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 you can 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 enhance its viewers and engagement with extra use of reside 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 reside providers to its titles in 2021 with the launch of the first-ever reside 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 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. Because the starting we’ve launched greater than 200 titles in whole. The newest 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 crew now?

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

GamesBeat: How a lot of your portfolio is inside versus exterior growth?

Vardal: Our exterior growth community is big. Proper now about 90 p.c of our manufacturing is coming from our third occasion developer companions.

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

Vardal: Hypercasual is a completely totally 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. We have now the tradition of at all times producing one thing new in an ongoing approach. Zynga has this franchise tradition, which is instantly reverse, associated to managing reside 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 approach of conceptualizing video games and doing scale exams was a brand new factor for Zynga. The combination was a giant win for each corporations. Rollic’s scale is greater than thrice greater now in comparison with once we joined Zynga. I can say that it’s all gone effectively.

GamesBeat: Hypercasual — I hear folks say some hyperbolic issues about it today. I keep in mind Frank Gibeau saying that one of many issues about Rollic that’s useful to Zynga is that it brings a special type of person in entrance of them that they weren’t in any other case accustomed to. They weren’t reaching that type of person. That turned crucial at a time when there was much less visibility due to Apple’s IDFA modifications. If you don’t know the place you’ll be capable to supply customers, having an ideal funnel for customers by hypercasual is essential. That helped defend the corporate. It regarded like that usually labored. However Zynga did face an influence that it talked about afterward from IDFA. Ultimately it offered to Take-Two, which assured a extra steady surroundings through which 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 among the macro traits affecting hypercasual? How have you ever seen this a part of the business change?

Vardal: Being within the kitchen of this stuff, on our facet issues look a bit totally different. I’d say completely reverse. To begin 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 in search of 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 the event 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 an important level. For a recreation style to succeed on a mass scale, it ought to signify the consuming habits of the world. Due to this fact, 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 concentrating on measurements is far decrease on the hypercasual scale. We’re not in search of a particular viewers. We’re in search of everybody. Due to this fact, in our world, we don’t have a lot depth to our viewers evaluation. When you’ve gotten 2 billion downloads, how particular can the viewers be? It’s everybody. You possibly can’t section that viewers. Our totally different video games appeal to totally different folks, however within the whole funnel, hypercasual is a residing organism that’s nonetheless rising. The principle motive is that huge scale primarily based 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 primarily based on seasonality. The fantastic thing about advert income in gaming, although, is that it’s at all times optimizable. In the event you see a softness over a few days, it’s very simple to get out of that and create new methods behind your recreation. It’s primarily based on CPMs. It’s primarily based 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 find it irresistible. Within the present common financial construction of the world, advert income could have extra benefits as a result of, once more, it’s circuitously 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 recreation from Gameloft obsessively for some time. It reveals me advertisements each time I need to do one thing – if I need to pace 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 a superb buyer or a horrible buyer. I haven’t spent any cash on the sport to date. However I’m at all times clicking the advertisements.

Vardal: I believe the query is for you. Would you wish to spend 4 {dollars}, or would you want to observe an advert? Each person is totally different. The longer term 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 advertisements. Some wish to spend cash and a few wish to spend time watching advertisements. Our job as recreation corporations is to foretell which makes the larger LTV, predict that you just’re a non-spender, and optimize the advertisements we serve you accordingly. That’s most likely what they’re doing, and it’s what we do. If the person is just not keen 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 making a living by hook or by crook.

Vardal: After all. It’s higher than not monetizing you in any respect. With the present CPMs, we’re seeing a optimistic development after IDFA. Advert income LTVs have gotten a lot larger. I think that in some unspecified time in the future they’ll be competing instantly with in-app buy LTVs, which is nice. There are some customers watching greater than 500 advertisements in our video games per thirty days. They find it irresistible. The whole LTV may be very near an in-app spender. It’s all about monetizing correctly with out having a damaging influence on the person expertise. It’s greatest to present the person the possibility to decide on.

GamesBeat: Are there predictions you may 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 variety of consolidation is going on. Take-Two, Zynga. You possibly can see this occurring within the gaming world. However different huge 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 long run in hypercasual, it’s nonetheless rising. I can see an affordable proportion progress in hypercasual companies. However the trick behind that progress 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 huge informal titles or MMORPGs, I believe generally folks go away apart the significance of making a greater recreation. But it surely’s the identical for hypercasual. In order for you progress, you want 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 believe we’ve got 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 variety 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 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 longer term lies in merging the tradition of recent in hypercasual with the tradition of reside 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 assume it’s attainable that you might make use of Take-Two IP going ahead?

Vardal: For the hypercasual enterprise, it’s not essentially related. We’re doing a variety 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 whole with Zynga and Take-Two, it makes a variety of sense.

GamesBeat: What’s Turkey like in terms of the studio neighborhood there? Is there nonetheless a number 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 couple of 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 a worldwide 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 not possible, however I believe the gaming tradition in Turkey is an ideal match for founding gaming startups. The vast majority 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 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 folks, and that’s sufficient for hypercasual. I really feel like hypercasual offers the muse of the Turkish gaming ecosystem, after which we’ve seen a variety of profitable recreation corporations arising with extra funding. The Turkish gaming ecosystem will proceed to develop sooner or later.