Radar: 1. Destiny Child, 2. IDFA Impact, 3. Metaverse = NVIDIA?

Thursday Games Radar!

Jul 08, 2021

Happy Games Radar Thursday,

Here is an I. game alert, II. word on the street, and III. question to consider this week…

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I. Game Alert

We’ve seen an explosion of innovative new kinds of games: hybridization of existing popular game categories and new sub-genres emerging especially in Asia. The level of experimentation happening today is truly amazing.

This week I want to point out a variation of the standard tower defense game design in an emerging sub-genre of games generally called Auto Defense.

Key Characteristics:

Simplified Tower defense gameplay
RPG mechanics and stateful progression
Merge mechanics

A good example of a game that’s really getting close to breaking out as an example in this category is Defense Wars: Destiny Child by Korean developer THUMBAGE.

Here you can see, this is basically a simplified tower defense gameplay X Clash Royale meta. Don’t let the performance fool you though, it definitely has potential ahead of its revenue performance:

The game has not shown it can get to scale or cross over more meaningfully to the West… yet. However, I believe there is strong potential and by addressing some of the key issues, with more experimentation, and better live ops discipline, this game or one of the other similar types of games should be able to achieve much stronger success.

Note the per-user revenue potential for this kind of game:

Source: Sensor Tower RPD by Launch Period

Some issues to consider:

Creating a greater compulsion to own characters
Broader and more acceptable theme
Better/more engaging game modes

In any case, keep an eye out for this category!

II. Word on the Street

#1. Some early takes on the impact of IDFA deprecation on iOS:

"Facebook and Google appear to be more impacted than other ad networks in terms of ability to target the best users for games. Facebook is going so far as to change its targeting method to match what the SDK networks are doing more closely (they announced this).”

“There’s very little VO-style inventory to be had.”

“Advertisers are paying absurd amounts of money for impressions where IDFA is known.”
“Organics are un-impacted for us, but we’re seeing some increase due to unattributed installs.”
“The current environment is fucking bonkers!”
“Overall, CPMs in the US were flat on iOS and positive on Android. In the US, RV CPMs are about 30% lower for LAT vs non-LAT. Interstitial CPMs are about 30% lower for LAT vs non-LAT. Oddly, CPMs for LAT inventory increased by about 30% over the course of Q2. Basically, 30% for everything somehow.”
“ For us, Google & Facebook add up to 4-5% of wallet on LAT traffic vs 25-30% on non-LAT, so there’s room for substantial growth.”

#2. Tencent keeps recruiting for big IP shooter games. Seen last week:

III. Question For You

What company or companies best represent the Metaverse?

Well, that question was specifically codified in a new investment vehicle, a Metaverse ETF launched by Roundhill Investments. Here are the top 10 holdings: