Real Steel World Robot Boxing
Game Assessment report -Submitted by Abhay Arya

Contents:

Serial No.

Name

Page

1.

Mobile Gaming Industry

2

2.

Indian Mobile Gaming Scenario

3

3.

Reliance Entertainment

4

4.

Real Steel World Robot Boxing

5

5.

Game Metric Analysis

7

6.

References

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Mobile Gaming Industry:

The worldwide video game marketplace, which is driven by strong mobile gaming and video game console and software sales, the market is forecast to reach $111 billion by 2015. Mobile games are the fastest-growing segment of the market, with revenue set to nearly double between 2013 and 2015 from $13.2 billion to $22 billion. It is growing so fast that it’s expanding the traditional video game industry far beyond its old borders. Digi-Capital recently issued a report that predicts mobile gaming could drive the whole game software industry’s revenues to 100$ billion by 2017. The mobile and online game can grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 23.6 percent to 60$ billion by 2017. Asia is becoming the biggest driver of economic value in mobile and online games, with the best companies’ revenue growth and profit margins becoming the envy of foreign competitors. Asia and Europe combined could take more than 80 percent of the global revenue share for mobile and online games. Nine of the top 10 game M&A deals of 2013 had Asian buyers, compared to eight out of 10 in 2012. Thirteen out of 15 game initial public offerings from 2011 to 2013 were by Chinese, Japanese, or South Korean companies. Investment in game companies grew in value by 16 percent from 2012 to $1 billion. But an early stage game-investment gap remains. Metrics and analytics have become increasingly significant in fundraising. Average game investment deal size grew 14.8 percent from 2012 to $6 million. Mobile games and tech/gamification deals dominated 2013. Meanwhile, game playing is growing on mobile. Games accounted for 32 percent of mobile app use in 2013, and they were 67 percent of tablet use. They accounted for 72 percent of mobile app revenue and 40 percent of mobile app downloads in 2013. It is anticipated that 2014 would be a year of both growth and disruption for the games market.

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Indian Mobile Gaming Scenario:

The mobile gaming market has become quite saturated globally especially in US. With recent laying off of workforce by global players like Zynga, Electronic arts, Tapjoy etc, it is clear that companies abroad are having a tough time. However, as per the recent research by RNCOS, in India, out of 100 mobile subscribers, only 2 are mobile gamers, which is much less than the mobile gamer penetration in Japan, the US, South Korea, and the UK. Thus, indicating a wide opportunity available for mobile gaming companies in India. Further, with 110 Mn mobile internet user base, cheap 3G plans, affordable smartphones and highly untouched T2 & T3 markets, Indian mobile gaming industry offers enormous scope for development and is attracting a lot of global players. The game developers are also forming alliances with app stores such as Google Play, Samsung Apps and Nokia’s Ovi, to reach masses and to build a brand of their own. Currently players like Reliance Entertainment, Games2win, Bash Gaming, Jumpstart, Csharks Games are having a great foothold in the present mobile gaming scenario in India.

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About Reliance Entertainment:

The global gaming brand of company, Reliance BIG Entertainment is one of the biggest game developers in India. Reliance Games is the mobile gaming division of Reliance Entertainment Group whose subsidiaries include entities like Dreamworks SKG, IM Global and Codemasters. Currently operating four studios worldwide, the company has a strong, multi-disciplinary, and crossskilled team spanning across the US, UK, Japan, Korea and India. Reliance Games’ portfolio presently includes more than 600 games for over 2000 devices across various operating system like the iOS, Android, Windows, Java and Symbian. Its current roster of hit games include After Earth the mobile game, Real Steel World Robot Boxing, Total Recall, F1 2011 among others. On the Nokia store alone, the collective Reliance Games titles have surpassed over 200 million downloads. Distributed across the US, Europe, South Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and Asia, Reliance Games’ content can be accessed through 80 leading networks across 40 countries as well as global AppStores. The content is available on leading networks like Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, TATA Docomo, M1, MTNL, Dialog, Telekom, Reliance Mobile World, Telstra, Tele2, TIM, O2, Virgin Mobile, KPN, Telia, 3, Telefonica, Optimus, and Teleenor.

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Real Steel World Robot Boxing:

Real Steel World Robot Boxing, inspired by 2011 Dreamworks film Real Steel, is the latest launch by Reliance Games on iOS and Android. Following is the assessment of the game on 6 parameters:

1. Originality – The story of the game is exactly similar to the 2011 movie Real Steel but they have some new characters in the game. The concept of the game remains the same i.e to start in the lower boxing leagues with an ultimate goal of dethroning Zeus, the WRB champion. The game can be played in multiplayer as well as in career mode. The career mode begins with a character selection with 3 Robots to choose from. As the character fights further into the league, new Robots can be bought or the same character has to be upgraded with the battle earnings or Real money buying. But the battle earnings become too less as one advances in the game that it becomes quite difficult to upgrade, and it becomes too monotonous to fight with the same character numerous times to unlock something new in the game. 2. Business Model – The game works on the Freemium model i.e. it is free to download from Android and iOS but one can play only till the first tier of the league. Also many other features of the game have to be unlocked through ‘Real money buying’ or ‘Friend invites’. For example – Once the character is upgraded, one has to wait for some time to equip the part, which becomes irritating as the upgrade level increases. The Ad pop-ups also are irritating which keep popping up quite frequently. As the game advances, earning money also becomes difficult but all this done to push the gamer into Real money buying. 3. User Interface – The interface is very user friendly. One can easily find its way into different modes and other areas. The controls could have been the sliding-finger type (like the iOS Injustice: gods among us controls) which makes the reflexes really fast as compared to the press-button type.

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Finger slide controls (up)

Press-button controls (up) 4. Creativity – The art style, Robot designs and battle action is really amazing. Each character has its own special move and winning stance. Character color customization adds more variation to the same character. Music, background sounds and noises have also been well chosen. In-battle Camera movement and the Arenas also makes the fight really engaging. But modes like Tag-Team, Co-operative mode were missing which could have added much more fun. 5. Graphics – The graphics are really good given the amount of animation within a fight. Anything from a regular old punch to the finishing move renders smoothly. Even the special move and the post-win stance looks fantastic. 6. Gameplay – The initial gameplay is really engaging. The phone becomes un-put-down-able for the first few fights. But as the game advances, similar fights with the same character slowly starts draining interest. The Special move and Maximum defense move, which is a quick time event that depends on how fast one can tap the screen offers a bit of a break from the normal fight.
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Metric analysis: In order to monitor the game on a daily basis, following parameters should be focused on:

1. Lifetime Value – To understand the value of various customers so that one can compare users and identify the segments of successful cohorts that need improvement. Cohort Analysis is one way to find that out.

2. Retention Rate – To determine the game’s potential to keep the gamer engaged, we can analyze the daily, weekly and monthly data of the users. Metrics like Daily Retention Rate, Weekly Retention Rate and Monthly Retention Rate can be used. The day on which the User installs the game is referred to as Day 0 and if he comes back on Day 1 or later within that time frame, then it is considered to be as a retained User.

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3. Active Users – To see if our game is able to compel people to play it with regularity. To need to learn about this cohort and how they are using it, we can use Weekly, Monthly and Daily Active Users (WAU, MAU and DAU) metric analysis. This data may also help us while designing games in future.

4. Usage – To understand who is using the app, how they are using it? To understand the demographic, the frequency, are they opening is during the day or the night? This information would help us to allocate resources accordingly to drive greater engagement and revenue. All these questions can be answered by the data collected from the various metrics discussed here.

5. Session length – This parameter is important in differentiating between the users who just opened the game or opened by mistake and the users who actually played it. The session length data also helps us to understand the average session time for which a user likes playing this game. Higher average Session length suggests an Un-put-down-able game whereas a lower average Session time suggests the game does not have the potential to be a Hit. Following charts will give an idea on how these can be analyzed:

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6. User Acquisition – One way to acquire new users is to study how existing users found the game, whether through paid advertisements, organic search, in-app referrals or word of mouth. People are drawn to different kinds of game through and because of different reasons, and it is useful to know the best way to reach your target audience.

Following Metrics can also be very crucial ti understand the virality of game:  Viral K Factor (How much viral our game is going) and  Viral Cycle time (How much time an invitee takes to try the game after receiving invitation)

7. User Experience – To understand the User’s Happiness, Disappointment, Suggestions or Bug reports, platforms like social media, Game forums and feedbacks can be analyzed.

8. Average revenue per User – People engagement is the first step of success for a game to be a hit but until the revenue is being generated, the purpose of the huge investment made by the company is not achieved. This metric gives an idea about whether the users are willing to buy Gold Coins or spend Real money on this game. Or are they just contented with playing the Free Trail only. And what amount does an average user is ready to pay. This is one of the very important metric as it represents the potential of a game in numbers.

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References: 1. Market Research by Gartner (http://www.gartner.com/resId=2606315)
(http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2614915)

2. RNCOS Market Research

(http://www.rncos.com/Report/IM288.htm)

3. Reliance Entertainment

(http://www.relianceentertainment.net/)
(http://www.reliancegames.com/)

4. IamWire article

(www.iamwire.com/mobile_market_survey)

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