Publisher power: When and why to work with Supersonic | Unite 2023

thank you so much Steve and thanks you thank you all for joining this session as Steve mentioned want to touch the publisher power and when and how you all can work with Super Sonic um Steve already made introduction so I don't need to introduce myself and to discuss bit the agenda that we are going to discuss to have today we're going to touch few Trends impacting the game development ecosystem then few about who is supersonic um what is our platform tools processes how uh do we approach publishing a few words about our Evolution sched and of course then I'll be happy to answer and have a Q&A for any topic you might have and let's start with of the trends that impact game devs today so what we clearly see is that the ecosystem in terms of creation keeps growing if we are looking at 2022 versus 2021 this is out of the unity report we see about 15% yearyear increase in game that generated and or to the store by the way if you are looking at the store or Google play the main two stores we also see increase there in terms of how many new games are being submitted and going live in the different platform we can also see that not only that the quantity goes up also the actual time to Market get gets better um from the unity report you can see that more than 60% of the creators can sh the in less than a year and we see that in general there are many many different elements that impact the time to Market that different games has today on the other hand and in maybe a different Trend we see that does get harder to make these great games a a a true business a profitable business that can generate interesting profit in scale and there are many reasons for that as well we'll touch it but in general we see that there are more games going live in the stores or being produced via the unity engine but less of them are sueding and actually becoming into strong stable and profitable business and when we try to to summarize at why and what impacts these two trends that I discussed and the creation part we definitely see that again the ever evolving Tex ability and and and the amount of tools right if we're looking at Unity engine and the develop development versions We have unity game Services many other tools that help you with many many different parts of the game cre a side it's always gets better and evolving with C AI which is a a unique thing that growing in the past year in my eyes at least as of today for game creation part it mainly helps with production so it it's easier today to H produce content and once you have a strong core game and now you need to add a lot of content into it many new assets that needs to be unique AI definitely shortened the ER production cycle for content and assets for your game and on top of that the talent pool is also growing so I think this is the one of the strengths of our industry the industry is keep growing more people are becoming part of the games industry and there are more Unity developers more artists more game designers out there and all of these TR Trends help more creators to be able to ship games into the store and faster on the other hand we do see some elements on the more growth side that impacting as well whether it's the competition and I think that we see today if we open the top charts in the US or any other leading Market you'll see there are few big players and Publishers that dominate many different position that top charts the level of sophistication that different play they evolve into is very very high and and again it it increases the entrance barrier into success for new creators that the party privacy regulation we discussed it a a lot right it started with iOS and now inid which is a positive thing for us as a as as as a community but on the other hand it definitely puts more difficulties on the growth side because you have less gr data you need to H develop new optimization methods that follow the new privacy regulations which again makes it in some cases more complicated to understand what happens to your user acquisition monetization Etc and the last thing of course is financial conditions which we are all aware of as part of the financial tightening cost of capital went up financing is harder user acquisition is higher raising money is harder and all of these are a little bit making the growth side complicated and I think this is where and why H publishing gets more interesting than ever although it was part of the gaming ecosystem for a while today it's it has even to to provide and I think that it can touch two different or help with two different areas for any Creator out there first of all some creators their H passion is to remain focused on the game creation part on h building the best experience building the best game with the most interesting and and enjoyable features for community and they are less passionate about cing all the user requisition the Privacy the creative the monetization and the different ele ments that are more on the growth side of the game and for whoever is passionate about game creation only and this is what he wants to build of course the publishing partnership is a very optimal relationship to help you to do what you like to do but even for those that do have the passion also to build more than that grow their games as well and not only create their games I think that in today Market many publishing partnership can maximize much more the business success game can help you understand the growth World much better and become more prepared for next lunch Etc again we are running the long run here as we see it so this is how we look at the industry and what is the value of a a few words about suic and who are we what are we doing first of all um um one of our core elements is to bring transparency into the publishing funnel and I think there is a big difference between us as a publish versus a gaming company so we never Inspire to be the big gaming company to publish games for us it's more about helping creators succeed providing the best tech knowhow and H skills and experience for creators around the world for them to succeed as part of the entire Mission so I think the core Foundation of Super Sonic different than any other publisher and I will in few words how it actually comes into expression in different thing that we are doing and we are almost four years road we started with Hyper publishing only as Steve mentioned and we have working with more than 1,000 to date and I will touch few of them and as of 2022 we're the most down gaming publisher in the world few example of who is working with us just to get some reference so on the left side you can see Vector up games um it's actually a oneman show Calton from the US he is the solo behind the entire this entire company meaning that he's doing the development he's also leading the art the game design Etc of course with the publisher support I will touch it and he has been working with us from the very first in the early days of Super Sonic so three and a half years published with us already four games 240 million in installs $3 million $30 million in game revenue on the right you can be you can see recent lunch with us to which is still in the most down in the US and many other in the stores on the right side you can see pole which is also a solo developer is responsible for Studio publish with us already three the last one is slowmo run which you can see right side 200 million install $36 million in venue and this are exactly what we try to to help solar Developers with to build great games to actually build great businesses also more examples so on the left side we can see a sinx is is a company by Gabriel Gabrielle is an X Unity developer of Ubisoft which decided to open his own company and and and and building his own passion and vision and and we've published with him hide and seek actually in 2020 so more than three years ago became a this one game generate more than 300 million installs worldwide more than four $45 million in revenue and and one of the biggest success per casual world ever and still a significant part of our business as of today and we are now evolving it into a more casual version with the online real multiplayer elements that are not in the hyper casual version that succeeded by itself on the right side you can see Bridge race which is a game developed by gell is not the one one person show unlike three other examples that I gave it's actually a 12 person Studio that is based in Istanbul they published with us two games is the biggest one as you can see actually was the most downloaded hyper casual game both in 2021 and 2022 more than 600 million installs and 100 million in game Revenue very very unique success in the hyper casual world but these are few examples of who is working with suic and and what we try to create when we are working with our partners a few words about our process our platform what we are actually doing in this title of publishing process first of all before going over stage and tools I want to give you the the broad overview of what we trying to achieve so in general we are providing tools and people that helps you in every stage in the funnel so in the very very beginning before you are building your initial prototype we have a studio manager market research knowledge Hub that should help you to start with the right idea that has significant more or or or bigger likely to succeed one this passes the initial test and we try to build it a full game out of it from this MVP who are adding a game designer and motion designers that work with you in order to build and optimize this game out of this MVP once it moves into a more softland we are adding a product monetization an economy manager that will take care of the monetization foundation of the game and once we scale it a growth manager a social platform manager a big creative team that will produce many many creative and in general for every stage in the funnel we are bringing the right people with the right knoow and the right tools to help you to increase your chances to meet the needed kpis in order to actually build a profitable business and let's go over these three stages a little bit in general our software is developed and an entire platform is developed into these three different stages Prototype game optimization and the publishing phase and this is how we fix everything and general once you get access to our platform and and you'll see the element that I discussed before transparency is everywhere so we try not only to give you an indication of what is the potential of your prototype but also to help you understand why this is what we believe and what can be done can be done different in order to make it better next time and and here you can see kind of a broad overview of all the games you submitted into our platform new games initial test iteration Advanced testing soft Lun Etc and we'll go through the different stages the stage a and here I'm speaking about more hyper and hybrid casual I will touch casual at the end but for hyper and hybrid casual which are mess appealing Gam games relatively more our approach is fa quick and Fa cheap we understand that in general in any genre in the gaming world the success ratio is low and if you are investing too much before getting any initial indication then it's probably going to take too long and you get too tired or or you lose your motivation before you'll find the right formula because it's not that easy to find a right concept that is actually appealing to many people so sticky engaging and and therefore we really push our partners to Weck and cheap in hyper casual for instance what we asked for the initial test is no no more than 10 levels core gameplay only no meta no Rich content we don't care about it we don't want to invest so much before the initial test because we want to get initial feedback for the market from the market before we in the in the game from urine from the end as well um and only looking at initial engagement with the core gameplay when it's only 10 levels this should take a week a week and a half an MVP of a core gameplay levels and this is enough for us under the agenda of fail quick fail chip you put this game into a platform the game be tested in several different UA networks from Facebook to Google to iron source and what you actually get at the end is marketability one to five and a certainty rate right again a certainty rate is Complicated by itself because it's very very hard to invest few hundreds of dollars to get fews of installs and to predict what will be the marketability power when we will scale this game to millions or tens of millions of people this is why the certainty rate goes up as we are testing more more elements we're testing win rate for creatives for different channels we're looking several different things that we H put into this grade but eventually we understand what is the marketability power of this prototype that we just tested and in general this should lead to this table where every marketability score has what we believe the needed performance benchmarks in order to be a aable business in scale meaning that if your game is super marketable it got the grade of five we will get to how but it got to a grade of five then day one retention of 35% day 75% and and playtime in this level would probably be enough to bring an LTV bigger than but on the other hand if your marketability score is one we will need much much stronger retention and engagement metrics you order to actually generate this LTV bigger than equation and and we are not only giving this unique score one to5 we're actually presenting everything behind it you can go at each UA channel to understand what was DPI how many installs what was the split age split placement split what was the creative performance per each and each creative again everything here is in order for you to understand what worked what didn't work who liked this game who didn't like this game and why the actual score was one two three four or five and same for the engagement you can always see whoever installed the game what was the engagement what was the retention how many people came back to the game and how long did they play on a daily basis again not the core and the most important element on the initial test but definitely something that we can also learn from um as part of our stage one or or or prototype score we also try to to lead you and to give you as as many knowledge and and tools as possible in order to pick the right idea that has the likelihood to have have the strong marketability power so we have a a top charts that you can see what games are being installed the most as we speak and market trends it's a bi-weekly market trends that we are updating looking different core mechanic that are working well in the market these days different successful games that have been launched trying to give you kind of a very good updated overview of what is working today in the market again everything for you to try and to come with an Innovative idea based on a current strong Trend that will improve your likelihood H to find Initial good success tips and tricks in a lot of videos with different tips to pick the right ideas and again strengthen the possibility to succeed with your game let's move to Stage B so let's say that stage a is be us and we test the game and we got a marketability score that we believe we can meet the needed engagement metrics let's say it's four and the core game play feels that it can meet this 40% day one and 10% day seven Etc then we're moving into Stage B where we taking this very Lan MVP of 10 level and building a full game out of it which is something Complicated by itself because first of all there are many many Concepts that look cool on the video but once you try to build an actual game out of it it doesn't work and the stickiness is not there on top of that there are many different direction that you can take for a specific core game play and this is why we are trying to optimize the entire player journey within the game to build it based on on data and ab test and aching the strongest Tex that we can we have few Tools in this area again in this point of time we have a game designer that joining the party and and and helping with the road map and and the direction of the game and many many different tools that we will use in order to maximize chances so we're looking at different tools the ab calculat everything will be AB tested because if we will AB test everything it will take us years just to build a full game but we are AB testing everything that is pivotal and significant for the game and in some cases we make decisions based on market analysis hunch Etc you know to move faster but we have the most AB test calculator and and um um tool that existing in the market on top of that we are looking of course on everything happen with within the level looking at and again we know that hyper casual hybrid casual very level based games we are looking at how many people win oneel one versus two versus three versus four completely failed when do users and players chering from the game what is the average length of each level we're trying to find the sensitive points on of your games that can help improve the entire engagement so if we see that in level seven the length is much bigger than the than other levels the failure rate is is is much much bigger and leave the game in this level it gives a very strong indication that this sevel needs to be taken care of and this is a a big part of the we are doing throughout the game we're looking at stability with the the tool for that making sure that your game is stable and iOS on all countries and all on different abest and so many many different tools that help you to take this lvp 10 level and build a full game out of it then we're moving into stage three the publishing stage the stage that we all want to get into it means that we are scaling the game we are putting a lot of user requisition money creatives work you know to bring many many users into your game then monetize them and making profits of course and here as well everything will be managed by by our user requisition teams and creative monetization team but we bring all the data and for you as well to have everything so we have quite a very flexible dashboard that help you to analyze and understand everything happen within your game how do users interact with a game what is the average daily revenue per user per significant per specific cord you can look at that are coming from Iron Source or Google or Unity ads and see what is the different quality that we have how many ads do they watch a day how many purchases do they make a day what is the Rue coming from ads Revenue coming from in purchases so everything that's happening there is very very transparent and visible again for you to understand what happens within the game how does it become a profitable business after all again another look on the creative side and user acquisition side many times we try very Innovative things that are not always within the game itself on the creative side and we can see if there is a good engagement then we can add it into the game so we always try to combine this user requisition and actual product different goto Market strategy of course you can follow profit in real time and to see what is the profit per day the game is generating as of today um this it in order to summarize the hyper hybrid World which I discussed we start with ideation and core gameplay what is the game Loop Vision moving to marketability where we get an indication of how expensive or cheap is it going to be what is the cost per install we are going to have once we scale the game after we get this marketability score we decide yes no do we believe we can achieve LTV bigger than cck after understanding what is going to be the cck then we're moving into a gdd again design document we decide whether it's taking more a hyper Vision or more hybrid vision is it going to be mainly ad based interstitial banners rewarded video or more hybrid within a purchases rewarded video Etc it means that the fun is a bit different for each one who are moving into iter monetization trying to meet the needed kpis in order to scale it the time that it takes is also different right hyper we know it's up to about six months usually from idea until you can publish the game hybrid is already thir the nine months the risk is higher of course but it's a deeper gain deeper product that requires more work and more iteration on it but this is how it looks in general and two slides about our casual because this something that we had added this year on top of hyper and hybrid and in general we want to support all creators out there so we don't want to limit ourselves only to hyper Hy but to casual and different casual genres from pzzle to PVP multiplayer action Etc and it does require a bit of a different take on the funel that I just described different tools from Advanced live up to segmentation Etc building this funnel to be end to endend support just like we have in hyper and hybrid and I think the main main thing that is different is that the funnel and the stage are a bit longer right because on the MVP test we're actually looking already on the MVP day one because on casual unlike hyper and hybrid it's not only about the marketability power and whether we can find this LTV that justifies it you have generate a very strong engagement very strong LTV in to scale it profitability it means that already on the initial test we are not looking only on marketability but also on day one engagement it of course means that the MVP production is longer it's not one two weeks 10 levels only and it's more to thir two or three months of work before being the MP and after this we can make a call because again on casual the weight of importance that the engagement has is as important or even more important than than the marketability power it means more risk of course for both Sid because you need to work for two or three months before you get initial indication for the market but on the other hand of course the reward if you are able to H build a very successful casual game is bigger and then the process is quite similar in terms of working on the retention there is more focus on retention as well right so day 30 day 180 monetization which is quite similar self lunch L optimization and we usually see this taking at least one year if not more again higher risk higher gain but a bit of a different process but also something that we want to support very very closely and this it in order to sumarize everything that I mentioned so we are here in order to allow you to stay focused on the creation side the creation part became already too complicated not to build a successful business and we are here to help you stay focused there and we have a quite a a vast experience on on this enti funnel to help you make the right decisions use the right Tools in order to get there and we are today all different genres so whatever you are doing we are here and happy to collaborate and explore the collaboration with you and this is it we're also running competition now by the way for whoever is in the hybrid casual world and running it twice a year it's actually live throughout the entire of no you can scan it and learn more about the condition there are still almost more than a week to participate in it but again we're running it twice a year so we going to have another one toward the beginning of next year the spring

2023-12-28 15:10

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