Flexion Mobile grows revenue and audiences for games. The company’s CEO, Jens Lauritzson, tells PocketGamer.biz how Flexion brought new players and revenue to DECA Games’ great game, Gods and Glory.
DECA Games has a track record of reinvigorating older games that may not be trendy anymore. Despite not being fashionable, older games often still have plenty of loyal players, and once DECA gets at them, they become timeless classics.
Take Gods and Glory: War for the Throne. This massively-multiplayer online (MMO) strategy game is set in medieval times. You launch yourself into intense tactical battles and build an empire. That’s a game that’s never going to go out of fashion.
“DECA takes over games when the original development team has moved on or can’t fully support them anymore,” says Puiu Fatulescu, Executive Producer at DECA. “We work closely with loyal player communities, helping to reinvigorate the games for the long haul.”
Part of DECA’s strategy with Gods and Glory was to look for revenue outside the traditional app stores. The game found new players on the Huawei App Gallery, the Amazon App Store, the Samsung Galaxy App Store, and Xiaomi GetApps – which are being called the ‘alternative app stores’.
“We are delighted to partner with Flexion to use its expertise to give us access to these platforms while saving us significant time and money,” says Puiu. “Our expertise in live operations together with Flexion’s knowhow about how these markets work helps us breathe new life into Gods and Glory.”
Flexion had already been supporting the game in the alternative app stores for more than three years when DECA bought Gods and Glory in 2020. When each company brought its expertise together with the other’s, revenue really started to boom.
“Successfully understanding the needs of the different platforms meant Flexion could secure special store promotions and features for Gods and Glory,” says Jens Lauritzson, CEO of Flexion. “These promotions are crucial in driving game revenue.”
For example, Flexion worked with Huawei’s AppGallery to promote in-game events for Gods and Glory, awarding users with Huawei points when they made an in-game purchase. Huawei funded a cash-back offer to players. This type of promotion has worked the best to boost revenue when timed around seasonal events like Black Friday or Halloween.
“Our close relationship with DECA means we know when in-game events are coming,” says Lauritzson, “and so we have time to arrange promotions with platforms like Huawei. DECA doesn’t need to do anything. We pull together all the assets and do all the messaging for the promotions.”
However, DECA’s live operations expertise means it has enormous insight into how users interact with the game. That knowledge is used by Flexion to get the best out of promotions.
As a result of this teamwork on Gods and Glory:
- In 2021, DECA saw the game’s total Android revenue boosted by 31 per cent – additional earnings from the alternative app stores over and above its GooglePlay revenue.
- Between 2020 and 2021, as promotions and events started to bite, overall spending by players of the game increased by 53 per cent
- Average revenue per user (ARPU) has grown from $2.95 in 2020 to $8.29 by November 2021.
DECA Games is a wholly owned subsidiary of Embracer Games. It takes a unique long-term approach to games. Known as a Live Operations expert, it helps the industry by taking over games when the original development team has moved on.
Gods and Glory: War for the Throne can be found on the Huawei, Amazon and Samsung app stores.
To learn more about how Flexion can grow your game’s audience and revenue please visit the Flexion website or send an email.
Original Post: PocketGamer