The Clash of Clans (COC) is generating daily revenues of more than $1.5 million as of June 2015, beating out former top-grossers Candy Crush Saga and Flappy Bird. In the Android platform alone, the mobile game is thought to be played on around 500 million devices at any given time.
No doubt the world is going nuts over the strategy-based game and many are even shelling out cash in order to keep the fun flowing. What makes the games so addictive that Supercell, the creator of COC, suddenly found itself with a steady stream of million dollar flooding in?
It's free
Free games have been the rage since the rise of mobile gaming. No cost access to free gaming apps saw the emergence from oblivion of Angry Birds and the most recently, the Flappy Bird. The latter even propelled its author to 15-minutes of fame and modest amount of financial success. It is projected that free games and free apps will continue to dictate the pace and trend in the mobile gaming world.
In the case of COC, its developer "has perfected the freemium model," according to Business Insider. The game is free to download, install and play in its entirety but in order to level up players are given the option to acquire resources that speed up the building up of fighting credentials as reflected by fortified structures and growing number of troops.
Essentially, Supercell is banking on players' urge to advance, conquer and win and their lack of patience to achieve all these things swiftly, the report added. The result is goods buying from players around the world that amounted into the $1.56 million daily sales attracted by the Clash of Clans.
Simplicity
Simple and straightforward are the key words why the COC quickly caught on mobile gamers. This is the same template seen with Angry Birds and Flappy Birds - users can play and enjoy the game by just tapping mindlessly on the device screen.
But simple as it is, the Clash of Clans has the unique texture of strategizing that allows for the building up of excitement - among the elements that get gamers totally hooked.
Loveable characters
The Clash of Clans is basically a war game, in which one group is trying to outdo its opponents that results into violent skirmishes. But this fierce concept was tempered by Supercell by incorporating cute characters into the game - adorable enough not to be loved by players.
And this component of the game was further amplified in attention-grabbing advertisements that only highlighted the marketing prowess of Supercell, which by the way also provides mobile game apps Boom Beach and Hay Day. The two titles add $378,000 and $134,000 respectively to the already explosive daily earnings of the Clash of Clans.