Survivor.io & Top War: User Acquisition creative strategy masters
Survivor.io captivates players with its rogue-lite gameplay, combining endless waves of enemies and strategic skill upgrades for a thrilling survival experience. Top War, on the other hand, offers a unique merge-to-upgrade mechanic, blending strategy and base-building elements in a competitive multiplayer environment. Together, these games showcase the diversity of mobile gaming, catering to both action enthusiasts and strategy lovers with innovative mechanics that keep players engaged.
The mobile gaming industry thrives on innovation, and Survivor.io and Top War stand as benchmarks of creative excellence. By blending immersive gameplay, minimalistic 2D graphics, and innovative user acquisition (UA) strategies, these games have redefined how players engage with strategy-driven titles. Leveraging concepts like AdQuantum’s six-category motivation model and mastering early-stage UA channels, these games set a new standard in creative strategy for mobile games. In this article, we’ll explore how Survivor.io and Top War have mastered their creative marketing tactics, dominated global launch campaigns, and utilized hypercasual game trends to engage audiences while outpacing competitors like Legend of Slime and Warpath. Whether you’re a gamer, marketer, or developer, uncover the secrets behind their success.
Survivor.io’s global launch creatives are designed to be simple, direct, and highly effective, focusing on a unique approach that goes beyond traditional gameplay visuals. Their strategy not only targets competition from similar games but also draws inspiration from different genres, particularly hypercasual. This is reflected in their use of low-poly graphics and “noob vs pro” creative concepts. By expanding their creative strategy, Survivor.io aims to engage players with innovative and familiar visuals, which are strategically tailored to attract a broader audience during its global launch.
How does Survivor.io generate $31 million monthly in revenue?
The Survivor.io generate $31 million monthly in revenue are as following ways. Survivor.io is simple yet unique. It utilises minimalistic 2D graphics to deliver an immersive gameplay experience. It seems they are using the same items and hero progression as they do in Archero or Punball this time with time-based levels.
You already know this, right? But do you know how much money they make on a daily or monthly basis?
Yep, 31 MILLIONS a month! Only in IAP. As we discussed on our podcast they were making 500k/day on Ads, now most probably even more. All in all, if we are generous they make additional 15-30 MIL on ads on a monthly basis. BOOOM!
With this type of revenue, you would be spending large budget to maintain or even grow the game. And as we can see on their monthly revenue, they are definitely growing. With large spend, you need shit ton of new creative concepts. This is definitely not an easy job, but they are doing it super well!
How can analyzing your user acquisition (UA) strategy inspire new creative concepts for your game?
Analyzing your user acquisition (UA) strategy can inspire new creative concepts for your game in following ways. Where do you get inspired? Which games to follow? What should you do? Honestly, you don’t need to go far away. Look at your UA.
These are actually from the other side of the barricade, but you get it right? If you don’t, you will. Keep reading. This is pure gold!
How did Survivor.io expand its global launch creative strategy beyond traditional gameplay?
Survivor.io expanded its global launch creative strategy beyond traditional gameplay in following ways:
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Super simple, straight to the point. EFFECTIVE! Here comes the interesting part. They are not only looking at different games (competition obviously), but also different genres:
Can you guess which genre is this coming from? No? Lets continue with examples, maybe you will get it…
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https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/21dac6a8f5e443237a4eb756bc7c7fd8.mp4
Lowpoly graphics or noob vs pro creative concepts. Is this you, hypercasual genre? You bet it is. Survivor.io started expanding the creative strategy beyond the classic gameplay I talked about earlier when they global launched. But this is not all of it! What else do they have in their UA creative strategy?
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/6789b44d1e76163da5b2864a1329e98b.mp4
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/4246286268e17a2ec4970085d67923e0.mp4
Hmm… this looks really familiar. Where did I see this? Wait a second!
How did Top War and Gold & Goblins inspire Survivor.io’s creative strategy?
Top War and Gold & Goblins inspire Survivor.io’s creative strategy in a following ways :
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https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/f38fecc50c8d865fc63b2a71beef8c9a.mp4
Ultimately, I still believe Gold & Goblins was the first game that brought this creative concept to life!
But let’s get back to Survivor.io and their creative strategy. There are some nice concepts to showcase here.
What is Oddly satisfying (ASMR!) in survivor.io?
Survivor.io creates an ASMR-like experience for players in following ways :
These are oddly satisfying, I would almost call them ASMR. It’s really amazing to watch all of those zombies to perish. Anyway, let’s move to other concepts.
Why did Survivor.io adopt a sniper creative concept in its user acquisition strategy?
Survivor.io adopted a sniper creative concept in its user acquisition strategy for a following reasons :
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https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/41975d6a91032f426238fa7148f95878.mp4
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https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/5ae58a8b862d8f0f89b780eba1d4412a.mp4
What the hell? Why sniper creative concept? Well, sniper games were always really popular and had pretty nice organic uplift. E.G. Only Sniper 3D from Wildlife studios had 18Million downloads per month in peak. I guess in this case, survivor.io was looking at the Topwar, which was stronger motivation to copy this concept.
what is the common factors between fishdom and survivor.io?
The common factors between fishdom and survivor.io is as followed :
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https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20a80446ad3deff7afb3d4dda93fb4e3-1.mp4
If you watch closely one other Fishdom concept, I believe they are checking each other out quite often. Do you see the magnet over there? I wonder which game is it from … Oh wait, survivor.io?
Okay okay, starting to be boring, but there is more!
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/494d5936c2187e000373da98936a4525.mp4
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/be43985223e481388317cc26d9aa8978.mp4
These last two examples remind me brain teasers or female oriented games rather than male driven. But who am I to judge? If you make 1.5 mil a day, you most probably spend equal amount on User Acquisition. With that kind of budget, you need to run SHIT TON of different creatives and test the hell out of it.
Is Topwar Creative Strategy Is Most Advanced by Far?
Yes topwar creative strategy is most advanced by far. As you might have noticed, I mentioned Topwar multiple times in this article, but also in the previous ones. Why? Because I think this game’s creative strategy is by far the most advanced.
Are they using fake ads? Yes! Do I care? Nope.
They are also pioneers of the adoption of hypercasual game mechanics in the creatives. The one and only prediction I wrote about last year, which actually happened. Let’s look at the recent Top war creatives:
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/401588ba51a795c6f86c597f8234bc65.mp4
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/d44d7ece83ec2cee65b7c705586b5783.mp4
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/e8a8a60579ec374e6b6d5f667004756f.mp4
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/65a67061c43647754e2f8f89b52cfcc8.mp4
Where does Top War draw inspiration for its successful creative strategy?
Top War draws inspiration for its creative strategy from past successful games that amassed millions of downloads.Well, guess what?
https://lancaric.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/b320cd0325d044e18e249bf8e906e859.mp4
https://youtu.be/dAxUhmUkEMghttps://youtu.be/iJw32oQMCOU
All of these games were big hits back in days and accumulated multiple millions of downloads. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
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As always, special thanks goes to Social Peta & Mobile action for providing the creative insights! You are awesome!
What are the key takeaways from this Survivor.io user acquisition case study?
The key takeaways from this Survivor.io user acquisition case study are given below:
- Pay attention to your competitors. Look into your User Acquisition data. Dig deeper and find out which of the sub-id’s on ad networks is performing best. Look at their creative and get inspired!
- Look at the history of hypercasual games. Dissect games with most downloads to this day. Steal, ehm borrow their game mechanics and use it in your creative concepts.
- Use humour and fun in creatives. Oh wait, I didn’t mention that in this piece. But here is an example of that. Enjoy!
Oh wow! You made it until here! You must be very engaged. I like that type of players.. Ehm, people!
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