- Subway Surfers celebrated its 12th anniversary by bringing back events such as craft-a-character
- SYBO is now using the Helpshift platform to support Subway Surfers’ massive player base
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SYBO’s endless runner Subway Surfers was released in 2012 and has since become an incredibly popular mobile game, with over four billion downloads so far.
Supporting the game with updates, events, and competitions has played a crucial role in its continued success.
CEO Mathias Gredal Nørvig has managed the SYBO studio since 2014 after consulting for the founders for a year. Since then, SYBO has grown from 12 to 200 staff from more than 40 nationalities, bringing entertainment to around 150 million players each month.
Running for 12 years
During Subway Surfers 12 year celebration, events such as craft-a-character were brought back to the game, with events and in-game updates being something Nørvig attributes to being “very important” to much of the game’s long-term success.
“UGC-centric activations like our craft-a-character competition, in particular, have resonated well with our community.”
Mathias Gredal Nørvig
“UGC-centric activations like our craft-a-character competition, in particular, have resonated well with our community, and we’ve received several hundred design submissions each time we’ve held the contest,” Nørvig tells PocketGamer.biz.
Fresh content and new engagement opportunities, whether in-game or through social media channels, have played a critical role in maintaining player engagement over the past 12 years of Subway Surfers, Nørvig states.
The game also launched Subway Surfers Classic from May to June 2nd this year. The team wanted to transform the game back to its original 2012 design and the anniversary milestone marked the perfect opportunity to make it happen.
“As one of the earliest games to achieve mainstream popularity, playing Subway Surfers is a nostalgic experience for millions of people around the globe. Our community had an overwhelmingly positive response to the chance to once again experience the game’s iconic origins,” Nørvig says.
Refining the process
It’s not just what happens in the game that defines Subway Surfers’ success; behind the scenes, the team works to tackle the ever-evolving mobile games market and the challenges it presents with the rising costs of UA.
“We’re lucky that Subway Surfers has had the unique ability to maintain a highly engaged fanbase for over 12 years.”
Mathias Gredal Nørvig
“In each challenge lies an opportunity for innovation”, says Nørvig. “While acquisition costs have been on a steady rise since the beginning of the app economy, we’re lucky that Subway Surfers has had the unique ability to maintain a highly engaged fanbase for over 12 years.”
As well as responding to new trends and being vigilant about market changes, the Subway Surfers team has also been making changes behind the scenes of the game.
With 150 million monthly players coming to the game, SYBO recently altered the way it approaches its customer support system to create a more clear and effective communication system with Subway Surfers players.
“Without an open dialogue with our players, you’ll never know where you have room for improvement, what’s working and what’s not.”
Nørvig explains that efficient communication with players is key to ensuring they have the best experience with the game and, therefore, maintaining their status as players.
Now, SYBO is using the Helpshift platform to support Subway Surfers’ massive player base, as the team was previously struggling to support these large numbers with just email-based customer support.
In 2022, Keywords Studios acquired Helpshift, which highlights consumer preferences and communication, for $74 million.
“Our player satisfaction has already experienced a notable increase.”
Mathias Gredal Nørvig
Nørvig feels that it was the right decision to move away from email support and to chat-based support using the Helpshift platform. He says this has already resulted in significant savings for the team in term of both cost and time.
“Our player satisfaction has already experienced a notable increase.”
Helpshift was able to be integrated within three months, requiring less than two days for SDK implementation, and these changes have already resulted in a 90% reduction in the volume of the support tickets submitted by email.
“We’ll have many more in-game updates and activations for our players to enjoy throughout the rest of the year, so stay tuned for those.”
