Boletín de analistas: Revisión del mercado de juegos móviles de abril de 2021

¡Aquí tienes información actualizada sobre el mercado de juegos móviles, seleccionada cuidadosamente por nuestros analistas de juegos de GameRefinery! Los aspectos más destacados de abril incluyen la función Starter Challenges de Clash of Clans, que intenta aliviar el problema que tienen los juegos que han existido durante años con las mecánicas de recuperación, los antiguos juegos “Inmortales” de China que ahora se están extendiendo a nuevos territorios, y La Semana Dorada de Japón que inspiró a algunos de los juegos a unirse a las festividades con sus propias promociones de temporada. Pero estas fueron solo algunas de las ideas del mes pasado, así que siga leyendo para descubrir qué más sucedió en los mercados de juegos móviles en abril.

Los datos y ejemplos que se muestran aquí se obtienen del servicio GameRefinery, al que puede acceder aquí . Si está interesado en consultar más de 2,5 mil páginas de descripción general únicas y de alta calidad en nuestra taxonomía y mercados de géneros, ¡quizás desee visitarlas!

Descripción general del mercado estadounidense

• La gran y esperada actualización de Clash of Clans trajo un nuevo Ayuntamiento de nivel 14 ( la actualización anterior del Ayuntamiento se introdujo hace más de un año ). Además, la actualización introdujo un par de características nuevas: Hero Pets, Battle Builders y Starter Challenges. Las Hero Pets son nuevos personajes de “nivel secundario” que los jugadores pueden equipar a sus héroes. Las mascotas tienen diferentes habilidades y casos de uso, y acompañan al héroe al campo de batalla. También se pueden actualizar a niveles más altos con Dark Elixir.
  • Uno de los desafíos importantes para los juegos móviles que existen desde hace años es la mecánica de recuperación. ¿Cómo pueden los nuevos jugadores acercarse a los niveles altos si la curva de progresión ha sido la misma durante varios años? En esta actualización, Supercell introdujo Starter Challenges, que intenta paliar este problema. Es un sistema de “tarea → recompensa” muy similar a los desafíos de temporada (pase de batalla) y ofrece muchas recompensas para los jugadores en Town Hall 2 – Town Hall 6. La función Starter Challenge no se monetiza de ninguna manera.

• To celebrate 10 million downloads Cookie Run: Kingdom had a 21 day Super Raffle with special real-life prices ranging from Starbucks Gift Cards and Food Delivery Gift Cards to Brand New Refrigerators and Gucci Wallets. Cookie Run’s event is unusual by Western Standards, as mobile game events with real-life prizes are more often found in China or Japan. The event evidently boosted players’ interest in the game as it made an appearance in the US top 200 grossing list for a few days.

• Yahtzee® with Buddies Dice introduced a new recurring co-op event called Treasure Hunt, where you dig up treasure in ancient Egypt with your team of explorer buddies, trying to get as many rewards along the way as possible.
• State of Survival and the Walking Dead crossover event is, for the lack of a better word, massive. The still ongoing event will last around 200 days and includes Daryl Dixon as a new character, brand new PvE-mechanics in a separate playing mode, collaboration quiz, two gachas, and achievements with their own collectibles album.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross did its first-ever collaboration with a live-action series with a massive SDS x Netflix’s Stranger Things collaboration event! Once again, the production values were through the roof with specially made cutscenes, areas to explore both in Liones and Upside Down, and four new heroes from Hawkings.

• Lords Mobile: Kingdom Wars had a huge Saint Seiya collaboration event with plenty of content to explore and special heroes to acquire.

• The biggest addition feature-wise in Marvel Strike Force’s latest update was the new Costumes-system. The system offers players a chance to update various characters’ looks by changing their costumes. However, the costumes don’t change the gameplay or give any boosts, etc., so they are entirely cosmetic. Nevertheless, with the rich Marvel world, the selection of outfits is almost limitless, so the feature provides players a nice way to show other players which Marvel hero is their favorite.
• Another mobile game event with real-life prizes! Phase 10: World Tour had an anniversary event that consisted of two different events; Birthday Feast and Jubilee Pinball (with iPhone 12 Pro Max as the grand prize), along with limited time IAP-bundles.
• League of Legends: Wild Rift’s Patch 2.2 update featured the first Wild Pass season, second competitive ranked PvP season, position preference matchmaking testing event, and All Random All Mid (ARAM) special game mode for a limited-time test period. ARAM is already familiar from the game’s PC version, but in the mobile version, matches last around 15 minutes, giving fans a more fast-paced and shorter mode to enjoy.

Warm up your snowball-throwing arm — a 3-day test of All Random All Mid starts now!❄️ pic.twitter.com/O3o3dKOQnX

— League of Legends: Wild Rift (@wildrift) April 5, 2021

• Roblox’s huge four-week Metaverse Champions event started in April, replacing the older yearly Egg Hunt event. Players need to complete tasks for four different Champions in over 180 different games in the Roblox metaverse.
• Rush Royale got a new Hero system. Heroes are another type of character for the game, and they act as a kind of “leader” for your team. You can only choose one Hero to be used per match, and each Hero has various skills and benefits that can be utilized in different situations.

• Dragon Ball Legends added a new PvE competition mode, Tournament of Power, to the game. Competition mode’s battles are completely AI-calculated automatic battles.
• More Battle Passes appear to the mobile game market! Some of the latest ones are Lily’s Garden and LoL: Wild Rift’s versions of the Battle Pass plan.
  • Like we’ve discussed in our previous Analyst Bulletins, Battle Pass mania is spreading in the mobile game markets at an increasing pace. So, to help you understand what’s actually happening in the market, we went over the recent market data on Battle Pass’ popularity and price points and shared our findings on the GameRefinery blog. We also added some innovative Battle Pass implementations to show you how to stand out from the competition.

In April, the world celebrated Earth Day, and it provided a perfect opportunity for some of the games to join festivities to boost player engagement. Check out how Tennis Clash, Sky: Children of the Light, and State of Survival celebrated Earth week. Moreover, our US analysts spotted lots of Easter other Spring events across all genres during last month.

One of the latest event trends among Slots games seems to be these “board game” types of events. The event usually follows the following idea: Spin slots to get dice/wheel spins → progress on sideboard → get rewards → complete board to move to the next one. One example of these types of events is House of Fun: Casino Slots 777’s Board Trip event.

Finally, when we take a look at new interesting games entering the US top 200 list, there are two games that our US analysts have chosen for April’s top picks: Summoners War: Lost Centuria and Magic: the Gathering Arena. The latter has been analyzed for the GameRefinery service already, so if you have access to our service, you can click the link to get a game analyst’s key takeouts of the game.

China Market Overview

• “Isekai”-themed TBRPG Princess Connect! Re:Dive (公主连结Re:Dive) did its first collaboration event with the anime ”Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World,” which caused a nice spike in the game’s revenue and downloads. The collaboration event featured an event storyline and game mode with an event-only NPC relationship development system, which allows the player to unlock more dialogue content with the Re:Zero girls as well as other rewards.
• AFK Arena (剑与远征 – AFK) went big with its 2nd Anniversary event. The anniversary event included new characters, special skins, login bonuses, a new event mode, and plenty of other content.

• Contra: The Return’s (魂斗罗:归来-战队集结 警备时刻) second “smaller-scale” guild system 战队 got an uplift. In addition to revamped task system and new game mode, the latest update added an interesting online co-op task mechanic, in which two players need to be online simultaneously in 战队’s specific “room” to unlock specific rewards.

• Call of Duty Mobile’s (使命召唤手游) CN version got a new Zombies-mode called 异变狂潮. The Zombies mode consists of synchronous co-op gameplay. A team of 4 players fights against NPC zombies that come in multiple waves. After the final wave of zombies, there is a boss fight, which has a monetized retry mechanic. It will be interesting to follow if/when this mode will be “re-introduced” to the Western version of the game.

• LifeAfter (明日之后) had a promotional collaboration event, “Godzilla invasion” (哥斯拉入侵), where players could fight against real-size Godzilla.
• Sky: Children of the Light (光·遇) introduced a new season of Battle Pass, called Season of Assembly, which begins with new gameplay content revolving around a treehouse renovation theme. While the game’s ranking has already dropped from a week ago, the new Battle Pass season gave it a nice boost, making the game one of China’s top 10 grossing games for a moment.

“Immortal” games (“修仙游戏”) are here! You heard it here first. Long present in Chinese DL rankings, it seems that these so-called “immortal” games have now started monetizing, as two “immortal” games have made it to China’s top-grossing 200 list in April: 云端问仙 (Yun-duan Wen Xian) and 剑开仙门 (Jian Kai Xian Men). “Immortal” games are a new type of Sovereign game, in which instead of being a king, the player takes the role of a Daoist immortal (“Xian” in Mandarin), managing a sect instead of a kingdom. If seeing the words “Sovereign game” only raises more questions, don’t worry! You’ll find definitions of our new sub-genres from this genre taxonomy update post.

Lastly, when we look at new interesting games that have entered China’s top 200 grossing list, two games have caught our CN game analysts’ attention. A new One Piece game from Bytedance, called Hang-hai-wang Re-xue Hang-xian (航海王热血航线), managed to climb to China’s top-grossing ten list in April, as well as reach first place in DL list. The second game is an Interactive Story/RPG game called Shao-nü De Wang-zuo (少女的王座), that managed to rise to top 100 grossing and to top 20 in Downloads.

Japan Market Overview

Big mobile game collaborations in April:

• Octopath Traveler: Tairiku no Hasha (オクトパストラベラー 大陸の覇者) had a Bravely Default collaboration event. The event features two characters, Adelle and Elvis, and character stories for both. A special dungeon with many bosses gives upgrade materials for Elvis and features a storyline that includes Edea and Agnés from first Bravely Default.
  • If Octopath Traveler: Tairiku no Hasha (Champions of the Continent) is a new acquaintance to you, we recommend you to check out this blog post, where our JP analyst shares what makes the Champions of the Continent game so special.

• Maken Densetsu’s (魔剣伝説) collaboration events with The Rising of the Shield Hero continue! The new event has a gacha, login rewards, charge rewards, and another exchange shop with a new event currency.
• FFBE幻影戦争 WAR OF THE VISIONS introduced finally possibly its most anticipated collaboration event, Final Fantasy VII Remake. Players could battle against iconic FF7R enemies (Shinra soldiers, Sweeper and Guard Scorpion) in familiar locations from the games early parts while listening to various tracks from the FF7R soundtrack. The event featured many event-related achievements, bingo boards to clear for rewards, new characters, and plenty of other content.

• コトダマン-共闘ことばRPG had a collaboration event with Attack on Titan. The event featured ​Attack on Titan characters, which were available from the event gachas, special event bosses, as well as an event quiz with Attack on Titan-themed questions.
• KOF ALLSTAR had a collaboration event with the hit series The Seven Deadly Sins (七つの大罪) that featured log-in bonus, collaborative characters, Battle Pass, collab gachas, special missions, and collab event dungeons.

• #コンパス had a collaboration event with Atelier Ryza 2 (ライザのアトリエ２). The event included an ​event log-in bonus, card gacha with a chance to get Atelier Ryza themed cards, and special gacha tickets for event hero gacha. Also, the event brought a collaboration-specific hero gacha with a chance to get the new collaboration hero ライザリン・シュタウト and a collaboration costume.
• ジョーカー～ギャングロード～ had a collaboration event with an early 2000’s manga series Basilisk. The event features several Basilisk characters as cards that can be obtained through event gachas, plus several collaboration battles along with special missions and a login bonus.
• NieR Re[in]carnation had a collaboration event with a 2010’s console game, NieR Replicant, which was released as a remastered version during April 2021. Base versions of the event characters and weapons can be obtained by playing from the event currency shop, but for maximum potential versions, players need to be lucky in collaboration event gacha. The event also features a simple storyline told through storybook-like cutscenes alongside the event battles.

• LifeAfter had a collaboration event with Attack on Titan that introduced plenty of new limited-time decorative items, such as vehicle decals, hairstyles, and outfits.

Other major mobile game updates:

• PuyoPuyo!! Quest’s (ぷよぷよ!!クエスト) 8th-anniversary celebrations have begun! Before the big day, countdown-login calendars and gachas were added to get the players into the celebration mood. The proper festivities showered players with gifts in the form of login calendars and a one-time celebratory gift assortment, as well as brought new anniversary challenges and a storyline to the game.

• プロ野球スピリッツＡ celebrated the beginning of new baseball season with an event called プロスピ応援団 (Purosupi cheer squad in English). In the event, players ​collected special event cheer squad members after matches to gain special boosts and bonuses.
• 七つの大罪 had a Holy War Festival event, with special event missions, dungeons, gacha, and event bundles.
• LINE Bubble 2 celebrated its 6th anniversary with a collaboration event with Cardcaptor Sakura. The festivities had several phases, the first of which was a set of Cardcaptor Sakura stages in the familiar LINE Bubble 2 style: all stages must be completed in a streak to acquire the top prizes. The top prize after five levels was a collaboration character Syaoran Li. The next part of the event set included a login calendar plus a Card Book collection event.

• Dragon Ball Legends’ new PvE competition mode, Tournament of Power, was also released in Japan (see the US market overview for more details).

In April, Japan celebrated Golden Week, a collection of four national holidays within seven days in Japan, popularly spent doing domestic traveling. Our JP game analysts spotted a few games that joined the festivities with their Golden Week dedicated events:

• 放置少女〜百花繚乱の萌姫たち〜: The event revolved around an adorable Zashiki-warashi character traveling around domestic vacation destinations.
• Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle: Golden Week themed login bonus, missions, GW exchange currency
• Brawl Stars: Golden Week themed skins and bundles
• Valkyrie Connect: Golden Week themed real money lottery by Ateam
• Project Sekai Colorful Stage feat. Hatsune Miku (プロジェクトセカイ カラフルステージ！ feat. 初音ミク): Golden Week themed login calendar
• Dragon Quest Tact (ドラゴンクエストタクト): Golden Week themed login bonus and special gachas

Puzzle Dragons (パズル”Valkyrie Connect (ヴァルキリーコネクト-至高のハイファンタジーRPG-) invita a los jugadores a participar en la celebración del quinto aniversario pidiéndoles que envíen fan art relacionado con Valkyrie Connect, que luego se mostrará en la pantalla de carga del juego durante el quinto aniversario. Versario campaña. Este es un excelente ejemplo de cómo los juegos pueden incorporar UGC (contenido generado por el usuario) al juego con solo un poco de esfuerzo y aun así obtener los beneficios de impulsar la participación del jugador.

Por último, nuestros analistas de JP han elegido los siguientes juegos para nuestra lista de nuevos juegos interesantes que entraron en la lista de los 200 juegos más taquilleros de Japón el mes pasado:

• Summoners War: Lost Centuria (también llegó a la lista de los 200 más taquilleros de EE. UU.)
• MMORPG BENDIGA EL MÓVIL
• MMORPGリネージュ2M (Lineage2M en inglés, lanzado en marzo)
• Action RPG Elona Mobile (versión móvil de un juego roguelike)
• RPG por turnosキングダムDASH!! (basado en el manga/anime Kingdom)
• RPG por turnosサガ フロンティア リマスター(Saga Frontier Remastered en inglés, una nueva versión de un juego de PlayStation de 1997)