🚌 Marble Sort Meets Traffic Jam: Bus Traffic Fever Review!

These guys are earning, as I think [clears throat] maybe six in style on half of the user base, which is very generous, I think. Probably understating it, and probably five interstitials on 75% of the user base, which makes this game, also assuming extremely low ECMPs in non-US regions, and this game earns
[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music]

[music] [laughter]
Oh, really?
Very little, as as we we saw with the previous game. Hello everybody. Gamers, bus fever traffic, bus traffic fever, yes, bus traffic fever. There's so many bus fever games already.
I thought it was done playing bus sorting games because, you know, it's been cloned and done a million times, but I guess I was wrong.
two games in one. It's marble sort and bus fever, or bus traffic, or whatever.
said it's an iteration.
What?
It's an iteration.
But it is yeah, but I already hate that game. I mean, I'm stuck on level three.
I'm on level seven.
See? I mean I started playing, and it takes forever to finish a level. It's just forever. And with that, my name is Matty

electric.
I'm Felix proper.
And I'm the mayor of here. I got to show Matty how to play this [ __ ]
I know how to play this [ __ ] I know how to play this [ __ ] but honestly, I don't care. I don't really care. Okay, so again, we have as usual one of those very nasty sort puzzlers.
Nasty? What is nasty?
Because it's [ __ ] hard. Like this is hard. Like this thing is hard. I didn't expect really that level one to level two will take me one hour.
Exactly. Yeah, that's that's what that's my point. That's my point. And I was like what's happening? I need to actually use a booster in level three? What? Like I didn't didn't happen a long long time. Also, yeah, I was I had a client meeting on like during the week and they're like, "Ah, you know, my wife is actually hooked on this." I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're we're we're reviewing this game on Friday."
Mhm.
So, yep. It is very
It's popular with people who like heavy metal cuz they're doing a circle mosh

pit, you know? So
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sure.
[laughter]
Okay, so what we're having? We have as Matty said combination of marble sort physics based whatever, but there's no physics really. It's just like this kind of a bench sorting mechanic.
and they just run and get out of the
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. And then we have traffic jam arrows slash whatever on the bottom side of the screen. They combined it basically two games into one like because both games were done kind of separately pretty much. So, yeah, it creates this very very I would say
annoying situation.
But it seems sticky, very sticky combination because if we stretch the levels for like 30 40 minutes of course you're going to watch those ads. Of course you don't want to start again this torture.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The second pulse fallacy hits very hard in the
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean If I play this for 30 minutes and then I'm I'm done and I failed the level. First of all, I need to buy a new phone because immediately flies across the whole room.
[laughter]
That's that's a fact. That's a fact.
And sometimes like going through this it can be extremely slow because you literally just pulling that one bus and it will take like one row of four people that goes in goes into the bus wait the whole round to circle round again into the empty spot do the same seven times and like That's it. By the way, no speed up like give me my energy back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hello. Hello there. I didn't see you. Thank you very much for coming to this episode. It's brought to you by our sponsors PVX partners the simplest and most effective credit line for marketing. If you're scaling your business and need funding, here's the deal with PVX partners. [music] You can grow your

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[laughter]
Guys, put this there and you will earn way way more money.
Exactly.
Way more money.
It's just slow. It's just really, really slow. But anyway, so what's happening we are again filling those buses. This is like a very, very kind of common mechanic with this bench set up. But the other problem is that these buses are kind of stuck here on the bottom instead of the usual I think Marble Sort has what like block jam on the bottom or like something like that. Maybe let me let me double-check what's there because I don't remember.

All right, so that's
While you were double-checking that, Mati, do you know if these guys are running a web shop?
I don't know. Maybe they are. I mean, like I Have you Have you seen the the web shop link in the in the shop? Maybe they are working with FastSpring. If they don't, then they should cuz FastSpring is here for 20 years and they're working with Oh, this this is Marble Sort, but they are You are talking about FastSpring here. So, they are working with the the top mobile publishers around the world. And if you want to add your new web shop or replace your current easy to sell app, just call FastSpring and go or go to fastspring.gg and get this up and running and earn more money in the US and in the other markets. fastspring.gg There you go.
Exactly.
Marble Sort is this way easier, man, than
Yeah, Marble Sort is definitely way easier.
Cuz you need to actually think like how to move those buses around and get ready

for like the the wave of of people from from the top.
Yeah, yeah. So, also wanted to put here the bus jam game.
That's crazy about that.
Oh, does it matter? Like there were like millions of buses.
can check it in the meantime for you. This game is a combination of these these two basically. The main difference here again as as you see here that the row of people here is linear, whereas here we are working with this kind of interesting setup.
That's right. It's like a mosh.
a mosh pit, whatever, and they're going from left to right and there's a little bit of physics again compared to like Marble Sort. But, again, you see that Marble Sort it's quite easy because you have again, you are actually dropping
one layer.
Yeah, the balls into the into the pit. Whereas here it's being dropped automatically and like you So there's a like very very interesting combination. And by the way, Marble Sort levels aren't that long. Marble Sort levels are kind of okayish. Like much I guess a little bit longer than Match 3, but around Match 3 kind of

thing. Bus Jam, I think it's closer to this, but it's still I don't think so it's that that's
No, it isn't. No, no, no, no. Uh this is actually on screw the level.
of these buses there. Like oh my god. Like seriously.
Just just check. You see? This is level seven against level seven. So you can see already like the levels being just like too tough basically. I don't even want to continue like playing this that much because honestly it's just kind of throw myself out of
and throw the phone.
Yeah, because for instance, just look at this. Like this is the deliberate [clears throat] stuff. So we have And right from the beginning, there's a lot of brown people. Do you see where are the three only brown buses in the level? Like this one, which means I need to clear all the [ __ ] This one, which means it's like all the [ __ ] And this one
just two. It's fine.
Only one?
Yes. One, two, and then bam.
Okay, but then I'm run out of And I still have like [ __ ] ton of brown people there.
If you're racist, then yes.
Okay.
That's okay.
It's a problem with the Eastern European

co-hosts. That's just Racism sometimes shines through.
I don't know why. I mean like It is It is Friday. So maybe it's a racist day. I don't know.
Bad jokes. So the the thing is that again, you get stuck quite easy. And the VIP placement, by the way, this is a booster that you can helicopter car into that and like pick it like by hand. And the other important thing is always there are these three slots similarly to something like the additional slots in yarn games or whatever where you again, like if you're stuck This is, by the way, the fail rate mechanic. If I get stuck here, let me just get stuck completely. And then so we get stuck at some point. You see this is the thing like it's it's
Yeah, it's really annoying.
It's very very slow and it's just like it can go like this for literally minutes and on end. And until it hits like again this Yeah, whatever. So basically if you lose, you get a problem that you'll it'll tell you either watch an ad or pay currency and

you get these three slots. So this is their end game and fail state mechanics. So that's their Let me go back to the menu because yeah, this is nowhere near. So there's the shop. I'm guessing there's some other progression thing which I won't ever see because this will take ages to get there. Challenge mode from level 31, streak mode from level 21 which means basically next year for me.
There's
It's 2030, man.
Yeah, there's [laughter] a starter pack. There's no ads pack and that's it basically. Very easy functionality but honestly these levels takes hours to get like anywhere. It's just like
Can't you just open and just pull up the level 21 and 30 or 50 or whatever?
Ah, yeah, yeah.
Because
But again
Yeah, exactly. I would be like 70 years old until I finish level 30. It's like it's that it's that long pretty much.
Yeah.
But I mean apparently people like this [ __ ] because it's growing like crazy.
Yeah, it's growing like crazy.
reason.
Maybe let me zoom time to some other

galaxy away which is
Level 50. Level
115.
Wow.
This means that you literally sacrifice your whole life like this.
Yeah.
And yeah, it looks as you see here
Very similar.
Very similar to the more complex because again they're like shifted in these diagonal ways and like just like moving around these things and so on and so. This is actually quite fast like the guy solves it in 6 minutes. We should check uh Maybe let's go 200.
Only hard level gameplay. Ooh.
But you see it. It's like
Yeah. It's the same thing. It's just Yeah.
Yeah, it's the same thing, just different layouts. Like they they don't I guess they don't even have that many kind of block level mechanics within
I mean, if you put like a blocker mechanic here, then you will be never able to finish the level.
would be even worse. So, [snorts] that's there.
But the funny thing about this game is like it's big in the US for IPs and the rest is like tier three, tier four

markets. Like all of it.
Uh anyway, that was the gameplay. Let's look at the data. So, this is quite new. Started uh soft launch in March and it's already doing 70k a day IP-wise, 400k downloads a day. So, it's pretty big. If we go to Felix's favorite number, which is active users, and hit the country filter, US is the first with 10%, which is pretty nice. Overall, nearly 2 million DAU or I would say yeah, 2 million DAU, definitely more. Uh then we have Mexico, Indonesia, India, and Japan, Colombia. So, not that pristine traffic afterwards. Of course, US is there, but it's not like tier one countries right after.
Okay.
And the other thing is, and this is quite interesting. This is actually second time we're talking about this company in single month.
Yes.
you remember, these are the guys that did Hexa Away.

Exactly.
Which is still I think doing pretty okay-ish, but I think we like uh made a consensus uh that the UA didn't really hit the strong note there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it went into this kind of a decline. Pretty big decline, so I guess they're shifting. Uh but other than that, they don't have really anything else big on the portfolio. They have this Fairy Tale Wizard Chronicle something, which I'm guessing is in heavy decline anyway.
Oh, Fairy Tail. Oh, really? It's brand new.
No. Wow. This is a big anime, by the way.
Yeah, I love it. I watch it all the time.
Yeah, me too.
Knew it. Yeah, this is a typical anime.
Dude, we got to
Shark fin.
tangenting. Go back to the point. We're not here for anime.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, just saying that these guys are kind of on a roll because pulling a second high IP-based game puzzler out of the, you know, sleeve in this like 2 months basically isn't like a something to be

You know what's going to happen? Same thing with Hex Highway.
You think it's going to go down?
Yeah. For sure.
this this one is better.
It's he's better, but the UI is not better.
Ah, okay. So, let's let's go there. Felix, maybe let's go let's go AdMob and then then UI.
Yeah. I mean, AdMob here is quite interesting because the frustrations that Matias so eloquently highlighted is pretty much an AdMob person's absolute dream because you can turn it into rewarded ad opportunities, right? So, this game has interstitial ads after levels if you lose or complete them. The trouble is it takes so long to complete the levels. So, you're not really maximizing on interstitials, but the rewarded ads. This is probably going to be the bulk of the ad revenue here. So, you have one that I think is driving probably 60 or 70% of ad revenue, and that's revive after fail. Like, if you're failing, you're going to watch a rewarded ad to come back, right? So, you have the hint so you can get basically help to unlock it. You have

double rewards at the end of the level. And then you also have hidden treasure packs that you can unlock with ads. So,
Where do you find them?
Basically, let me get to it. So, basically, there's also a rewarded meter where you watch N amount of ads, and then basically you get reports because basically these guys run different builds in different geo-locations, and basically you have different versions of the game. So, more ad-monetized ones and non-monetized ones. Yeah. So, what I think these guys are earning is I think maybe six in town on half of the user base, which is very generous, I think. Probably understating it and probably five interstitials on 75% of the user base, which makes this game, also assuming extremely low ECPI in the US regions, uh that this game earns

131k day in ads, which is 75% of this game's revenue currently.
Yeah. So, it does more than 200k a day.
Yeah. Well,
but we also know that Sensor Tower has had a habit, a nasty habit, in the last couple of months to understate DAU quite heavily, right? So, if it's 1.9 thou Sorry?
On these other games?
DAU revenue as well.
Yeah, so maybe if it's 1.9 million thou, maybe it's closer to 3.8, maybe? Let's think that.
And Decimal strikes again.
[laughter]
Decimal strikes again.
the decimals, you know? We haven't done a podcast together for quite a while. What's a What's a two out of 10 without the decimals, you know? Holding us our feet to the fire, all
I know. I know. I know.
So, yeah. Let's just be confident in saying that this game is earning a boatload of ad revenue.
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I mean
So what I like is this game on like 400,000 per day or that's too much?
I think so. I think so. I think it's probably closer like cuz honestly like let's say that that the AU is understated by half.
I mean you have 32 million downloads. So I mean
we've seen it, right? We've seen that being understated on the companies we work with, right? So yeah, this could be 400 or half a million a day title. Easily.
Yeah, what's happening on the right hand

side in your [ __ ] flat?
Right hand side, this one?
Yes, yes.
It's the screen with the numbers.
No, because you're looking at like that way. Like seven times like per minute. So either there is like a murder going on or something else is happening. And I want to know. And I want to know. So pay attention. It's serious stuff. It's very serious stuff.
stuff. We [clears throat] just said this guy could be making half a million a day.
Yeah, half a million.
Yeah.
Cuz uh it's funny because I I also had another client meeting and uh Gabe said, "Look, if you if you look at the the two and a half gamers titles of the episodes like you see pretty much like like the market like the gaming market like where we are. Like because every game we talk about is earning like 200k per day, 300 per k per day." It's actually true. I looked at the last games we reviewed as well.
We tried to talk about games that are earning no money and no one watched it, right? So yeah.
No, it's not it's not it's not that. It's just like like where the industry is because we haven't really reviewed a game that makes more money suddenly up

like after the launch. It's usually like all these like mid-section games where it's like, "Okay, well, it's actually good, but it's not 3 million a day." That's what I'm trying to say. Now
Nobody nowadays gets 3 million a day out of the bat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well.
Even Gossip Harbor, you need to work your way.
Sure. Yes, but it's just like how the game actually looks like right now. Which was Which is a fair point. I see you. I still see you. I still see you.
[laughter]
Let's go to UA.
Yeah, let's go to UA. Maybe it's on the right-hand side of your flat.
good, just like on Hexa.
Yeah, I mean
Where is this company from, by the way?
Like it's Japan, no? CyberAgent. Look.
What?
Look.
it's under CyberAgent.
It's under CyberAgent.
But it doesn't mean it's from Japan.
Fair enough. So, in the meantime, you can try
and detective work. Hello ChatGPT, can you give me a rundown on Goodroid, please? Yeah, thanks.

So, last 30 days, 100 creatives. If you look at new creatives only, it's 20. It's 20.
20 on 400k downloads.
Yes. Yes. Exactly.
They're running on Apple and then pretty much, right?
Ish.
Yeah, like
Well, look.
Ooh.
I called it.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's 85% Apple and then rest is just like, okay, whatever. Like Mintegral is like almost non-existent, but still at least something. So, you can get away with this only on Apple, and this is like, you know, short-term death. It's It's the year you're going to be dead very soon.
And why is that, Martin?
I think I have the answer.
Yes, you have the answer. Okay, tell me.
Goodroid is a Japanese mobile game app development company headquartered in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan, with additional office in Fukuoka in Japan. Company was founded 2014 and develops casual, hyper-casual, anime-based mobile games.

That's why it was the fairy tale, like that was the hint that
Anime-based.
And there's a subsidiary of CyberAgent.
I told you it's from Japan. Yeah, well No, but that's that's that's that's that's the problem because people in Japan, they just focus on Japanese market. They don't really go on outside of the world of UA because in Japan you do offline UA.
Yeah, but come on if you produce hyper casual and hybrid casual games like I mean they they're trying to actually away and what not and they have multiple games on on their portfolio. You still need to kind of cater your games to like about like you know outside world of Japan.
Yeah.
I don't quite get that either like let's say like okay, let's say hypothetically these guys are earning half a million day in revenue from this game and they're putting the money into the money spent UA machine that is Apple love and surely someone in the company would be hey, if we add another money machine that we put it into surely that would make more money outside of the one money machine we're using. Like
Yeah.

Uh no.
Money machine
be a reason, right?
Because we already see that the second game.
Exactly, it's the second game.
So nobody said that Felix.
The thing is I mean they don't really need lot of like UA knowledge pretty much. You see? Free playables.
How much would you say they would need for
See I mean like it doesn't make even even sense like I don't know it's like what the [ __ ] is this? Started on 12th of July. Come on like this doesn't make any sense.
But I don't know it's dead so it's not
Oh but exactly so this is how many How many for what?
For 400k downloads a day.
How many creatives you need?
Yeah.
Well Do you remember like what we actually said during last asylum? Or after not the last asylum but pre previous like before that like you need at least 1,000 to 3,000 creatives which is not unique obviously. But if we are now like talking out like what do you need for these type of numbers to

actually be stable and grow I would say you need like 20 creatives a week. New like unique concepts.
Added to the mix that's already running.
Yes.
So, that's what
It's 80 80 creatives a a month. Plus iterations. So, I would be on like 2 or 300 like constantly adding to to the campaign.
to the to the mix.
I would say free free playables, yeah, great stuff. Let's do like 10. Seriously, like we talk about this. I mean, this doesn't even [ __ ] work.
For 6 months, so it would be 6 * 300, so around 2 2K.
There you go. Yeah, that's exactly what we talked about.
1,800.
Yeah. That's what we talked about. I mean, this is kind of like it's all nice and see like it's just it won't have long life.
So, you need 100 times more creatives than they have, literally.
Pretty much.
Mhm.
Obviously, like you can start with like at least 2x more, so you can kind of get

to the to the process of creating new new videos and playables. Because you have one playable, you can suddenly make out of one playable like 10 iterations easily.
They said I couldn't make ads without a dev [music] team. They said I wouldn't understand the tech. Guess what? I just made a fully working gorgeous tap-to-play while eating noodles and watching trash [music] TV and taking care of my daughter. All thanks to Playable Maker. No code, no stress, no [ __ ] [music] Sherlock.
Seriously, like long
the CPI dropping on these like a rock on the giant spend?
CPI is dropping.
Sorry, going up.
It is.
Yeah, yeah.
But you can get away with it for for like couple months. But then, you hit month three and then you're [ __ ]
the moon, yeah.
You hit the moon and you also hit like your competitors are going to hit the moon. Like you know how how many bus traffic fever [ __ ] games are already out there. There's like so many of them.

So like it's like missed opportunity so much. And we talked about this with Smash Fest and we were talking about this again and we were we talked talked about this with Hexa Way as well. And like they tried, they scaled and then failed again. Like I mean see we're seeing the same [ __ ] pattern again. Like I don't know like is it is it like okay, let's max out whatever we can in 3 months and then just leave this
to die.
out there. Yeah, I leave it I leave it this out there and then just try to do something else. Maybe.
Maybe that's that's that's the their strategy. I have no idea.
I have no idea about I mean this is not healthy. I mean it's great for AppLovin. Obviously. But it's also saying it's not sustainable. It's not. And I've seen it with Robot Breaker. I've seen it with my game as well. I mean I had really good run with AppLovin. Then something in the game broke. So I had to scale down and now I'm the Android is dead pretty much. iOS is working okay. It's because I will you know something [ __ ] up on the game side. So as soon

as like something happens and you you stop sending proper events and data to AppLovin then you're you're dead. You're dead. That's it. Thank you very much. Rest in peace.
Thank you. It comes to mind is that talk. There's there there are number 14 in the soul genre of a drop the cat. But yeah, it's going to be just a matter of time until somebody bigger with bigger marketing machine goes after them.
Yeah, I mean this is nice at least at least it's 40 40 nice score.
It's all right. Like it's so important with UA cuz otherwise you'll be eaten.
Yeah, you'll be.
Like it's the only defensible mode you really have, right? Scaling quickly and scaling well.
Yes, because well we talked about this with with Katia and and and Yaku Bon like during the Smash Fest episode. Like you have literally 30 days. 30 days. That's it. If you don't scale and you don't defend your position, then you're done. That's it. Thank you very much. See you next time. So, that's why I mean that's why I'm like I'm maybe too aggressive on this

and saying, "Oh, you know, like it's it's not going to end well." But, we've seen it already with the XO.
I see it on the radar. No worries.
So, yeah.
[laughter]
I'm not worried. I'm just, you know,
If this was done perfectly, right? So, basically, how many creatives should you have and how many network partners should you have by now when it's been out for a month and a half, and which partners?
Well, which partners it's it's an interesting interesting question, but where is Google? Where is Google in all of this? I mean, I don't see anything. Where is
Mintegral?
Moloco. Mintegral is kind of small, but still I was talking to to Fiona in China, and she was like, "We have really good algorithm for ad-based games." And now we're going day 28, and we're going to do hybrid and whatnot, and then they're doing well, but that's exactly what you need. Not 80% of the upline, at least 50. That's also not really healthy, but okay, [ __ ] it. Let's Let's just do 50%.

Let's do 50% with Mintegral. Let's do Moloco, and okay, if I close one or two eyes, let's do Unity as well. At least you have more options. Also, what we don't know and what we don't see, maybe maybe they're running by I doubt it. They're running actually like rewarded UA channels. I could I could see this happening.
eyes including the Cyclops one.
But, yes, exactly. I need to close my third uh Doctor Strange eye, and then maybe. No, because I mean, I was at Audiomack summit.
Basic question for people that don't understand this. Do I need to hire more people to do this, or is it expertise problem?
It's an expertise problem. You don't really need like more more people. You can You need one.
we have five people doing this.
For what?
For what? So, we have two people doing this.
You You can have one. That's enough.
Okay. You have one. For this game? Yes, of course. Okay. Easy. One can handle this. As if you want to dive like diversify to river the UI channels, maybe you hire one more because No, we want to diversify

our UI channels. If you want to do like five channels, you you need one person. Okay, so we do Google, Mintegral, AdMob, Yes, exactly. One person. One person, easily. Okay. You don't really need anything else. No, but like expertise problems are like that. You know, 10 people cannot do something that one person does. That's why he's the CTO and the other are just normal programmers. That's how it works. Fair enough. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can I can understand that. I can understand that. But UI does the same. Obviously. Obviously. Okay. Again, can't wait when you review this because it's our hot sort puzzle category. So, we'll definitely get back to this.
I think that is going to be 100% right. It's going to be exactly like the other game they have.
Yeah, good luck. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Or maybe they will call Mati. Yeah, sure.
[laughter]
Konnichiwa, I am.
Konnichiwa. We will pay you so you can buy sleeves for your shirt.
No, I can't. It's too hot. It's too hot to It's too hot in here, anyway. So, yeah, like this is Yeah, I think we we are done. We're done

with this game. I was done already in level two. So, that's it. Ah, boy. I got Okay. Thank you guys for for tuning in. And if you have any any questions regarding this game or another game, like please ask them in the comment section or join the Slack channel. Actually, the Slack channel has some newcomers. So, keep adding yourself, inviting other people there. It's it's pretty nice.
yourself.
Yeah, of course. I mean, it's there is a link and then you can add yourself like easily. Like there's
Yeah, I know. For those who don't know, it's in every single episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People ask for them, anyway.
Yeah, join us and let us know. Let us know. Okay, cheers. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.