Posted on 04/09/2015 11:11:23 AM PDT by drewh
Game of War: Fire Age has managed to gain quite a bit of popularity, not because of its amazing graphics, revolutionary gameplay or some sort of remarkable advancement in technology. Nope. Game of War gains more than $1 million a day all thanks to Kate Upton and some very effective television ads.
LA Times has a detailed breakdown of the mobile ad arena, where publishers are constantly battling against cultural trends and marketing methods to attract as many players as possible to their little known mobile games.
According to the article, Machine Zone Games has managed to run 9,000 television ads for Game of War: Fire Age. If the name doesn't sound familiar, perhaps the ad will look familiar to you, featuring model Kate Upton.
The above ad has been viewed more than 7.8 million times after airing during the Super Bowl back in February. However, the ads have been incredibly effective, garnering Machine Zone the number 2 spot on the top grossing mobile games list and the number 38 spot as the top grossing free-to-play game. Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga are still crushing it on the charts, but Game of War is right up there with them.
According to Think Gaming, Game of War is raking in more than $1.2 million a day. Not only that, but the coveted DAU estimates (for daily active users who log in and actually put some time into the game) hovers around 2.4 million. So roughly, you could translate that into nearly half of all players who log in and play Game of War each day could spend $1 and it generates Machine Zone some ample revenue.
However, all of this revenue and canvassing of television with ads of Kate Upton and the little mobile game that could has come at a heavy price. Nothing gained is earned for free. According to the LA Times article, ISpot.tv, a financial ad tracking firm, has estimated that Machine Zone has spent $80 million on those 9,000 television ad spots.
The article notes that more companies are pouring big money into mobile marketing on television to garner audiences. We've recently seen Liam Neeson of Taken fame appear in an ad for Clash of Clans to startling success and popularity, and companies like King Digital Entertainment and Zynga have been at the forefront of mobile gaming and advertising, racking up a lot of revenue along the way.
However, that's only a small subset of the mobile gaming market. There thousands of games flooding the mobile gaming that go completely unheard of or unseen. According to Gamasutra there are 500 mobile games launched every single day on Apple's iTunes app store. How many of those go on to make $1 million a day?
There are random successes like Flappy Bird, and even Rovio – the creators of Angry Birds – chalked a lot of their success up to luck as opposed to nailing down some secret, scientific formula.
For those who don't hit the big numbers, there are repeated stories of developers opting to leave the mobile gaming space altogether due to the difficulty of turning a profit with their games. While mobile games are extremely popular and are played by billions of people the world around, there's an issue of getting the game seen and keeping people playing – maintaining that profit-positive DAU margin.
Other firms have experimented with various forms of advertising to a modicum of success, but it looks like there's two things that really can't be denied in the case of Machine Zone's Game of War: 1) spending big works wonders for putting eyes on your product. 2) Sex sells.
Game of War - 2015 Super Bowl Commercial "Who I Am" ft. Kate Upton
She looks good to me.
Missed it too. That’s a great scene. Good reference :-)
As far as I know it is. She is good looking from the boobs up, but below that, she has some odd architecture.
Besides Ms. Upton’s obvious “talents” I don’t think there’s a lot there there. She’s not much of an ingenue as acting goes.
I’ve played some free games of this type, online, not mobile games. Yeah, the build times are crazy, but it is not just to sell premium stuff. That’s part of the balancing because it is an online multiplayer game. If you could build up quicker, then some guys would be online 24 hours a day to get an edge on the competition. By slowing down the pace, it makes that strategy less effective and gives people who only log on once or twice a day a chance to compete.
It’s still a whole different ballgame from single player strategy games. The actual mechanics are very simplified for deciding battles and whatnot. The real complexity isn’t in the game mechanics, it is in the interaction between players, forming alliances, politics, espionage, and finding good leaders who can coordinate a rabble of online players. That’s where the fun (and frustrations) lie with these kinds of games.
I’ll be her hero. Just get me into a closed room with her to discuss the terms and fully display our assets.
Not much in my opinion and her over endowment will have a short career span if she doesn't dig deep and find some genuine talent.
BTW- the recent commercial that plays on my cable says it's free to download the app and play away. How do they afford all this advertisement and make money on something that is free? (I don't get it)
Yeah, like I got time for that? ;-)
I remember around the turn of the century trying to form a B17 crew for an online WWII flight simulator. I just did fighter planes after that, or bombers with an “automated” crew. Flew pretty much everything ever used in that war.
But I just don’t really have the time.
I’ll sit down to a Command and Conquer Generals Zero hour 8 player skirmish at the “hard” level now and spend around an hour to beat the 7 automated players.
I suspect it is like most apps, you get limited access to the game for free, with a lot of ads.
Pay for it and you get full function, free of ads.
Yeah, I don’t have time for it either anymore, but when I was younger I wasted some months on games like this.
I eventually quit, because every time I played one, I ended up getting drafted as a clan/guild leader and then everyone wants you to do all the tedious work planning out strategies and stuff. It’s fun for a while but it gets to be too much for a game.
For accuracy's sake, I believe she asks, "Will you be my hero?"
I’ve gotten to that point even with Command and Conquer.
Funny, Back in the very early 80’s I used to go to Bogeys bar on Eastlake in Seattle for lunch and put a quarter in asteroids. A friend and I had cracked the game. We’d play until about ten PM on a single quarter. Same with Space Invaders.
I have to many hobbies involved in “reality” to get into it these days. It’s fun to play Fast and Furious with my grandson, though. I have a Scion FRS just like the real one I own that I use to race against him.
We're not rating her theatrical assets here.
“is that a real photo? she’s put on a couple of pounds”
She is still very young. She’s pretty also.
She has the potential to become a big girl as she grows up.
Oh, I’m with you, crime dog. I’m not thinking Hepburn when I see her.
The one I still play that is a multiplayer/team game is Mechwarrior Online, but in that I just drop in the solo queue and they match you up with a team automatically. I only have to spend 10-15 minutes for one battle with them, then we’re done. If I want to play more, I just queue up again and get another team, otherwise I can get back to the real world and nobody bugs me :)
He never mentioned her ample other attributes, but he did say, she needed a hair wash! LOL
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