiral Staircase 3/9/20 +67%
Farm Heroes Saga Rancid's Challenges 6/30/20 +62%
Hay Day River Boat Puzzle Piece Bonus 1/29/21 +60%
Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen Time Limited Quest from Momo 10/8/20 +59%
Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen Moonlit Playground 10/6/20 +58%
10MARKET WATCH
New apps and notable releases from established competitors
11BREAKOUT APP
1 2
Merge Mansion by Metacore Games Oy
App Details
• Players spend energy to merge items in a grid interface (1).
• Almost all items can be merged, including XP, currency, energy, and accelerators.
• Energy is awarded every two minutes or collected from chests and merged energy items.
• All items can be sold for primary currency.
• Merged items award XP and allow players to complete renovation tasks in a mansion (2).
• Completed tasks advance a storyline and award items, XP, currency, and energy.
• XP levels award chests and unlock new design areas (3).
• Certain items produce other items at regular intervals.
• Players can spend premium currency to skip cooldowns.
• A shop allows players to exchange primary and premium currency for a rotating stock of items (4).
Launch Information 3 4
• Released worldwide on 9/16/20
• Average daily U.S. revenue (90 days): $26,872
• Average daily U.S. downloads (90 days): 4,952
• View Merge Mansion on the App Store
Liquid & Grit's Take
Merge Mansion offers a novel combination of merge-3 and renovation mechanics. Both
are proven winners in puzzle, but the decision to go with renovation over custom
design may present some long-term limitations.
The personalization offered by custom design creates a more robust foundation for
compelling rewards, which facilitates future innovations in base gameplay, events, and
features—which is likely why many new apps are opting for custom design mechanics.
12HOME DESIGN APP COMPARISON
Features4 Design Home: House Renovation Redecor - Home Design Makeover Home Design Makeover
Bonuses Daily gift and rewarded ads Daily gift Rewarded ads
Challenges Designer goals and challenges (events) Tasks and challenges (events) DIY Furniture Restoration and To Do List
Collections Owned Furniture My Collections None
Competitions Design challenges Design challenges Leagues
Currencies Cash, diamonds, home points, and keys5 Tokens, gold, and cash5 Energy, diamonds, coins, and event tickets
Custom Design Furniture and decor Furniture and decor Upgradeable furniture and custom furniture
Expansions My Homes and challenge (expansion events) Challenge (expansion events) Career
Hazards Challenge requirements Challenge requirements Match-3 elements
Interactions Friends6 and design voting Friends and design voting Team chat (clubs)
Leaderboards Friends, overall, and seasonal Wins, five stars, and friends Teams (clubs)
Profiles Yes Yes No
Daily Deals, season pass, and content Bundles and
Purchases Content bundles
bundles Daily Gem Pack
Rewards Vote to earn and complete offers (Tapjoy) Vote to earn and redeem code None
Release Date 11/15/16 4/10/20 1/31/18
Avg. Daily U.S. Rev. $131,245 (past 90 days) $75,737 (past 90 days) $32,217 (past 90 days)
Avg. Daily U.S. DLs 7,227 (past 90 days) 13,438 (past 90 days) 1,114 (past 90 days)
13NOTABLE FEATURE & EVENT RELEASES I 1
App Release Description
Super Mario 35th • In this crossover event, players earn items from the Super Mario franchise through a login
Animal Crossing: Anniversary bonus or by crafting (1).
Pocket Camp 2
collection event • An in-app photo feature includes Super Mario-themed hero poses (video).
SIM
• Players earn bracelets by matching pieces that have bracelet icons, spinning the Fiend of
Fortune prize wheel, and opening crates.
Miguel's Mansion
Best Fiends • Bracelets are used to renovate sections of a house (2).
challenge event
• Renovated sections grant rewards and fill a meter for more rewards at milestones (video).
• Completing the meter unlocks early access to a new fiend.
3
• Completed levels award magnifying glasses (video).
• Magnifying glasses fill a meter that advances players to the next reward tier when full (3).
Diner DASH Secret Menu
• A $6.99 season pass unlocks a second set of rewards for each tier.
Adventures mission event
• The season pass also increases capacity for attempts in a competition feature, supplies, and
SIM
energy.
Boat Race • Five players who are at the same level in the base game race to reach a target level. 4
Gardenscapes competition • Players' progress is represented as a boat race (4).
event • The first three players to cross the finish line earn rewards.
14NOTABLE FEATURE & EVENT RELEASES II 1
App Release Description
• Each purchase adds one stamp to a loyalty card (1 and video).
• Earning four stamps completes the card for a diamond prize.
Loyalty Cards
June's Journey • The number of diamonds is based on the amount of money spent to complete the card. 2
purchase event
• Players can complete up to two cards during the event.
• Cards disappear at the end of the event.
Let's Build a • Players place a statue in their home base (video).
Klondike Statue • Players collect resources from the game map to buy statue upgrades (2).
Adventures
challenge event • At the end of the event, the statue turns into rewards based on the number of upgrades.
SIM
• Players can request help from club members to complete a level (3).
Help Your Family
Lily’s Garden • Club members have a collective limit of five attempts to beat the level. 3
club feature
• Players who complete a teammates' levels receive coins and unlimited life boosts (video).
• Players compete to build the best city based on a theme within a limited time.
• Cities must meet certain requirements before they can enter the competition (video).
• Once eligible, players take an in-game photo of their city to submit it.
Design • Players vote for their favorite cities in up to three voting rounds every eight hours (4).
Challenges
SimCity BuildIt • During each round, players choose between cities in a series of five pairs.
competition
SIM • Completing a round awards a prize.
feature 4
• Players earn blueprints for submitting their city, completing optional challenges, and based on
their city's rank.
• Blueprints fill a meter for rewards at milestones.
Quickly review all features and events
Filter the Library Tool by month and year to see all new releases.
15NOTABLE CONTENT RELEASES
App Release Description 1
• Prince John's meter fills over time.
Disney Emoji Money Bags • When the meter is full, a money bag appears on the board (1).
Blitz other • Money bags must be cleared by boosts.
• Cleared money bags award coins (video).
• Wells raise a bucket with each adjacent match or boost.
Well
Gardenscapes • The bucket lowers following any move that doesn't result in an adjacent match.
hazard
• Three adjacent matches or boosts clear the bucket (2).
• A blanket with stitches around the edge covers part of the board (3). 2
Blanket
Homescapes • Adjacent matches or boosts clear stitches.
hazard
• Removing all stitches clears the blanket.
3
16APPENDIX
17ENDNOTES
1 Throwing Good Money After Bad: The Effect of Sunk Costs on the Decision to Escalate Commitment to an Ongoing Project
The sunk cost fallacy not only makes people less likely to abandon a project they've already invested in but also makes them more likely to keep investing and to think
the project will succeed.
2 Materialising Digital Collecting: An Extended View of Digital Materiality
Scholars suggest that real-world collectible items have meaning because of the associations with people and places that they accumulate over time. The author of
this study proposes a number of ways for adding these unique histories to digital goods, including surfacing meta-data unique to each player. Simply having a player
return to interact with collectible objects is equally helpful for building memories and therefore meaning into digital collections.
3 Data compares tracked apps across the casual market (puzzle, simulation, and lifestyle apps) for the period of 2/9/20–2/8/21. This comparison uses only standalone
releases—i.e., releases that did not overlap with other event or feature releases on the same day—to provide the most accurate assessment of each event or feature
type's impact.
Market share impact is the average percentage change in an app's revenue market share for a given time period following a new release. This analysis helps isolate
the impact of individual releases from external forces that affect large segments of the market at once, like holidays or COVID social distancing measures.
4Some feature types have been trimmed to save space. None of these apps include level, mini-game, or quest features. Only Home Design Makeover includes
accelerator, bank, and club features. Only Redecor - Home Design Makeover includes mission and notice features.
5Keys in Design Home: House Renovation and tokens in Redecor - Home Design Makeover both function as energy that players spend to complete tasks. Players
must vote on each other's designs to earn them.
6Design Home: House Renovation lets players "borrow" furniture and decoration items from friends, a feature also seen in Houzz, another successful home design
app.
18L&G PUZZLE PERSONAS
Survey data from 1,513 puzzle players produced five personas with distinct motivations: Gamer Gary,
Escapist Emily, Trainer Tracy, Challenger Chris, and Casual Carol.
Table: Player personas by demographics, monetization, engagement, and motivational buckets
Gamer Gary Escapist Emily Trainer Tracy Challenger Chris Casual Carol
Demographics
Size (N) 24% 15% 22% 18% 21%
Female (%) 53% 68% 73% 59% 66%
Age (mean) 35 36 42 40 34
Monetization
Propensity to spend across all platforms 15.0 7.0 4.8 7.0 4.3
Propensity to spend on F2P games 1.8 1.1 0.7 0.6 0.7
Engagement
Weekly play hours 6.6 7.4 7.6 7.8 6.7
Puzzle motivation 3.1 2.9 2.6 2.7 2.4
Motivational Buckets
Engrossment 0.7 -0.3 -0.2 -0.2 -0.2
Escape 0.0 0.6 -0.3 -0.1 -0.1
Utility -0.2 -0.3 0.7 0.0 -0.3
Challenge -0.2 -0.1 0.1 0.7 -0.3
Boredom -0.3 0.0 -0.2 -0.3 0.9
19PREMIUM PARTNERSHIPS
Liquid & Grit partners with these premier market research and analytics companies to infuse our
reports with the most relevant and detailed gaming user personas, data, and statistics available.
Quadrant Strategies Kinrate Analytics Sensor Tower
Market Research Player Personas Mobile App Store Intelligence
Quadrant Strategies Kinrate Analytics Sensor Tower
Quadrant Strategies is a market research Kinrate Analytics offers game developers, Sensor Tower is relied upon by financial analysts,
consultancy that uses research to help the world's consultants, publishers, and cloud gaming VCs, and publishers who need to leverage data to
most prominent technology, gaming, and operators the best cross-platform game identify the fastest-growing apps, emerging
entertainment companies develop strategies for recommendation engine for targeted marketing, as markets, and more.
building their user base, increasing user well as a novel profiling-as-a-service solution for
Clients harness Sensor Tower's suite of app
engagement and spend, and strengthening their intelligent market segmentation and social
intelligence tools to:
marketing and brand plans. networking.
‣ Evaluate app economies and app vitality.
We do that using a range of quantitative and Other services include advanced market prediction
‣ Drive organic growth with the leading App Store
qualitative methodologies, including gamer analyses for identifying emergent gaming trends
Optimization platform.
segmentation and persona development, feature and access to unique AI-enhanced data of 140
‣ Get the best global download and revenue
testing, message creation, and loyalty and thousand game titles and 48 million game players.
estimates for the App Store and Google Play.
engagement modeling. The work of our senior
The products of Kinrate Analytics have been ‣ Discover top creatives and better shape user
leadership goes back many years, and includes
developed in university-led research projects in acquisition strategy.
long-term engagements for console and gaming-
collaboration with economists, psychologists, game
PC hardware-makers, individual games in a range
scholars, and data scientists.
of genres, and across consoles, PCs, and mobile,
and for some of the top game franchises.
20PUZZLE MECHANICS TAXONOMY
Family Definition Family Definition
Accelerators Increases in the power, impact, or efficiency of play Hazards Level elements/blockers that increase difficulty
Banks Features that save a % of spend to be unlocked later Interactions Social features with direct or indirect interaction
Bonuses Free bonuses given to players (e.g., retention or W2E) Leaderboards Stand-alone leaderboards
Challenges Goal-oriented tasks for players to complete Levels Anything to do with leveling
Clubs Groups that accomplish goals or compete with other groups Mini-Games Smaller, shorter games within games (e.g., scratch cards)
Missions Linear sets of tasks that players must accomplish
Collections Sets of items that players collect (often for a completion prize)
Notices Feature or product announcements
Competitions Features where players compete against other players
Other Miscellaneous features and outliers
Cosmetics Improvements or updates to the app or features
Profiles Features related to a player's settings, profile, and controls
Currencies Changes to currencies, economies, stores, and items
Purchases Anything to do with purchases
Custom Design Options for cosmetic customization
Quests Tasks that advance players along a map-like feature
Expansions Additional rooms, worlds, play modes, VIP lounges, etc.
Flows Specific flows, like the NUX, ratings, and surveys Rewards Rewards players receive for engagement or spend
21“It's good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way."
— Tim Burton
LiquidandGrit.com
Brett.Nowak@LiquidandGrit.com
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