Hipster Whale’s Crossy Road, a variation of the Sega classic Frogger with some new touches that make it more contemporary, has met with immense success on the mobile front since its release last year. We previously reported on how it made a great deal of money based on its fair monetization structure. However, Chartboost recently posted an article {link no longer active} that explains how its success grew to even larger heights than anyone could have imagined.
The game has managed to make a whopping $6 million with its integrated video ads within its first 90 days of release, and continues to have a top spot in the App Store charts, an impressive feat considering it was released eight months ago.
Chartboost discussed this success with the game’s co-creators, Matt Hall and Andy Sum, who went over various steps in its process – such as how it focused more on sharing and retention, rather than the usual UA and monetization circles.
“We wanted to make a game that was popular, but not necessarily one that would make a lot of money per user. That was the intention. Anything that got in the way of it being popular, we threw away. If you’re investing in user acquisition, you have to make a game that earns a certain amount per user and that greatly restricts the types of games that can be made. We wanted to make something different,” said the team in the interview.
“We only started talking about monetization about six weeks into the process [at the halfway point]. At first we thought we’d just sell coins like everyone else, but then once we sat down and started to talk about it within the context of the characters, we realized the game would have a very strong family appeal.”
Rather than monetization, the duo focused on a different set of numbers. “The main metric we focused on was retention. That was the most important thing for us — that someone who is playing today would want to come back tomorrow. We put a lot of effort into that. Our retention was really high when we started testing the game — around 65 percent — and the moment we saw that, we thought ‘Oh, this is going to go pretty well.’ Other than that I didn’t trace analytics. It’s not that important to me. I don’t really care about grinding the maximum amount of money per player, it’s really just about making a game that as many people as possible can enjoy.”
The team also had advice for developers who were looking to maintain integrity with their games, while still seeking mobile success. “Ads are a great way of doing that. They free you from having to sell coin packs and that sort of thing. They allow you to be flexible with the kind of game you can make. Disco Zoo was the first game I saw that had really strong integrated rewarded video and that game formed the blueprint we wanted to achieve. Now, of course, everyone’s seeing what we did with rewarded video and I’m sure more people will be making games of this type … and we will, too!”
The full interview can be found here {link no longer active}, and the game can be downloaded for iOS here {link no longer active}.