SocialPoint, Spain’s largest mobile gaming studio, has today announced plans to release four new games to market.
Unlike the company’s previous “breeding games,” wherein the user would play to create new types of dragons and monsters, SocialPoint is now focused on a new category of gaming they call “MASS”, short for mobile action social strategy.
Since closing a $7.4 million Series B in 2012, SocialPoint has grown from 15 million MAUs to now boast 50 million monthly actives and 100 million app downloads. In fact, the company says it’s on pace to break $100 million in revenue in 2014. By comparison, Zynga brought in $873 million in 2013.
The first new game in the pipeline is called League of Warriors, and will be SocialPoint’s introduction to mobile action social strategy games. Gaming is a difficult space to be on considering all the competition, and it’s really hard to predict what will be a runaway success and what will flop. This is why many game makers, notably Rovio, try to milk everything they can out of existing popular titles.
However, SocialPoint seems confident that they can pivot their gameplay in a way that will still attract users, and more importantly, generate revenue.
“It’s difficult before launching a game to know if it will be successful or not,” said cofounder and CEO Horacio Martos. “But we have some guides we follow, things we’ve learned from our past successful games, that ensure retention among users.”
According to Martos, two important factors are the “first minutes” experience, drawing the user in to something interesting, and then the slower progression of the game with new content, plot lines, etc. With these new MASS games, SocialPoint is tapping life operations management, similar to the premise around FarmVille, that they expect to hook users for the long run.
It’s not just the gameplay that’s taking a pivot, but also the revenue model. In earlier titles, such as Dragon City and Monster Legends, users paid for new content in the creation of their dragons and monsters. With the new MASS games, players will be paying for boosts and quick-fixes in a strategy-based game.
“Competition is the key here,” said Martos. “We built SocialPoint games to be multi-player, with people you actually know. When you’re battling friends, the competition encourages you to play harder.”
The company expects that level of competition to inspire purchases.
League of Warriors is the only title the company has announced, with another three in the pipeline. You can expect to see LoW in the App Store and Google Play by spring.