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Auditing The Most Downloaded Game - Subway Surfers

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App Masters14:45Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

Subway Surfers still earns over $1M a month because a simple runner is wrapped in missions, characters, free gifts and rewarded ads at natural breaks. Its mechanics are easy to copy, so a new game wins only with built-in distribution or a clear difference.

Key takeaways

  • The endless runner formula is proven, because clones of it earn well too. 1:12
    • Minion Rush (2013) gets about 900,000 iOS downloads, Talking Tom Gold Run (2016) about 100,000 dollars a month, and Tag with Ryan about 70,000 dollars a month.
    • Subway Surfers itself reached 6 million downloads in July 2020, and it launched in 2012.
  • Missions and characters add variety to very simple gameplay. 4:17
    • Being just short of the coins needed for a mission makes the player want to play and earn more.
    • Characters unlock in many ways: free with a Facebook login, free with any purchase, 5 dollars, or collected coins.
  • Free gifts, token boxes and prize wheels give players a reason to come back. 7:06
    • Crossy Road shows a "next gift in eight hours" timer that pulls people back beyond the gameplay itself.
    • Sales on starter packs drive revenue, but too many teach users to wait for the next discount.
  • Rewarded ads work best at natural breaks, when a win or a near miss makes players want more. 10:49
    • The "save me" prompt appears when a run ends close to a top score, and players watch an ad to continue.
    • After a run, players can watch an ad to double their coins, and a bigger coin bank also helps retention.
  • Copying the gameplay is easy, but without an existing audience a new game needs its own twist. 13:27
    • Minions, Talking Tom and Ryan (tens of millions of YouTube subscribers) already had audiences to reskin the game for.
    • Homescapes is an example of a twist: a high-retention match-three game with home design built on top.

The gameplay will work, you know that, but how are you going to differentiate it?

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 A 2012 runner that still tops the charts

Subway Surfers is the most downloaded mobile game ever, and its gameplay has fed a whole family of earning clones.

  • Subway Surfers still grosses over $1M a month on iOS alone. 0:10
    • The last report showed 2.7 billion downloads.
    • It has likely passed 3 billion.
    • Few mobile games stay in the top charts for this long.
    • The clone figures come from Sensor Tower.
  • Clones copy the gameplay and reskin it with characters that already have fans. 2:51
    • Talking Tom was already well known before its runner.
    • Tag with Ryan launched in 2018 and has about 200,000 downloads.
    • It is a niche kids' app and still earns well.
    • The speaker's daughter plays it, and he sees Talking Tom Gold Run ads inside it.

3:43 What the gameplay does right

Missions, ads and characters keep a very simple runner fresh and profitable.

  • Missions and modes keep a simple loop from getting old. 4:17
    • Color Switch does the same with very simple play.
    • Interstitial ads pop up often, which likely explains much of the revenue.
    • A "watch an ad" button sits at the top of the screen.
    • The graphics were strong from launch.
  • Characters and boards let players customize, and each unlock path gets something from the player. 5:11
    • Fun Run and Crossy Road use the same idea.
    • Some unlocks ask for a Facebook login or a purchase, not just coins.
    • Hats are sold in sets of three.
    • The player always has a choice: pay out right or collect coins.

7:23 Layering offers, gifts and ads

Crossy Road blends sales, free gifts and ads so players always have a reason to tap.

  • Free offers mix ads, purchases and virtual currency in one place. 8:18
    • Watching an ad pays up to 10,000 coins.
    • Finishing an ad opens another gift box.
    • The welcome pack is a starter pack that past clients sold at a huge discount.
    • Interstitial ads are frequent, the nature of the beast these days.
    • Players should always be able to double any virtual currency by watching an ad.
  • Small touches and mission twists keep the same run fresh. 9:56
    • Subtle character animations make a big difference.
    • Spelling a word mid-run, like "sunny", triggers a new mission.
    • Different scenes, such as trains and ice, vary the same gameplay.
    • The game is older, so the launch version may have looked different.
  • Ads feel natural when they follow something finished. 11:25
    • After a level, give away currency so players want to double it.
    • A free gift follows the "save me" ad.
    • Players can also earn extra rewards by watching a video after a run.

12:13 Building on a proven core

A copied core works, but it needs a different spin and a way to reach players.

  • A high-retention core can carry a new theme. 12:41
    • Homescapes ads show only home design, yet match three sits underneath.
    • Look for games with long-haul retention and build on top of them.
    • The idea came from a game design talk at a virtual summit.
  • Branded games can reskin a core without changing much. 13:01
    • Their monetization is already known to work.
    • Without a name, add something on top of very similar gameplay.
  • Imitating is easy, but distribution is the hard part. 13:27
    • Minion Rush and Tag with Ryan start with a built-in audience and brand name.
    • Without one, the question is how to differentiate.
    • The gameplay will work, but reaching players is separate.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app marketing agency. An audit of Subway Surfers and its clones shows how missions, characters, rewarded ads, gift boxes and starter packs keep a simple endless runner earning over $1M a month on iOS years after launch. It also shows that cloning the gameplay is easy, but distribution is what decides whether a clone works.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript229 lines
0:00

what is up app nation it is steve p young founder of Appmasters.com the place you go when you want action-packed content related to growing your app downloads and your revenues and today i wanted to analyze and audit the most popular mobile game of all time with probably the last report that i saw was 2.7 billion downloads but i'm sure it's crossed over 3 billion downloads and to this day still remains in the top charts so how has this game that was released back in 2012 okay back in 2012 how has this game been able to stay in the top charts and still grossed over 1 million dollars a month just on ios if you guys aren't familiar with this game it is called subway surfers no you guys have probably played it so we're gonna analyze that game but why i wanted to talk about subway surfers too is let's take a look at some of the copycats out there too that have built on this gameplay and still continue to generate revenues as well

1:12

so here's one minion rush so very similar game play as subway surfers let's go down it was launched in 2013 and it's generating over 900 000 downloads this is just on ios and thousand dollars of revenue per month this is all stats according to center tower here's one if you guys have kids it is called tag with ryan this is a game that my daughter absolutely loves because she's a big fan of ryan's youtube channel and it's ryan's ryan's toy review i think it's called family review now but look at this app it's making over 200 000 downloads so not as many downloads as minion rush minion rush is getting almost a million let's say subway surfers 6 million in july 2020 but tag with ryan not doing so bad right for a niche app where it's really tailored towards kids it's got 70 000 in revenue per month and it is very similar i play this game with my daughter a lot it's very very similar to subway surfers and then the last one that i see a lot of ads for

2:16

on tag with ryan is talking tom gold run and so this was launched in 2016 and as you can see it's got about a million downloads 900 000 in july 2020 and it's making about a hundred thousand dollars per month over a million dollars a year and very very similar game style so as you can see like what subway surfer has done is spawn a whole nother slew of games this is just the ones that i've been able to find but i'm sure there's so much more but they've been able to copy a similar gameplay and then iterate it and reskin it essentially for their own characters now i picked these particular apps these quote-unquote clones to show you because it's one where they've built a base like talking tom obviously they already know so they copied or adopted let's say that a very popular game play with subway surfers and put their own skin on it and their skin which was talking tom was already popular same with tag with ryan this app launched in 2018 and you know it's

3:23

ryan and they already have a popular youtube channel with millions i think tens of millions of subscribers on youtube but he's been able to leverage that youtube audience for tag with ryan taking a similar game play and then adopting it with a different skin and i think that's why i wanted to really highlight subway surface because it's a game that launched in 2020 it's got all these other clones that are making lots of money too so there's something that they're doing right with the gameplay so let's take a look at the gameplay and see what they're doing right here's the game it's loading i have been playing with this a little bit but i wanted to highlight a few things for you obviously it's gone through a lot of different iterations but here is the few things so there's a watch an ad up here at the very top it's also i love the way the the guy the graphics right like even when they first launched the graphic was always amazing the very

4:17

the missions also very important here i don't have enough coins to play i almost have enough but that also makes me want to see what a mission is play that mission and try to get more coins to play that particular mission right and so you see this with color switch with david where it's a very simple gameplay itself but having different missions and different modes allows you to expand on that simple gameplay and provide even a little bit more so color switch is a great example of a game that similar very simple simple gameplay that can get old after a while but adding different missions and modes into it allows you to add a little bit of variety into the gameplay okay and oh i've seen an ad so this is probably why they're making so much money they're popping up interstitial ads the other thing i wanted to point out is me and this is these are just characters it's a very very popular way of monetizing i've seen this in

5:18

fun run we're very popular game that i played with my family you see this in crossy road for example where you can buy different characters and the thing that i like about this is so this is the board that i can pick and then with fun run you can like customize so this is a popular thing that people like to do right you want to add a little bit of variety into your game the way to do that is have different characters have different boards different things and in fun run like that's that's essentially what we wanted to do too here's a couple of things i'll point out so i like this there's this dino character that if i log in with facebook i get for free so you have different characters that unlocks not just from a monetary perspective but that allows you to sort of get certain things from the user that you want right so here's brody here's another one that with anything you buy you can get him for free

6:07

so i'll just get get now and then if i buy anything i get boombot for free and there's another one there's another one that i want to show you guys okay so different ways of getting characters right here so same price this is what i want to show with carmen i can pay five dollars so really cool or with these other guys i can just collect the coins so i like how there's a variety of ways that i can pay it's not always just hey you know here are the coins you got to buy more coins it's also hey if you want to just pay out right you can do that as well here's the lock here's my with the lock and then here is rex with that you can pay out right too so here's just you can get three hats i like this token box so really great way of kind of figuring out how to monetize and characters are a great way to add a little bit of variety to a very simple gameplay ryan has the same thing so the other things that we're going to show you guys

7:08

is this the token box it's a great reward too it's these little things that within a game that after i'm done playing or as i just come into the game it's actually makes it more engaging so these little elements actually do work a prize wheel a token box you know the gift box on crossy road you see these different elements in other games and it's it's a great way to add more variety into your game too all right so let's check that here's a sale so again starter packs i've talked about this with game developers a great way to monetize is quote unquote starter packs and this is what the sale does too so it does drive revenue i've seen it with other clients and then boom bot so this is sort of like a starter pack they did have a starter pack back when i was looking let me see if i could find it green sale here welcome pack is what they called it right and you can do a sale on that i know past clients of mine have done like a huge discounted sale on

8:06

their starter packs and that will drive revenue the thing is you don't want to do it too much because you want you don't want to train your users to think hey i'm just going to wait for that sale because they will get pretty smart okay and then here's the free stuff so i like the free stuff again i can do you want me to do certain things i can watch an ad i can get up to 10 000 coins awesome i can watch an ad to get these so they're mixing ads and straight monetization and virtual currency and that's what i really love about it cool all right i'll check out man a lot of interstitial ads i guess this is the the nature of the beast these days huh so here i'll watch this ad and then i can i'll let that go through okay now that i got done finishing the ad i get to open another box so again it's it's fun for us to want to do this right it's it's kind of silly you think about it but as kids we love opening gifts and

9:08

it's the same principle on here with crossy road it's like next gift in eight hours right you can open up a next gift in eight hours and that brings people back into your game because like all right you know remind me or yes there's a reason for me to want to come back besides just playing the game so you want to add these little elements into it and i got a new key another great thing double up to watch a video now i'm not going to do that but you should always allow your users to double any of your virtual currency with watching an ad okay so i'm gonna tap to continue let's play the game real quick just so you guys get a sense of what the game does i'm not gonna show you how cool i am in this game i'll play it a little bit and then i'll die because i think that the other thing i want to show you guys is so i love this right like you're adding different elements the graphics are awesome look at the way he moves

10:00

these subtle things make a huge difference in the game again this is an older game so i'm not sure if what the launched version looked like but i just love those little subtle animations on when i'm moving the character okay i like how it can spell look i can spell sunny so it gives me another mission right as i'm playing this game that is very very much the same it's giving me a different mission and what i like about these endless runners is you can have people go to different areas right so i'm there's trains there's ice with tag with ryan there's other scenes that i can get to and by adding this whole like spelling element to it you're adding me you're sort of adding on top of the same gameplay but adding different variations so it's like a mission and here look this is a thing that you got to do save me right you want to continue watch an ad trust me i've watched plenty of ads because i'm like oh my god i was

10:58

so close to being my top scorer right and then i get a free gift here it is again give him those gifts right like let me win something and because i'm winning something i will always want to not always want to but i will most likely want to double up after i die i can double up my coins right here by watching this ad right here i can also get more rewards right here by watching the video so they've done a really good job after you finish something there's a natural break that we all want to take and by watching videos and giving us a rewards for those videos it's a great way to monetize and so definitely start thinking about how you can incorporate some of these features into your own app after a level is done are there things that you can do within the app give virtual currencies away so that you can get people to one double up and watch an ad and also as i gain more currency within the app i'm more likely to stay in because i'm building up this huge bank

12:01

and with this huge bank i can actually go shopping and buy new new things so again you think it's a retention metric it helps retention it helps monetization helps all of this to get users back into the game the last thing i want to share with you guys is i had a great conversation during our last virtual summit about game design we really talked about was taking a core game design like subway surfers where it's an endless runner and then putting a different spin on it and we talked about homescapes right it's a match three game which i didn't know but you can build your home on top of it right and that's all i saw in the ads was like this whole like building your home and designing your home but at the core of it that they know homescapes is match three games have really high retention and so think about the games that have this longevity to them that really high retention for a long haul and how you can build on top of that

12:57

the examples i gave they already have a popular theme to it like ryan the minion movies and then talking tom they already have it so they can easily skin it and they know that because of the gameplay it works the monetization works they don't have to change too much from it to generate money but when you're starting to think about if you don't have a name think about how you can add on top of a very very similar core gameplay on top of it right so that's the thing that i want to really highlight when it comes to game design i think a lot of people just copy and you think like subway servers so easy to imitate right it is but how are you what's the distribution going to be for you with tag with ryan with minion rush they already have a built-in distribution they have their audience they have a brand name but if you don't have that how are you going to do it right the gameplay will work you know that but how are you going to

13:48

differentiate it all right guys let me know what you thought of the video i love doing these different app audits because frankly i was doing this last night and my wife was like what are you doing playing a game like no don't work and i love that for you as well if you guys are interested in different types of app audits let me know in the comments below what kind of apps you want me to take a look at obviously if you want me to audit your app go check out appmasters.com audit and join us every friday 9 a.m pacific for youtube live where we're doing a lot of app audits from the audience just like you and giving you guys critical feedback from what we've seen really works in the app space love doing these app audits because i get to explore different apps see what's working in the app space and kind of think about how we can incorporate different elements from different apps and obviously help you grow your downloads

14:38

and sales alright guys until next time i'll see you on the next video bye