$168Mil in 20 Months | Amazing Fastlane Success Story

[Anon3x156]

I have never seen anyone talking about this niche on the forum so I wanted to make this thread. This is a success story from Turkish Republic.
I also had a short story in this niche as a game developer, but didn't have any success, because of lack of patience and bad execution.

Here is the story:
The company is called Rollic Games. A Turkish mobile game publisher that focuses on hyper-casual games.
The founders of the company didn't have any past success or experience in the field. They weren't game developers or something, but they were digital marketers.

What is a hyper-casual game?
A hyper-casual game is a mobile video game which is easy-to-play, and usually free-to-play; they also feature very minimalistic user interfaces.
Hyper-casual games are only playable in portrait mode.

It usually takes between 1 and 2 weeks to develop the prototype of a hyper-casual game.
After the development of the prototype, developers record a 30-seconds raw gameplay footage, then send it to the publisher.
Publisher runs a mini ad campaign for testing of the prototype, to test 2 key metrics.

1-CPI (cost per install, how much money they pay for ads to buy 1 user.)
2-Retention (how long does the player play the game?, does the player come back tomorrow?, does the player come back next week?)
•hyper-casual games are free to play, so the publishers monetize the games by implementing ads. That's why retention is important for them.

95%+ of the prototypes fail(read the P.S) the tests.
Usually, it takes dozens of prototypes to publish a successful game. Very few developers succeed in their first games.
But you shouldn't forget that it takes 1 or 2 weeks to develop a prototype. But when you finally make the successful game, you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even a few million dollars, if the game is really successful.

Before the company was founded in December 2018, small Turkish hyper-casual game studios were trying to publish their games with foreign publishers, like Voodoo Games from France. There were some problems with this. There was a language barrier and the publisher and the developer weren't in the same country. Also, Turkish studios were having hard times finding financial resources. These studios were usually founded by young college students, fresh graduates and even high-school students.

Rollic Games solved the language problem, even though it wasn't a big deal since everyone speaks English.
But they also solved the trust problem, that comes with being in different countries. And finally, they solved the money problems of studios.

They - as far as I heard - paid between $500-2000 (not sure) to studios per prototype, even if it failed, so they can keep developing new prototypes.
In Turkish Republic (TR), junior game developers at hyper-casual game studios earns around $400-600+ a month.
In TR, college is free but unemployment is high. Also salaries are low in USD. This situation allowed studio owners
(btw these studios are "studios" with 1-5+ employees, usually founded with 0 capital. They usually don't even have an office, everyone works remote.) to find cheap labor, and still keep the company alive even if their prototypes fail. So most of the studios in TR started working with Rollic Games.

After 20 months, they sold the %80 of the company to American giant Zynga, for $168M.
Zynga, also bought the Turkish mobile game developer Peak Games, for $1.8B (yes, billion).

Gaming industry is pretty profitable and I think it will keep growing in the next a few decades. It's definitely worth a look.

P.S: 95% of the prototypes actually doesn't "fail". They just can't pass the tests of big publishers. These publishers receive hundreds of prototypes a month from many studios , so they have the luxury to choose the "best" performing games.
Your game might not pass the test, but it doesn't mean that it's not profitable. I know a game studio, who self-published their "failed" game and the founder said the game generated enough income that can keep a medium-sized studio alive for the next few years, even though it didn't even make it to the top 10 (hyper-casual games that are published by big publishers make it to the top 10 most of the time).

That's it, I hope you enjoyed reading. Please feel free to ask your questions if you have any.

 

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[Hong_Kong]

I have seen this model as well! I'm curious about the 'startup studio' model which is similar to this but can be applied to different niches.

A small team of entrepreneurs with overlapping skill sets create prototypes and launch them. If the prototype works they scale the project out by handing it over to an operations team. If it doesn't work they scrap the idea.

Example is idealab with dozens of IPOs.

How do you know what type of hyper casual game would be popular? If I recall correctly even Rovio (Angry birds) launched like dozens of games that all failed, and they only had enough cash left for one game. A good video game is almost like a form of art in a way where its highly subjective no? Is it mostly spray and pray?

 

[Anon3x156]

By looking at the CPI and Retention. CPI should be under 0.30$. The lower the better. The lowest CPI I've seen is 0.05$ Also the retention should be high so you can make as much money as possible from each player.

 

[Anon3x156]

A good video game is almost like a form of art in a way where its highly subjective no? Is it mostly spray and pray?

For hyper-casual, it's mass produce shit prototypes and pray one of them succeed.
Hyper-casual game devs don't really care about art or anything. They only care about the mechanics and addictiveness of the game so they can get millions of players, and make tons of money.

 

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[Hong_Kong]

For hyper-casual, it's mass produce shit prototypes and pray one of them succeed.
Hyper-casual game devs don't really care about art or anything. They only care about the mechanics and addictiveness of the game so they can get millions of players, and make tons of money.

Each of Rollic's games seem to be a pretty creative idea, and solid execution in terms of visuals. It seems like are a few repetitive concepts that are recycled. For example one type of game is a puzzle style game, and the variation is the object you are organizing (fridge, rings, spheres into an elephant etc). Then there is shooting games with variations including water guns, etc.

Seems like you could monitor social media or customer channels to find reviews of different games, then mix some of these concepts. For example if shooting games seem to be popular, you can make a paintball game. If most of the competing paintball games are shooting static targets, you can use moving targets. Then you can add unique branding / theme / style. Lets say shooting moving targets with a paintball gun, and you're shooting zombies. If this doesn't work, keep the same game but change the target, etc. And keep making small changes.

 

[Anon3x156]

Each of Rollic's games seem to be a pretty creative idea, and solid execution in terms of visuals. It seems like are a few repetitive concepts that are recycled. For example one type of game is a puzzle style game, and the variation is the object you are organizing (fridge, rings, spheres into an elephant etc). Then there is shooting games with variations including water guns, etc.

Seems like you could monitor social media or customer channels to find reviews of different games, then mix some of these concepts. For example if shooting games seem to be popular, you can make a paintball game. If most of the competing paintball games are shooting static targets, you can use moving targets. Then you can add unique branding / theme / style. Lets say shooting moving targets with a paintball gun, and you're shooting zombies. If this doesn't work, keep the same game but change the target, etc. And keep making small changes.

Most of those published games get polished after passing the tests. I watched a seminar of Voodoo games and the speaker said visuals are only the %5 of the game, but contrast in colors are important. You might want to look at their hit game Snake vs Block, the visuals are not that great but the color contrast is perfect.

 

[Anon3x156]

Seems like you could monitor social media or customer channels to find reviews of different games, then mix some of these concepts.

Voodoo games does this. As I remember, they follow the trends on Tiktok to see if they can gamify any of them. There were a lot of ASMR-related games published on appstores by many publishers.

 

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[heavy_industry]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

[capito]

Very interesting thread, especially since I was involved in a 3D animation project 15 years ago, and the tools used were difficult to work with in those years (eg Blender was in its infancy). Seeing a simple model of prototyping and launching games has amazed me.
Does anyone know what kind of tools they use to make the prototypes?

 

[Anon3x156]

Very interesting thread, especially since I was involved in a 3D animation project 15 years ago, and the tools used were difficult to work with in those years (eg Blender was in its infancy). Seeing a simple model of prototyping and launching games has amazed me.
Does anyone know what kind of tools they use to make the prototypes?

Blender and Unity 3D is widely used. Blender is pretty easy to use now.

 

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[BaiAnrui]

Interesting...

In the Netherlands, a company called Azerion went public this year.
And the owners are also 2 guys with Turkish roots. They also grew very fast.
The Turkish people have something going on with the game industry....

Azerion - Digital entertainment & media platform

Our owned content reaches billions of avid users worldwide and our technology helps advertisers engage their target audiences.

www.azerion.com

 

[Anon3x156]

Interesting...

In the Netherlands, a company called Azerion went public this year.
And the owners are also 2 guys with Turkish roots. They also grew very fast.
The Turkish people have something going on with the game industry....

Azerion - Digital entertainment & media platform

Our owned content reaches billions of avid users worldwide and our technology helps advertisers engage their target audiences.

www.azerion.com

Yeah for sure. Also the founders of Crytek (creators of Crysis and Farcry) are 3 Turks in Germany.

 

[EmotionEngine]

I have never seen anyone talking about this niche on the forum so I wanted to make this thread. This is a success story from Turkish Republic.
I also had a short story in this niche as a game developer, but didn't have any success, because of lack of patience and bad execution.

Here is the story:
The company is called Rollic Games. A Turkish mobile game publisher that focuses on hyper-casual games.
The founders of the company didn't have any past success or experience in the field. They weren't game developers or something, but they were digital marketers.

What is a hyper-casual game?
A hyper-casual game is a mobile video game which is easy-to-play, and usually free-to-play; they also feature very minimalistic user interfaces.
Hyper-casual games are only playable in portrait mode.

I'm working on the development of a game on the side after work. Doing all the programming / art / and design on my own. I'm proficient in Unity/C# and 2D art/animation. This post is fairly inspiring. Thank you.

 

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[InstantNoodles]

Thank you for posting this!
Honest question though, where do you see members of this forum taking action on this? It'd probably taking millions to be a publisher. And making $500/mo as a game dev might not make sense for a lot of people.

 

[Anon3x156]

Thank you for posting this!
Honest question though, where do you see members of this forum taking action on this? It'd probably taking millions to be a publisher. And making $500/mo as a game dev might not make sense for a lot of people.

Rollic was founded with an investment under a million dollars. Looks like you have an employee mindset since you've never heard of something called an "investor", and when you see game devs available for $500/m, the first thing you think about is working as a game dev, not hiring 5 remote game devs for $2500/m and making them work on prototypes and generate you passive income.

 

[MattDMND]

I run a one-man+ outsourced network startup studio in London and Rome, Italy, and I'm looking for someone who wants to jump in some way or another, in operations mostly.
Let's chat if you want.

I have seen this model as well! I'm curious about the 'startup studio' model which is similar to this but can be applied to different niches.

A small team of entrepreneurs with overlapping skill sets create prototypes and launch them. If the prototype works they scale the project out by handing it over to an operations team. If it doesn't work they scrap the idea.

Example is idealab with dozens of IPOs.

How do you know what type of hyper casual game would be popular? If I recall correctly even Rovio (Angry birds) launched like dozens of games that all failed, and they only had enough cash left for one game. A good video game is almost like a form of art in a way where its highly subjective no? Is it mostly spray and pray?

 

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[MattDMND]

This is a pretty good model for games, but for those games you don't need Unity or 3D graphics, they are just mobile flat games.
And, by the way, there's no need to re-develop games like that: if you intercept a trend, you can just re-skin previous games, changing graphics, themes, objects, etc, you can buy the back-end from developers with commercial licenses for a flat fee on marketplaces, and re-design them with less than 500 bucks. That way, you can spend money saved into PPC to test product-market fit and customer acquisition.
I guess I'll try a few shots at that with my studio...
Let's chat guys, entrepreneurship is about collaboration, in my view...

 

[Anon3x156]

but for those games you don't need Unity or 3D graphics, they are just mobile flat games.

Actually, you do. Using Unity is a must because that's what publishers prefer. Publishers put small pieces of software into your prototypes to track the players activity, and the easiest engine to do it is Unity. Also most of the hyper-casual games are 3D nowadays. 2D hyper-casual games are mostly history. You can check this just by looking at the top charts of app stores or just look at the latest games of those publishers (Ketchapp, Voodoo, Zynga(Rollic) etc.)

 

[MattDMND]

Actually, you do. Using Unity is a must because that's what publishers prefer. Publishers put small pieces of software into your prototypes to track the players activity, and the easiest engine to do it is Unity. Also most of the hyper-casual games are 3D nowadays. 2D hyper-casual games are mostly history. You can check this just by looking at the top charts of app stores or just look at the latest games of those publishers (Ketchapp, Voodoo, Zynga(Rollic) etc.)

Not always. Even if, there are plenty of Unity-based games on marketplaces to license and reskin for low figures. So, still better for an MVP than to develop from scratch wasting resources. We are in an "audience-first market" so better to have money for marketing than to spend it all on the perfect product that nobody cares about.

But I don't agree with your point of 3D is the way to go. I mean, sure, but hyper-casual games are not always like that..
Look at the acquisition of Wordle by The New York Times for more 1MLN$!! Games like wordle have been around since the middle ages, nothing new under the sun, just super flat word game that a 2-year toddler can play.
1MLN.
That's my point: it depends. In the world of business, there are no rules.

That's my view. Anyway, my point wasn't about which technical aspect to use or not, but that a lot of entrepreneurs go automatically for the "from scratch development" route, wasting a lot of resources, when in fact almost any product from the big league like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc is not developed from scratch at all but licensed.

The world of licenses, legally and technically speaking, is fascinating.

I love the anecdote of Bruce Willis, true story, don't know if you are aware of it: a few years ago, Bruce wanted to insert his huge collection of mp3s on Apple Music into his will, to leave it to his sons.
And he jaw-dropped when his attorney told him he cannot do it. Cause when we buy mp3s from Apple, we are not buying at all, legally. We are licensing songs. The same is for every software around us. You are paying for the use, but legally, it's a license, so you don't "own" any product. And what you don't own, you can't give away, resell, or put as inheritance, unless the license agreement specifically states that, like a commercial reseller license.

Just a quick fun fact to illustrate my point. Sorry for the OT

 

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[EmotionEngine]

Actually, you do. Using Unity is a must because that's what publishers prefer. Publishers put small pieces of software into your prototypes to track the players activity, and the easiest engine to do it is Unity. Also most of the hyper-casual games are 3D nowadays. 2D hyper-casual games are mostly history. You can check this just by looking at the top charts of app stores or just look at the latest games of those publishers (Ketchapp, Voodoo, Zynga(Rollic) etc.)

I agree with you on Unity, but 2D is not history. I was going 3D when developing my own game and a few folks on here told me to do 2D because everyone else is doing 3D. You can also keep 2D visually interesting with solid art, parallax (scrolling backgrounds), camera zoom, and object rotation. 2D also has more charm to me but that is fairly subjective.

I'm personally doing everything myself (design, art, coding) and self-publishing. The goal is to start posting to online stores/developer programs after I quit my day job next year.

 

[MattDMND]

I agree with you on Unity, but 2D is not history. I was going 3D when developing my own game and a few folks on here told me to do 2D because everyone else is doing 3D. You can also keep 2D visually interesting with solid art, parallax (scrolling backgrounds), camera zoom, and object rotation. 2D also has more charm to me but that is fairly subjective.

I'm personally doing everything myself (design, art, coding) and self-publishing. The goal is to start posting to online stores/developer programs after I quit my day job next year.

Yep I'm also self-publishing and doing everything myself, buddy

 

[Anon3x156]

I agree with you on Unity, but 2D is not history. I was going 3D when developing my own game and a few folks on here told me to do 2D because everyone else is doing 3D. You can also keep 2D visually interesting with solid art, parallax (scrolling backgrounds), camera zoom, and object rotation. 2D also has more charm to me but that is fairly subjective.

I'm personally doing everything myself (design, art, coding) and self-publishing. The goal is to start posting to online stores/developer programs after I quit my day job next year.

Are you working on a hyper-casual game? I'm curious about the self-publishing process of hyper-casual games and the profit margins. What can you tell about it?

 

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[EmotionEngine]

Are you working on a hyper-casual game? I'm curious about the self-publishing process of hyper-casual games and the profit margins. What can you tell about it?I

I'm not developing a hyper casual game, but due to your post I may start prototyping one. I know more about the development process than I do about publishing, but I'm going to throw myself into the fire by starting a one man game development studio from scratch. From apply for a business license to product release. Even if I fail I will have learned a great deal.

It's possible. Stardew Valley was made by one person. See videos below. (EDIT: He had a publisher but he did most of the work. I believe this middle-man (publisher) can be cut out of the equation. Still inspiring nonetheless.)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YqdutJLIi8

 

[Anon3x156]

I'm not developing a hyper casual game, but due to your post I may start prototyping one. I know more about the development process than I do about publishing, but I'm going to throw myself into the fire by starting a one man game development studio from scratch. From apply for a business license to product release. Even if I fail I will have learned a great deal.

It's possible. Stardew Valley was made by one person. See videos below. (EDIT: He had a publisher but he did most of the work. I believe this middle-man (publisher) can be cut out of the equation. Still inspiring nonetheless.)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YqdutJLIi8

Good, just don't forget that if you're gonna make hyper-casual games, you'll need to make a lot of prototypes in order to be successful so be patient and don't lose hope.

Also you might want to look at this thread

 

[Ben X]

Not always. Even if, there are plenty of Unity-based games on marketplaces to license and reskin for low figures. So, still better for an MVP than to develop from scratch wasting resources. We are in an "audience-first market" so better to have money for marketing than to spend it all on the perfect product that nobody cares about.

But I don't agree with your point of 3D is the way to go. I mean, sure, but hyper-casual games are not always like that..
Look at the acquisition of Wordle by The New York Times for more 1MLN$!! Games like wordle have been around since the middle ages, nothing new under the sun, just super flat word game that a 2-year toddler can play.
1MLN.
That's my point: it depends. In the world of business, there are no rules.

That's my view. Anyway, my point wasn't about which technical aspect to use or not, but that a lot of entrepreneurs go automatically for the "from scratch development" route, wasting a lot of resources, when in fact almost any product from the big league like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc is not developed from scratch at all but licensed.

The world of licenses, legally and technically speaking, is fascinating.

I love the anecdote of Bruce Willis, true story, don't know if you are aware of it: a few years ago, Bruce wanted to insert his huge collection of mp3s on Apple Music into his will, to leave it to his sons.
And he jaw-dropped when his attorney told him he cannot do it. Cause when we buy mp3s from Apple, we are not buying at all, legally. We are licensing songs. The same is for every software around us. You are paying for the use, but legally, it's a license, so you don't "own" any product. And what you don't own, you can't give away, resell, or put as inheritance, unless the license agreement specifically states that, like a commercial reseller license.

Just a quick fun fact to illustrate my point. Sorry for the OT

Hey matt, would love to collaborate. Let me know if you would like to speak.

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

I actually have dabbled in Unity for fun (as a hobby) since I was 15. It's great. I think the real fastlane was developing the engine, of course, but there are certainly game devs who have succeeded. Overall most of them are doing it out of passion though, not from a place of real CENTS.

The asset store creators, however, are often the ones who are really killing it. To do it right, they don't rely on the Unity asset store - they go the route of SYNTY and create whole brand, with their own website, they get on both Unity and Unreal, and they follow MJ's advice about using those things as channels, not their entire business.

 

[Anon3x156]

I actually have dabbled in Unity for fun (as a hobby) since I was 15. It's great. I think the real fastlane was developing the engine, of course, but there are certainly game devs who have succeeded. Overall most of them are doing it out of passion though, not from a place of real CENTS.

The asset store creators, however, are often the ones who are really killing it. To do it right, they don't rely on the Unity asset store - they go the route of SYNTY and create whole brand, with their own website, they get on both Unity and Unreal, and they follow MJ's advice about using those things as channels, not their entire business.

Engine is definitely fastlane but I don't think asset creators make that much money. Most of the assets have pretty low sales. There are some exceptions ofc.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Engine is definitely fastlane but I don't think asset creators make that much money. Most of the assets have pretty low sales. There are some exceptions ofc.

Could be, but I'd like to see the numbers. The engine itself is useful for serious creators, but overall it's almost a game itself for hobbyists - like a game about creating games.

Most of the customers are not professionals. They are making Unity money by buying assets, using the engine, and learning the basics. Just dabbling.

 

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[EmotionEngine]

I actually have dabbled in Unity for fun (as a hobby) since I was 15. It's great. I think the real fastlane was developing the engine, of course, but there are certainly game devs who have succeeded. Overall most of them are doing it out of passion though, not from a place of real CENTS.

The asset store creators, however, are often the ones who are really killing it. To do it right, they don't rely on the Unity asset store - they go the route of SYNTY and create whole brand, with their own website, they get on both Unity and Unreal, and they follow MJ's advice about using those things as channels, not their entire business.

The software built in Unity is also Fastlane. You can build a game by yourself and sell 1 to 100 million copies, but you cannot build a modern 2D/3D game engine by yourself. It requires everything from UI programmers, Rendering Programmers, Physics programmers, and art for samples and promos. You'd have be a god who never sleeps. It's akin to trying to build a Boeing 737 by yourself. I worked for a developer for 2 years that made a highly popular game engine.

Sure Unity can die tomorrow (but it won't) and even if it did you can port your game to another game engine or remnants of Unity will be carried on by another developed because their code allows collaboration on Github. Some of Unity's most popular features like Cinemachine and TextMeshPro wasn't even developed by Unity.

 

[Anon3x156]

The software built in Unity is also Fastlane. You can build a game by yourself and sell 1 to 100 million copies, but you cannot build a modern 2D/3D game engine by yourself. It requires everything from UI programmers, Rendering Programmers, Physics programmers, and art for samples and promos. Sure Unity can die tomorrow (but it won't) and even if it did you can port your game to another game engine or remnants of Unity will be carried on by another developed. I worked for a developer for 2 years that made a highly popular game engine.

Making games can be really profitable if you know what you're doing! Also having a marketing budget helps lol, if you don't, just go for a publisher.