Monopoly GO! comes full circle, hot takes, Lilith Games’ secret sauce and more job losses | Week in Views

• The PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week

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The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can’t let go of…

So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we’ve created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.

Inside mobile hitmaker Lilith Games

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Chinese developer Lilith Games has done what few mobile studios have been able to do: it has created multiple, billion-dollar global hits. And it hasn’t just perfected one genre, it’s released blockbusters across multiple categories.

On the global stage, Lilith rose to prominence in 2018 with its 4X strategy game Rise of Kingdoms. It followed that up with another billion-dollar hit shortly after with idle RPG AFK Arena. The company is waiting for its next hit on a similar scale, but it’s still released titles that have made hundreds of millions of dollars. That includes strategy titles Warpath, Art of Conquest: Airships and Call of Dragons. 

It’s not always hit the mark. Shooter Farlight 84 failed to hit the target, and RPG Dislyte, while by no means a failure, able to generate millions of dollars per month, has not been the next billion-dollar blockbuster it’s looking for. But even when Lilith isn’t hitting a billion dollars, it’s launching titles that most other studios would consider a flagship game. 

To find out how Lilith looks to build global blockbusters, we sat down with the developer’s head of strategy and investment, Vincent Ou, to guide us through its company culture, development process, live ops strategy, and more. He discusses a company culture that sees special subsidiaries set up to offer teams a 20% share of game profits, how the developer’s greenlight process mixes a top-down and bottom-up approach, and why it doesn’t believe in the fail fast approach.

Monopoly GO! Goes full circle as Scopely and Hasbro launch a new board game

This story initially made my mind boggle. A classic board game gets turned into a mobile game, which develops into a hit, which then warrants becoming its own board game. It’s like a bad synopsis for an adventure movie. 

Jokes aside, when you think about it, this totally makes sense. While the original Monopoly game is an absolute classic, there’s certainly room for a punchier, fast-paced take on the original concept, so what better way to achieve that than to base it on a mobile game that has already done the job so well? 

Scopely stated that Monopoly GO! made history as the most successful mobile game launch ever in the US, which is a substantial achievement, and as much as this full circle story made me laugh to myself at first, it’s actually a great cross-over between both versions of the game.

AND

160 jobs axed as Scottish animation firm Axis Studios goes into administration

The gaming industry has been no stranger to layoffs and closures over the past two years, and Scottish animation firm Axis Studios has now been affected by these unfortunate times. 

The closure, which is due to “severe cash flow problems,” has resulted in the loss of over 160 jobs and the end of what has been an amazing 24-year run for the studio. It really does just go to show that these difficult times can fall on anyone.

Axis Studios only very recently were involved in the trailer for Clash of Clans when footballer Erling Haaland joined the game as a character, and they are responsible for a whole portfolio of incredible work, including, to this day, one of my all-time favourite video game trailers for the first Dead Island game. 

While the closure of Axis Studios is a significant loss, I hope that everyone from the studio can find positions just as exciting as the ones they’ve just had to leave behind.

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai warns of market research producing “average and mediocre” games

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has been busy dropping hot takes on the marketing side of game development, combining strategic advice with a perspective that clearly prefers the wild unknown over a data-based comfort blanket.

In fact, Sakurai even has issues with targeting games at a specific market, claiming that the lines are “very blurry” between audiences and that aiming for men, women, or children specifically just isn’t the way to make a fun game.

Coming from the same man who also created Kirby, Sakurai’s words are certainly worth considering, consistent with the stance he’s held since the Game Boy days at least. 

“Targeting isn’t as reliable as people claim, and market research is based on past results,” he said. “It simply tells you a safer route – the main road.”

Not only that, Sakurai believes paying too much attention to market research makes games “increasingly average and mediocre”, a scathing review to be sure.