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Julie Levin is head of name Advertising and marketing at Nexters
How do you retain your recreation contemporary, partaking, and thrilling sufficient to retain gamers whereas attracting new ones? It’s a problem even probably the most profitable titles face.
Advertising and marketing is consistently developing with new options. A couple of years in the past, branformance – a mixture of model constructing and efficiency pushed advertising – was the development. Now, the collaborations with IPs have taken middle stage.
PUBG and Fortnite have set a golden customary of profitable cooperation with IPs, inspiring others to observe swimsuit.
For instance, Supercell сollaborates with iconic franchises on virtually all of their video games. In 2024 alone, they partnered with Transformers, Godzilla, SpongeBob SquarePants, and even Child Shark.
Supercell сollaborates with iconic franchises on virtually all of their video games.
Merely put, IP collaborations are the partnerships that convey inventive belongings to a recreation – like its characters, storylines, and distinctive recreation worlds, all protected by copyright, along with well-known manufacturers to create one thing new and thrilling.
Why IP collaborations work for cellular video games
For cellular video games, collaborations with IPs are a pure match. Many of the video games are free to obtain and generate income by means of in-game purchases.
In line with Layer Licensing, virtually three-quarters (71%) of IP integrations are in cellular video games, in contrast with 70% in PCs. These partnerships assist gaming corporations create new and thrilling content material that engages gamers whereas elevating model recognition.
Right here’s how we method IP collaborations at Hero Wars and my recommendation on choosing the proper IP to your recreation.
Why collaborate with an IP?
General, IP collaborations enrich your model; for instance, we symbolically put Hero Wars subsequent to such icons as Lara Croft or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
This fashion, we add additional worth to our model and create an enormous occasion for gamers with distinctive and unique content material. On common, partnerships with IPs and/or manufacturers elevated a recreation’s each day lively customers (DAUs) by 11% within the first seven days after launch (Newzoo).
When planning an IP collaboration, we concentrate on three major aims: engagement, income, and acquisition.
For gamers, each collaboration ought to really feel like a celebration.
Engagement: For gamers, each collaboration ought to really feel like a celebration. That’s why we produce numerous unique content material together with new gameplay and multimedia content material, introduce new mechanics, change the meta, and provides gamers items.
Content material is the best way to bridge two manufacturers. For instance, in collaboration with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we created a high-quality comedian about their journey in Dominion because it creates a pure connection between TMNT and Hero Wars.
Distinctive occasions and nice content material throughout a set interval convey new worth to our gamers. They’ve enjoyable, spend extra time within the recreation, and join with the brand new characters.
Income: Collaborations with IPs are a superb alternative to generate further cash within the quick time period.
Gamers are sometimes keen to pay a premium for licensed content material, understanding that it comes with added worth. Since our recreation is free-to-play, the purchases point out we’ve picked the best IP for collaboration.
Acquisition: We use the excitement across the collaboration to draw new customers, significantly these we couldn’t beforehand attain. At Nexters, our advertising efforts are intensive; we estimate that individuals worldwide have seen Hero Wars adverts roughly 30 occasions on common.
Nevertheless, lots of them know in regards to the recreation but keep away from free-to-play video games or aren’t drawn to our style. A collaboration with a well-liked IP, like Lara Croft or TMNT, can change their notion and encourage them to play the sport.
How to decide on the best IPs
When choosing an IP, we take into account two key components: audience and model match. In line with Newzoo, players are practically 3 times as more likely to obtain a recreation when it options an IP they get pleasure from.
Males aged 30-50, who make up nearly all of Hero Wars’ viewers, are extra drawn to IPs that evoke nostalgia or have earned their admiration over time. For them, Lara Croft is an ideal match; she’s a gaming icon and a widely known character in common tradition.
Select the IPs that really feel natural to your model and universe. For instance, Pac-Man is a personality that our viewers positively likes. Nevertheless, introducing them in our recreation would look unusual as a result of it is a utterly totally different entity. But, Neo from The Matrix can be an ideal match.
What does the collaboration package deal embrace?
The scope of a collaboration depends upon the dimensions of the IP. With iconic, well-known titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Lara Croft, we at all times introduce the IP character as a brand new playable hero and extra cosmetics (skins).
Moreover, all of the artwork, narrative, and content material creation – trailers, motion sequences – are on our facet. A brand new hero at all times has a story for his or her introduction and different components.
With iconic, well-known titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Lara Croft, we at all times introduce the IP character as a brand new playable hero.
We design new maps and battlegrounds and reskin metropolis components so every thing in Hero Wars displays the collaboration and appears vibrant and cohesive. In particular themed quests and process chains, gamers earn rewards.
In occasion retailers, they’ll buy sources to improve the brand new hero or their present favourites. Smaller collaborations solely contain cosmetics and concepts, similar to narratives, skins, and avatars, with out the introduction of a brand new hero.
In collaboration with music bands, we are able to make a themed occasion and supply cosmetics. There’s room for creativity right here. After the occasion ends, all IP characters stay with gamers completely. Whereas the occasions are time-limited, the content material is unique – gamers who miss the occasion can’t get hold of the characters later.
Challenges in IP collaborations
IP collaborations include sure difficulties.
The Hero Wars universe is various and offbeat; we don’t have strict guidelines about what belongs in our world. Nevertheless, some gamers are very protecting of the Hero Wars’ authenticity and understand characters from different franchises as alien.
Generally we are able to’t meet the necessities of licensors. Think about this: licensors might conform to cooperate but in addition prohibit any advertising actions. Since advertising is one in every of our three key targets – maximizing influence on product, income, and viewers progress – we reject such provides.
Some companions may not be able to work with us as a result of their schedules being packed for the subsequent 4 years. Agreements might fall by means of as a result of variations in value, timelines, or the scope of content material.
The approval course of touches virtually every thing associated to your IP. Your licensor must log off on the sport itself, most updates, advertising and promotional supplies, and extra. How rapidly and flexibly they deal with approvals can range – for some, it could take two weeks simply to approve easy advertising belongings, whereas one other provides the inexperienced mild for a significant content material replace the subsequent day.
One other problem arises when film IPs contain each the character and the actor portraying them. Take The Terminator – it’s represented by the long-lasting Iron Arnie solely.
One other problem arises when film IPs contain each the character and the actor portraying them.
By the best way, World of Tanks (Wargaming) had a profitable collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, which means they made agreements on character and actor sides, which is spectacular.
With Harry Potter, you face points as a result of there’s Harry Potter as a personality and Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who portrayed him. On this case, you want rights for each the trademarked character and the actor’s likeness, licensing each Harry Potter and somebody who seems like Daniel Radcliffe. It complicates the negotiation course of quite a bit.
Wrapping up
When planning your subsequent IP partnership, suppose past the numbers. Deal with partnerships that excite your crew and your gamers and produce one thing really particular to your recreation. The important thing right here is to seek out the right match – an IP that resonates along with your viewers and matches into your universe.
When completed proper, collaborations with IP breathe new life into video games. They create a “wow” second when gamers see their favorite characters or tales introduced into the sport in methods they by no means imagined. It is a distinctive gaming expertise.
