Voodoo Block Jam 3D Hybrid casual story: Is Voodoo a Rising Phoenix? (#89)

yeah that was one of the like wrong decisions I made but also like the question is now like they are hyper casual Studio well they were now like you need to have designers with experience in match free yes to build this type of games completely normal casual puzzle puzzle game like and and it's all based on your retention curve which is the reflection of the quality of your level design which is exactly this mechanics puzzle setup and like how much you you know end up with this is no [ __ ] gaming podcast 2 and a half Gamers sharing actionable insights dropping Knowledge from our day to-day user acquisition game design and AD monetization jobs we are definitely not discussing the latest industry news but having so much fun let's not forget this is a 400 a.m. conference discussion Vibe so let's not take it too seriously one oh my God welcome everybody this is uh session number 89

my name is Matel anich I'm Felix Brer and I'm and we are your hosts and we are also your Consultants on the UA ad monetization and game design site so if you need help with growing your uh your game let us know we're here for you better Felix all good amazing so for you for everybody uh I just had to redo the the intro because I forgot about few things but anyway uh we are talking about today about another hybrid uh casual game because hybrids are the hot [ __ ] on the market at the moment and what is not the hot [ __ ] on the market is the previous episode because nobody cares about Zess on zero because it's too Niche man you know I yeah I I had so many thoughts about that after we did the episode CU I was looking at the da it's like their whole portfolio du is always 4 and a half million so basically reming is important and I was just

looking at it I found it extremely predatory because the average purchase price on this they must spend all their money on this game because they're like infatuated and addicted on the planet it's not cultural impact the cultural impact that these games have are so minute compared to like a supercell anything else the revenue they do on Console it's just Revenue man it's like yeah yeah it's like Revenue just please continue arguing it's it's just Revenue man like for and a half million people it's it's a lot sure but in the context of gaming it's it's minute like there's gaming companies that have 100 million mobile only mobile only mobile only my mic even fell from the from the table well because I don't think my mic cares as well I think the numbers from our worst performing podcast episode since we started the podcast speak for themselves no one cares no no no it's it's not that bad actually but uh yeah it's um it's super Niche it's not good it's super yeah it's super niche and

that's why uh we actually picked uh one game that is growing like [ __ ] Wildfire uh it's been growing since it was in soft lunch not well it since it was Global launch let's let's call it that Global Soft lunch it was last year yeah that's the thing like uh we can talk we yeah we can talk about that like what's exactly soft Lun and what what was in my opinion Market testing but yeah we can we can definitely talk about it and what is the game called it's blog gem Frey and and um it's it was developed by woodo well it wasn't developed by woodo it was published by woodo it's party up uh developer uh but still it's under voodoo's account so congrats Voodoo and um understand correctly aren't there like internal Voodoo Studio because I was seeing jobs positions in that studio on Voodoo site so I don't know well you should now uh this is this is also a question I've had about these these

companies when they're building their templates like say games Voodoo they're all working on templates but is it how do they distribute that with external developers and how do you share that stuff or do you only use your internal teams to build on the template so say distributed the knowledge because three different Studio use the same core gameplay template but the question is like who's like directly under say games and I think there's where this kind of Gray Zone starts because this is the thing where currently hyper casual Publishers are transitioning into hybrid casual kind of publishing developer houses and it's I think pretty much jumping the barricade at some point where either people jump or whole Studios jump we we'll see that later but in the end they need to have product KN how stay with the company they can just have like everything external yeah but party up games they have nine games over 100 million downloads recent games are blog gem 3D they're golf guys cooking

craft and some other games like uphill run whatever else it's just two guys well it's founding team like Brock matter and Austin schaf and that's it basically so back to the Glory Days yeah yeah about to keep in mind just devop no analytics no UA blah blah blah everything that Voodoo does there blah blah blah Voodoo is hiring in Chicago for level designer for party Studio yeah so again that's what I was saying they have by the way two or three game design Economist position on the side oh wait wait wait wait wait this is this is interesting party up studio is part of voodoo's live gaming team made up of hybrid casual casual mid core experts see okay okay that's cool that Mak sense W creating a small experiment experimentation team with a big mission find the best ways to entertain the World by taking our best hits to a new

level okay interesting yeah what m is reading currently voodo released this kind of a 10-y year anniversary article yes it's it's in there like there's like this like entertaining the the world kind of but there was always their mission in a way like it pretty much translates into like we were going to have we we want to have the lowest cpis on the market so we're going to Target Everyone by the way happy birthday vodoo 10 years it's been a hell of a journey two and a half Gamers wishes you guys a very happy birthday very happy birthday yeah it's actually getting better I would say like last time we were looking at this company I was uh let's say a little bit more skeptic but now I'm a little bit more positive seeing the portfolio changes yeah will be here for the ride no but the thing is like they they said in their like 10 years uh block post which is kind of interesting take very similar to what ilka did with supercell in the last two years this is very similar also the call to action and the the end is hey we're hiring so times

are changing everybody is hiring like a hell yeah yeah obviously for hybrid casual uh as well but then I think um they said kind of it's been a adventurous Journey full of hard work fun and mistakes up and down ups and downs breakthroughs failures and whatever else is interesting but then they also you know different their Co mentioned this like interesting Journey obviously and the thumbnail says a lot also like there's like the the year 2013 versus 2023 kind of uh two games two different games which is like first very basic hyper casual game and then in 2023 kind of year is like a hybrid casual type of game but there's like lots of like interesting headlines for example 2013 to 2016 we're doing stupid stuff I like okay interesting but anyway I think for

like the context of this podcast is very important the N the year 20202 and 2023 which says like reborn and obviously like some some interesting facts uh the heart times blah blah blah obviously let me let me do just the ldr so the the main point is 25% of current Revenue goes from Hy casual that's what I want see the IP curve going hockey stick here which is the I and if we go to download curve it goes actually down down go yeah so here we are that's the main point dldr no no no like because like dldr there's this like three years of strategic iterations which is Mob control collect them all which which are two games we actually talked about before there's block gem V Blitz V whatever else and like which is called like a new generation of casual midcore games shaping the voodoo's future so that's like that's the hockey stick right there in terms of the inaps

so now he said it's like they're stronger than ever obviously but yeah the most important part is that 20% 25% is only like hyper casual and everything else is just let's call the hybrid casual and also they're forecasted to reach 600 million Revenue this year so that's not bad it's not bad anyway so uh not bad it's pretty gray mate yeah I know I know like it's it's PR much like a Rising Phoenix let's be honest because it was all you know Doom and Gloom with the hyper casual and it is portfolio like hyper casual is that okay well hyper casual is De but then like is is that like kind of evolved sure sure sure sure but like that like that was the foundation for hybrid casual so like [ __ ] yeah I don't care if it's dead or not but like you you this point and then you're kind of moving to hybrid casual and like earning [ __ ] to be honest like hybrid casual was here already from like times of archero nobody about inona traffic there

was no name for it there was no name so it's not a found like everybody is now screwed up and they need to move on otherwise there's no yeah yeah yeah yeah sure but it was like yeah but if if they were not screwed then they wouldn't move to hybrid they wouldn't need to they they could move they could move with arero already but nobody cared yeah because it wasn't yeah exactly you know how much easier it was to do the hyper casual than hybrid but anyway let's just start with block Jam yeah blog J 3D wait a sec blog J 3D yeah yeah yeah what what you got for us tell us yeah so blog gem 3D uh I would say one of the rather more interesting puzzle games that I played recently it's very interesting actually and it's quite hard honestly it's very interesting it's if you lose focus if you if you lose focus you you don't you don't progress it it's that simple if yeah exactly you can't just TP okay level 30 okay fix what's your level yeah

22 Yeah 19 I couldn't pass the hard level 15 19 were quite hard yeah yeah yeah so let's let's start with core gameplay um so recently I would say this is one of the new trends in the puzzle sub genre where we have this kind of let's call it sorting bar which you think it's like a bit like tile like the tiles it's ex exactly the dynamic here because keep in mind like the content and and the boards change so we have like the usual what can de crash the match three the tie Buster games they don't have this now now we move into these games which we did with triple tile and like all these other games triple match 3D where you have like let's say the Sorting mess on top of the screen uh M muted if you're saying something and then uh you have this Bottom bar where the Bottom bar pretty much limits your possibilities of moves so instead of like you know you having like to search

for something in there you are actually matching stuff only on the bottom bar that's the very interesting limiting factor and what's changing is like the the input on top which is like either the mass or you have it like here for instance these kind of running now you can hear me yeah now you can hear okay perfect it's it's kind of very interesting because here for instance if let's say you need to unstuck or let's say make blocks ready available so let's if I want to get to this block I need to get like here and only now I can use it but I can still like do any other block there's no gravity involved no Cascades no you know no these other usual MCH three or let's say puzzle mechanics so it's kind of unique but the Sorting bar stays and keep in mind this is even from that other game we covered last year the Chinese sheep game where they also had sheeper sheep yeah the Sorting bar where it's it's pretty much like the Sorting bar makes the dynamic interesting because it limits you on on like how

much you can let's say delve into the mess on top honestly honestly I'm I'm missing only the the brain age type of thing on the top very you very kind of progress for the levels is like oh well your brain age is now 18 or something because recently even Candy Crush itself had a similar soft line with that's what I said when I was muted Candy Crush 3D same like this kind of Bottom bar sorting mechanic they they are hoping on the mess train let's say where the top is like complete mess and you need to like put it on the sword bar this is a little bit more structure that I that I think also which adds to readability and makes it more hyper casual but in the end it is this kind of a sorting puzzle where pretty much three of the same tokens match on the bottom and then it depends on like very very intense planning of your moves because suddenly you can't really you know just click on everything and then like yeah one wrong

click literally one wrong click and then then you're [ __ ] I know yeah almost almost passed the level 19 and I was like one click I like okay so I need to make a decision and I made the Run decision thir on the third level on the third part yeah on the third part of the last level yeah that's why they make so much money because like you make this wrong decision and then you have these powerups or whatever is there down yeah the usual kind of cons usual thing yeah yeah you just don't want to lose the progress yeah yeah you don't want to lose the the usual you know sunen cacy kicks you already invested especially now with this kind of three segment level where every every level have these kind of three segments which I guess even reinforces this Hy those those levels are are still like random so if you like do redo the the levels always the different yeah they always different new SS uh the shape is the same the colors are different that's the interesting part and I guess it's

completely controlled because my my pass rate goes higher yeah cuz uh usually third or fourth time when you try the same level it's easier yeah of course like that's the usual like you know uh how is called DDA Dynamic difficulty adjustment he nicely always about which like this is the this is the most hardest things about match or whatever any puzzle games because it's like seems so easy so like of it's like why why this would be hard to code or you know develop let's copy one to one yeah so much stuff happening under the surface with these games like don't you know don't get disappointed that it's works completely different that's why when you have a peak uh games Founders leaving the company and then suddenly building dream games or other games like spike games and then like building these match free games and it's like oh wow these games like it's it's the same game well it's not the same [ __ ] game it's like you you have the experience so you can build simar you know the numbers you

know the syst under the surface Excel sheets and everything the calculations yeah like let's say all these levels usually are AB tested to hell like for like for best churn index ratio like new Mechanics for instance like how the content threadmill works on puzzle games is that you add these new mechanics on and on and on forever pretty much so let's say we have this like Expos barrels we have these like whatever tunnels which hide the the things that we need which are annoying yeah that was one of the like wrong decisions I made but also like the question is now like they are hyper casual Studio well they were now like you need to have designers with experience in match free yes to build this type of games that's completely normal casual puzzle puzzle game like and and it's all based on your retention curve which is the reflection of the quality of your level design which is exactly this mechanics puzzle setup and like how much you you know end up with these kind of Boom there's our pre-roll for this

episode yeah very good yeah so so we're clearly seeing that Voodoo is really tapping into that casual to midcore expertise now this this is not something that like a normal external hyper casual Studio can create it's very obvious be able to do it and and also keep in mind this game was in soft lunch for from April 2020 yeah April 15 2022 so and it's just being scaled from what like September or some we can we can we can look into the talk about yeah we can yeah we can talk about the numbers I will show the graph and like then like kind of explain like what I mean by soft launch and what you mean by soft launch maybe but let me ask a question for my part before we get on that and we'll talk about it my part but how many rewarded ads did you watch oh man [ __ ] me none pretty much like I watched all of those after I I watch all of those after the level because I wanted to see the visual progression that that's yeah so so first

in the first like I think 10 levels I didn't watch anything then I started getting like all the interstitials which is quite good because uh I saw like [ __ ] tons of like fish do and Township creatives and also playable ads which they copied one to one for like idle Bank Tycoon and and my perfect Hotel guys play again very very good job this is something that works apparently but then like I watched every rewarded video after every level just to get like double the reward because I wanted to progress more like quickly okay but tell me like these like banner ads like is it really like going to be a whole like um big Chun of the revenues I mean like if if it moves the needle yeah little spoiler alert for my for my part like intials probably are half or 2/3 of the revenue on this title and then the rest is between banners and rewarded okay yeah makes sense yeah the

thing is that uh for like Voodoo game yeah you would expect more add placements but I think it's because if you even if we see the download curves on this game it's not high actually it's like resembles literally like a casual puzzle game yeah I don't think like this is like 50/50 split yeah way if I if I watch it here hello golden new like you no it's not man it's not new okay I already seen it I haven't been in the new yeah yeah welcome to the U UA world yeah I've seen I've seen million times before yeah but but any anything else that like they have there because if I understand correctly their loose condition isn't uh SL let's get into let's let's get into my part and then I can talk about it then finish all these spoilers it it will need to be a little bit more uh let's say explanatory because the thing is that uh

I I'm seeing like the first signs of some like transition of templates say that's what I wanted to ask you about cuz I really felt really similar to mob control some aspects yeah yeah so let me let me put that on screen so we have it now okay as usual because we can see two games at once which is amazing here we go so um yeah we finish the the re of that we get this like whatever build currency it's by the way even the same color as in mob control yeah yeah uh and then if we continue between every level we have this visual progression which is exactly taken from M cult rol Lally one to one there's like no no kind of difference to it again whys yeah why r with the wheel and you know it's like it's I wouldn't call it the template it's pretty much like some team did well so the guys at Voodoo told

the other team hey guys maybe you should implement this and see like what does this even like do in the game like you're building this island like so what I mean why why is it there like zero like it looks good it feels good when you press it but I don't really know what it does the the thing is that building something or like just having a clear path from point A to point B is very rewarding because it's struck Ed if you just go between level and level and level and level endlessly and there's nothing in between you get bored that's just kind of normal thing and this is probably something that drives their long-term retention but in the end the real kind of a kicker here is this these quick time streak events yeah yeah the events this is this seems like uh like um steroid version from the Monopoly go because they also have this kind of quick verion like on steroids I mean

because literally all of these puts you in like a small player ladder of like hey you have limited time to compete with these other guys literally yesterday I got this event which was like moving a bomb on on like a bridge and who who kind of gets exploded you you you have to complete levels to progress in these events yeah yeah and the thing is it uh really focuses on streaks so if you lose if you lose you're [ __ ] yeah and you don't want to lose your streak which is their by the way if you look into the purchases hard level purchase is their third best iip yeah instead of you have a do you have a list of the top performing iips yeah yeah yeah I will I will yeah oh trying to be UA manager Adon manager this is good no this is good so we have wait yeah here we are small coins medium coins hard level offer $4.99 and then large coins and then Piggy bank and only then no ads bundle

see yeah because because ads are not that annoying exactly they really not annoying and oh so there was this uh so it's it's actually very good friend of the podcast uh the Frederick from fryo apps with pickle pit and they actually changed the the messaging around the no ads option which is they rebranded to VIP experience because honestly like it did really have anything in in common with like with no ads because come like you just kind of Select to watch to reward the videos right so then they rebranded to VIP experience like the the increase in terms of the like purchases with like 1,000% like from day it's like that's that's how you kind of like Rebrand that noad experience because like if it's no ads like nobody cares honestly yeah so Kos to the team by the way looking at the game it's ultra light literally ultra light it still kind of

retains a little bit of that hyper casual feeling like compared to mod control mod control like a midcore beast compared to it uh the shop is very light there's literally nothing in it not even free rewards the game is super stingy by the way very stingy like you don't get anything for free that much one rewarded that placement one nothing nothing even this not even The Wheel of Fortune is 16 levels 16 levels there two weeks yeah like but no no like that scales wait wait a second that like the the number uh in The Wheel of Fortune that scales when you progress yes and you know what you get from this like five coins actually five gold coins that's it that's what you get almost nothing I know I know but it's waiting here yeah yeah I Would by the way break this and not just like leave it 650 and just scale it with your level progress so it would like add on top and top and top and top so that that's there and then you have these events which are pretty much popping all the time like literally every third fourth level when you're

moving forward oh hey by the way why don't you compete with these other guys in three hours which the bus one show the bus one because it's quite interesting interesting and we have a we have a like back story to the bus so if you if you can share then oh that was a rewarded yeah I go back back in time and play previous levels go back in time please go back in go back in time please in the meantime how we how uh as we look at it just wanted to show this so the IP revenue is literally a hockey stick currently doing something like 85k a day I mean it's not hockey stick but it's quite growing quite steady growth nice ski SL if you look at downloads you could see that there's something changing there it's not really like we're scaling the game we know like it will by perform it's like experiment and the biggest one let me just finish one is like last year when it was released this was the game yeah this is the game

there's no progression no like even like this is the main menu yeah yeah yeah there's like nothing there and only seven months later there go we somewhere that like changed resemble oh sorry no this is this is still like the old one no no no like you have the levels like you had like if you go to previous yeah you have the level and then like two so so already before they had no even no powerups like just P probably just testing their day one retention then they added the powerups and like make it a little bit more you know they're segmented and stuff like that the levels are between like different segments and only afterwards which is like seven months old YouTube video they have the visual progression there and now you tell me the the dates of these videos because it exactly exactly matches the the UA W the UA bumps yes it's like it's it's right right there and it's exactly what what I wanted to talk about like

around like Market testing soft lunch glob lunch and then there is a scaling phase basically which is like I mean not sure if this is the scaling phase but there are these waves of of but literally like this is this is um I would say like development during soft lunch literally yeah like they they they don't do the game in a way that like oh we're going to build this puzzle game no they just this nice puzzle mechanic the retention seems okay so what we can duct tap on top of yeah that's that was the market testing there was there was the market testing for sure like there's the spike if you go back to to sensor tab by the thank you s for for this uh if you go to the downloads and then there's the the spike uh at the very beginning of of all of this yeah there you go so on the left SE a August Aug complete left ah this one exactly so they they released the game there was like us only then they added like few other countries I'm going to talk about like which of which of these and then this is the spike so they tested something and

then shut down the UA and then they really they resume exactly yeah and resume the UA around like like that yeah that time somewhere that's the soft launch basically and now the global launch is around like I think in March and then like since then it's Global launch but now they're like this scaling phase and obviously like all of these like spikes I mean this this is actually like very interesting because they have these spikes of of UA and like the new spend and like kind of trying to scale but the revenue is just going up like this yeah because because those are those are casual puzzle users you know they have like they 180 Ras and they play Forever and pay slow yeah yeah yeah that's the thing so this that resembles a casual puzzle game yeah yeah but then like all those spikes in UA like that's the new version that kind of helps you kind of scale because like a well they released a new new version with different uh

features it's like these like progressions kind of they saw like the impact on the UA kpis and they scaled scaled down again then some added something new then scaled again and now they they added this and we have a little backstory to to this one so there back so there is the the bus gem from Ric and there is block gem from Voodoo so the bus gem from roic apparently had a quite good Play Time values so roic tried to find like some games with the bus theme and then like this like this bus gem which is exactly this kind of um Bus theme or bus mechanic that you are seeing yeah B sorting kind of this is like another game actually so they added this another game into into their game again going back to this like which we are talking about for a year building games within games they added this like

a a daily event and now they're using it in the creatives because it works so well it'sing F and it reduces yeah yeah exactly because it's not fake and it's like it's it's so close look so it's everything but you just sorting buses littleit twist exactly it's a Twist and it works really well in UA so they build it in the game it's like how build in game it's a calendar man it's like it's [ __ ] amazing but this is like a normal midcore or casual mechanic where you have the same core game playay in different context like let's say AFK Arena it has like four or five modes build into it there's like level mode PVP mode R glide mode whatever it's exactly the same thing so welcome to do big boys club of meore and Casual yeah exactly oh this but this is this is great honestly like this is really good yeah yeah like it's it's amazing that like the studio is moving I would say Miles Ahead currently in in like last few months and one last thing I want to

show you I was just casually strolling through their portfolio account uh because they have like lots of new stuff coming up but just two games kind of struck me here there's like monster survivors oh notice the image here oh it's like at their own game and then final Survivor final Survivor this is the same thing yeah so but see like it's very very hybrid so I can already see that we will be looking here again soon because based on like if literally voodo switches their whole grinder machine hbds they figure out the pipeline if they figure out the processes and everything because also the other things that I saw there they were literally like not going to show show it but like just like scoll through it like there's a beach volleyball game very very kind of look mid corish one there's a racing

game there's a whatever like these other pretty much experiences that we see normally with midore and Casual games and and they just slap it there probably just see the retention doesn't care about the progression at all if it works then they allocate you know the resources and build it up like the blockchain 3D game like yeah copy the progression put this progression put that progression whatever prolong D30 increase iip put in some kind of stable economy that's so so on so forth so I think they are using like a very different approach compared to thing that we saw with hobby with say games with all these other people because they are building like from the other part because those those Studios start with a the template and they like know what they're doing and what they're going to end up with these guys are starting from nothing and only afterwards they starty to you know throw some stuff on top of it because they already know the day one retention or let attention curve works yeah cool let's do admon because it

makes sense a good transition I think and then do UA last um M's muted again so we can't even do can you can you share screen again I'll need you to Showcase something because for ad monetization like you know how we've been complaining on this podcast about like CMP roll out and like the [ __ ] in the EU uh but I did miss one big fact and that is when you set up your CMP correctly if you start a level please uh basically it makes my analysis life so much easier uh because if you go to settings and then privacy you see the full list of all the ad networks that they're working with of course there's no guarantee that they're listed but basically they have to list them so block Jam 3D has the following networks listed in the CMP list vungle Unity ad Colony uh Amazon publisher Service as Tik Tok bid machine chart boost meta fiber imobi Google iron

Source line mgrl ogrey Odio and Tempo platform that's a really nice I can be Felix now exactly so the interesting thing is here right um so I checked on all the links for the privacy settings just to see if they're all working all of them are working except Tempo platform which you know that link is broken to their privacy page so in terms of the eyes of regulators naughty naughty go ahead and fix that yeah yeah anyway yeah it also show the vood team is planning on integrating audio ads because they have audio in there uh audio in there which is quite interesting uh I've personally never seen it generate more than 10% of a game's Revenue but if keep scaling this game 10% will come quite in handy right I would say 10% is still generous so yeah bonus for my two co-host I have a bonus question for you both the list I listed just now from the networks what is odd about that

list let's go down and Google inmobi iron Source line integral temp what should we be looking for there's no app no network Bigg video Network on on the planet right now and they I know this game is super light on rewarded placements but they're scaling on up crazy huh so they're they're scaling it's not listed there so like leads me to deduce that they're probably using level play for mediation that's very true but in that case or maybe you have to keep it there you have to have it in there if you're going to work with that stud with that Network right well you have to because uh somebody says no no no no no boo bo boo if you don't have it there yeah well the the European Regulators you know they they they've already sued Voodoo once I don't think think you know they're going to be Keen rul yeah but they get sued one so now they're at

least six months okay you know how it works like a like the star in Mario Kart like you're immune for a while yeah you're immune for a while you can't get sued like twice in six months any like I I can't think of a reason not to have up in Indi maybe they have them but they haven't put it in the CMP it doesn't make any oh well it makes makes sense now because in that case they're not very heavy on ads so they're not not using the Blended R but they're using Ina purchase kind of R campaigns cuz they are they are working with adjust you can see that listed so adjust is their MMP so yeah that could also be whether they're scaling on op l so no no no like it's not like not very much related you have adust does yeah doesn't do [ __ ] to uplo if you have no no okay okay so to the actual ad placement so block jams uh 3D has similar ad monetization strategy to some like tile games we covered in the podcast

previously so meaning it's super heavy on intertial ads and not heavy on rewarded ads at all uh the game pretty much shows an intitial ad whenever it can when you lose a game shows an intertial like when you beat a level it shows you an intertial ad whatever mood you have as a player there is an intertial ad for you uh I think it's like the the most interesting part I think is that even after you beat a level you get intial ad and then you can see the rewarded ad placements so you can escape it yeah pretty much yeah it's like interstitials is the way to go here so there're showing at such a diligent rate so I think they're close to at least nine or eight Impressions on average with an ad view rate of 70% so that means that intial ads must be making at least 2third of the entire ad Revenue Banners are shown not too much to say about there 10c refresh timer uh meaning session length is yeah so session length if it's between 17 to 22 two minutes you'll show about 80 Impressions uh to users per day so then

we have left the rewarded ads um I think it's being a bit underutilized but they're making so much IP so maybe it's not like maybe this is the way to go um only now they're caring much more about the retention especially with like players so it's like tradeoff yeah trade off so the the only rewarded ad like placement I think that matters is after you beat a level the 2X is it coins or is it the little men I don't know what they're called 2x of everything basically so you have trophies coins and then uh this characters visual visual for nothing currency yeah the thing is like it says 2x but it this didn't really like recalculate the whole sum it's just like two x and then you quite like what yeah anyway yeah I mean they they they've even gone so far they've abandoned some of the classic rewarded ad placements there's no rewarded ad placements when you run out of live lives like whoa like imagine Voodoo two years realizing that and talking about

that like that's big like what see hard level offer there you go yeah yeah yeah even the thing uh that strikes me here like could be low hanging fruit is that Wheel of Fortune on the main menu that you could get a spin of that for a reward or that like that's still for me it's the most stingy like one of the most stingy mechanics they have in terms of like yeah what they give out when you actually reach it but yeah no rewarded out there but anyway I don't think rewarded impressions for Deus it's two two and a half maximum if that even so it's quite small uh but yeah it's cool to see them focusing on retention mechanics instead so if we look at the latest da data from sensor Tower from the last month in the US on iOS is about 60,000 Dow Android about 40,000 Dow and iOS uh worldwide is 115,000 and Android worldwide is about 113,000 so uh in the last four weeks uh they've earned on average about 28k and

yes I did take into account Black Friday weekend in the ecpm uh calculation so they've earned about 854 Grand in the last 30 days and in the same 30 days according to sensor Tower block Jam has earned 2.3 million in iaps so 37% of revenues coming from ads which from a voodoo game a year ago would shock me very much no I would I would exactly say like 30% ads 70% IPS I would yeah I would say that what the [ __ ] is this yeah this an ad that's an ad yeah okay okay anyway okay so 30 37 but see like plus plus five coins where 100 to like use a power up level yeah yeah that's true but like honestly like yeah they have also this uh Network listed the tempo platform that didn't have the Privacy link that's some kind of of like e-commerce shopping linking Network well you have Amazon there you

have Amazon there so Amazon is there anyway so 37% at Revenue well it's like they it looks like they made like 9 million in in sensor T like lifetime that means well like 30% out of add another 37% on that yeah so it could be like 13 14 in total 13 maybe by the way guys have you checked this just like one very interesting tidbit if you go here you can see like the ranking of top players have you seen they have like it's insane 123k for the first player this is fake I don't seems to me it's fake because like I don't of course it's fake if you're like like if you play this game you just change the [ __ ] nickname but still like 26 what is 103 123,000 levels let's

assume it takes three minutes to beat every level like how many minutes crash is currently totaling something like 15K plus exactly that's why fake yeah but it's amazing because like if you're called Daisy 04 please reach out yeah da I'm out to gon from from voodo I'm just going to be like mate is this real there's no way 123,000 you know who who is Daisy uh 04 it's the the same person that was attacking yakob in Monopoly go all the [ __ ] time man let's go over the UA I want to see the hooks because this game must have some crazy good hooks no no no no no no no no no no it'll be it'll be quite disappointed it's not about hooks in in like in hybrid casual you you could always I mean you should always everything is about a hook no no no no so all right so we have this hooky sticky you already talked about which is the revenues and we could see the game

made 9 million net revenue which obviously is something around well like let's let's call it 12 I think in like based on like sadness multiplier I would I would still think like look I mean even though like we have uh sensor Tower data but we know like how they really works uh in reality it's estimat it's not real it's it's yeah it's still estimate so I think like this and it's like still very conservative assumption so it's nine let's yeah you know let's call 12 and then add on another four and a half exactly yeah yeah so it's what 16 17 it's not bad it's not bad at all and it's like it's growing like hell like in like since basically the global launch over here which I think it's it's right there yeah so so I think the global launch it around like this this kind of day because they started getting revenues from like different countries

and obviously like here it's even like more um evident like us Japan and even like the Japan country here is quite interesting because they were running Japan even before because I saw Japanese creatives but I will get there so if you go to downloads and this is what I wanted to talk about so I mean it's June uh I think like April you said and then so this is what I call a market testing so they they had this like interesting uh mechanic they test they put it out there it's us only they tested something now they like pushed the UA a little bit more and then scale down again and now in July they they scaled again in like different countries just to get more data and this is what I would call like the market testing and like trying to understand if this kind of let's say block yeah core gameplay works then look it's scaled they scaled down to like like 33 downloads Peri so it's

basically nothing I think they shut down the UA it was just there you know what they did you know what they did they started when we released our first two and a half Gamers podcast there you go easy thank you very much uh yeah Sal have a good day bye have a good day bye bye cheers no no here in the May or like somewhere here after we discussed all the Hybrids like they started scaling because that's you know that's what what happens anyway so then like they start this like uh I think soft Louch around this like November maybe keep in mind that both like mob control started kind of yeah yeah yeah that's the thing yeah so like it's all connected it also like when we talked about like the say games and like my perer hotel then everything else it's just it's all connected so one game scales they get all the learnings then they scale down that game and then they see better numbers in the different game they they start scaling that game it's just all connected and and this is also like you know like you have

different games different game teams maybe and then suddenly here you start scaling again after GL Much More Much More transferable because the games are so heavy like I know like Voodoo run this kind of voodoo Academy it was called I don't know if it's still running but they were pretty much like teaching um external um Hy casual developers the like the knowhow of everything of literally and we will teach everything so we can we can squeeze it the most out of you that's the academy some general rules apply but it was still Lottery and it was all about volume as much developers as possible as much shot on goal and like pretty much tickets in the loty now it's different now it's like so that's you know if you have a promising core game play how can you trans translate it into hybrid but also like I think here like we discussed in the previous episodes it's more about like long it's like it's not soft loue versus global loue and like scaling immediately

yeah it's development during soft exactly so you just you know like they pushed the game here in like let's call it like a soft lounge and now I see this like March 2023 and onwards and they started like opening it up to like more countries then there's like definitely new uh new buildt and now they scaled a little bit more again in in in May and then they scaled down they worked on the game and then they suddenly saw like quite interesting kpis and then scaled again so all these like let's work on the game for three days Let's test it out and then kill it immediately doesn't apply anymore that's not how it works so but you know like if you still think about like all these like smaller teams which were hyper casual back then they're still kind of small and I like what should should you do should you just work on the game for like six months like here when you are small team

and you don't have like enough money well they're probably getting funded by Voodoo that's my guess could be or they're getting funded by someone else because they see the potential because oh well you know like we scaled we had five games scaled by Voodoo few hundreds millions of downloads so we know what we do now we are moving to even H but we don't have the money yeah even if you don't have like uh casual midore product knoow you still have a head start because you are like a successful hyper casual studio so you know how to create fun core gameplay which is not that easy by the way like core gaml iteration and production is like a skill that literally you are missing in lot of Studios completely it's like a completely different team compared to like the liveops team or the usual kind of a you know heavy Money Team yeah yeah yeah that's true uh now we looking at uh let's say this may 2022 to November 2022 which was kind of

like this let's say Market testing slash beginning of kind of soft lounge and what kind of creatives they had looks like if you if you check it out then there you go like different characters Jesus oh the men have bodies there yeah yeah that's the thing right it's different yeah and can you turn that down yes I killing us with creative sound again yeah obviously and that's again different blocks exactly it's blocks because well block gem right and this also like if if you reach pink color you're legally skilled so all the like hyper casual kind of tactics in the creatives yeah and then only 3% I'm just Wai for only 4% now this like o oh no random a generated voice yeah yeah yeah yeah so they know yeah but it's the same thing but then like that's it oh not oh there's the hand there's the yeah also

emojis and can you see can you see yeah I know it turned down already but can you see the like Japanese s here that's the thing emojis and then uh where where was the hand yeah here is the hand iteration so it's like all of all of the like tricks in terms of the the UA but they were trying oh well this actually is there something fake or something like different like why why would you need anything fake in like in this I mean the pass sword game well I will yeah will show it we'll get it's like the only like the creatives they have now it's just like that's that's it basic yeah but they need to stay the same it's hyper casual formula for L CPI like it needs to be ex yeah but in terms of like this like this is all all they got like pretty much but in that in this period it was only about iron Source app in unity a maybe a little bit of like a Google that's it right so no that's the like interesting part then we have kind

of read on the retention which is again mik called it what like happiness multiplier right so this is a little bit maybe a little bit different in in reality but like this it looks like they have like day 147 but then day 60 40% and if you look at day 90 it's 3% which is actually not bad I think but and that's iOS but I guess like it's maybe the day one it's yeah but it's not you know not your next next Royal match that's the that's true yeah yeah yeah that's true but it's not your the tactic is different like Royal match wants to have one two Royal matches in portfolio these guys wants to have 20 block gems that are all next like two m per month yeah yeah yeah yeah pretty much that's true but then this is like the real kind of deal what they do now can you see yeah he's uping up uping all of exactly it's you weren't lying man it's everything is apply this makes even less

sense why they don't have app as a network because you know like users are tagged on the admon side so you get a higher acpm because if you're doing UA with a network it's just it's it's crazy but like it it's like all uping in last like what is like last three months basically and I will show you like last 30 days and it's still up loving it's just different creative which is now like popping but this is uh SEC maybe will lose see wa Jesus Christ again you know do you see the the bus the bus theme is just everywhere it's not fake but it's not real either there somewhere in between but what do you mean it's not real it's it's exactly real clever use of product UA but this is but this is the thing like they they used this because they found out that the game with the bus theme has really good like play time metrics somehow they didn't fight out they seen like all the games with busting Team all portfolios yeah but the thing

is sorry this is literally the game they have yeah so the thing is they saw it it works really well so they used it in creatives again they have you have this this characters muted seriously Oh you mean mute the we're back there at step one like we need to have uh product UA funnel literally of course of course but the thing is uh it works well and they implement it in the game again and again again again and we talk about it like H something interesting oh be the same [ __ ] yeah I know but sensor Tower please mute this sorry but this is this is really interesting that now even hyper casual which is the king of low CPI needs to use this trick the thing is because this is not hyper casual anymore yes it's a hybrid casual or casual puzzle or whatever you need to decrease the cpis and you need but the whole

point of hybrid casual is to pretend to be hyper casual I have low CPI to begin with pretend yeah I know I know but the thing is like you have low cpis but if this can get you even lower CPS why wouldn't you do it it's like of course you would do it immed and the thing is yeah exactly you kind of like implement it exactly uh right away into the game and how we do literally product way yeah yeah yeah uh okay o I lost so they have also obviously the playables playables what oh okay now I see it's it's annoying anyway of course they have playables because uh they're super heavy on on a plavin and I can't go okay it just stuck well guys that's everything else and then we have some other like roller coaster yeah cover your ears just different graphic yeah roller coaster okay yeah

interesting this is a nice this is the future probably next after buses is going to be a roller coaster yeah but the thing is I can't anywhere station me I I can't to anywhere that's like it's really annoying good then you're just going to ruin it yeah don't anymore yeah this play blad as well don't worry it's not going to yeah I'm waiting for a train now instead of roller coaster yeah and then look oops whoops oops that there you go that's it mean is quite straightforward right so yeah it's good okay but then if there are like different shapes and all of these like play blads which is like amazing because you see how many playables they have one two three four five was it four and I think even more so like that's exactly what you want to have on app and like like if if you scale if you're scaling outside of of Facebook and all of the all of the fun stuff well obviously

there's like look appin last 30 days upin Google iron source and again Ain then that's basically oh well we have here cover your ears this is something that's scaling quite quite quite heavily in the last uh in the last few few weeks so but like all in all if you have these like hybrid casual games and this is just like you can't think you can't have like so many different Creative Concepts you can have like different play blads because you can scale it on ad networks quite heavily and this is what what what happens here like different like roller coasters whatever else but you know nothing stopping you from copying the other putting into your live event and like changing the creatives accordingly that's yeah that's true and that's like that's how you still are going to win in like like next year and year relevant with the UA exactly it's like like there's like you can't and this is again look it's again hyper casual game and

mechanic which is super easy and this is something that like it's it's trending quite heavily so literally using like different H hyper casual mechanics in your hybrid casual game and you kind of like win afterwards anyway but if if we want to see like weird [ __ ] which I usually try to get uh you know where Facebook and Instagram obviously but it's um it's almost all the same it's very it's very the old old build yes old build exactly it's old build you know why they use this old build because I'm pretty sure like they used this uh these creatives like gajillion like years ago and it still has like quite a good yeah quite a good history and that's it older audience on Facebook it's how you use all creatives no but see she is like again

trust me bro look it up yeah yeah B Team oh wait a second this is interesting Bingo Bingo Bingo Bingo see the older audience is getting there yeah all audience there you go because like that's that's how it works I was saying to sound like a joke but it's pretty much true it's very true it's very true it's fail Bingo and and and some other [ __ ] so yeah like yeah this is how it works matching colors and all all of this match 3D look oh really gotcha yeah and then oh wow this is amazing can you match free of course I can match free but anyway this is also look yeah do you do re Rec taking from um yeah yeah which one tell me it's exactly it's their own their own game collect them all pretty much yeah so yeah all in all uh uh yeah I think I can stop sharing now uh is the general consensus from this

episode that we are all three impressed we are yeah I think we are to certain extent to be honest like I I'm not like super impressed never you're never surprised I would say I'm positively surprised yeah you are it didn't take them that long to jump on this hybrid casual right that that's what I'm like it's not like the same level of let's say hobby or whatever like you know like the the template that you can literally dish out stuff because it's I think it's more accidental currently rather than like just discovering what works experimental let's call it experimental they're still in their experimental phase compared to like hobby where let's say say games I think is kind of leaving slowly the experimental phase and already jumping on like like Mass producing what works we we released a voodoo episode on June 26 they are scaling like [ __ ] hell since then they pretty much transferred the company half year so

like since then since then pivot because of our episode no of course not no no they're growing yeah know they're growing like they were growing like crazy even before don't think they give a [ __ ] about us of course of course they don't but then like look so they were making 20K a day now they're making 80k 80 85k a day few months after the episode so yeah I mean like there's definitely correlation man all this like Doom and Gloom stuff like hyper Dead everything interstial is dead like you can't use interstitial it's just like man like it's just oh but you know that's the thing like everything that is the best environment for Innovation because you need to innovate otherwise you die you cannot be complacent like during Corona years so welcome welcome to this new Brave New World let's finish on that that was a great not yeah very good note very good note happy birthday again Voodoo yeah happy birthday voodo thanks for uh doing such a good job on the on on the UA adamon and game design side as

well for blog J fre keep a very close eye on on your next games portfolio yeah and we'll definitely return for another hybrid look promising yeah and for all of you guys thank you very much for listening uh subscribe share the the podcast with your industry friends uh dogs and cats especially hybrid casual cats they love it and uh and see see you next time I guess join join the SL see you there join the SL [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] cheers you can I I can do this if you want if you want the real Slim

Shady it's fine hello hello everybody we drink at the same time when you're doing that you idiot is it better yeah yeah all right if we can uh we can start right oh [ __ ] this is spicy welcome welcome everybody wait are you okay I'm okay yeah I'm I'm fine I'm fine I'm yeah I'm pretty okay I'm pretty okay all right let's start come on 3 one uh hello everybody this is uh session number 89 my name is Matel lerich I'm Felix Brer and welcome uh so what are we talking about today redo that intro you [ __ ] up the intro again second we in a row oh yeah that's true oh yeah true come on we're not doing that weeks in a row okay let's start again three [Music] two