Postmortem World Building

Postmortem:
Crafting Your Success in

World Building Games
Sebastien BORGET
COO / Co-Founder at
Who are we?
Mobile Game Studio Founded in April 2011
4 co-founders 25 Employees
All french  San Francisco / Buenos Aires
4 Games Released
2 scheduled for 2014 10 Millions Players
World Building Games?
The World Builder game category begins in 2010 with Minecraft – a type of game
where players create and share their own virtual worlds in pixels.
Market Size = 200M players - $500M USD revenues in 2013

Our Most Popular Title
The Sandbox is a world-builder simulation game
with touch controls. Craft amazing worlds, create
pixel art, chiptune music, contraptions, electric
circuits or just play with physics.
• 10 million downloads
• 300,000 players everyday
• 550,000 Worlds shared
• 400,000 Facebook fans
Top World Builder Games
Almost only Premium titles, with few exceptions

Some Numbers
Minecraft:
● 7th in App Store Top Grossing during all year 2013
● 33M copies have been sold across all platforms
● iOS version generated $1M USD on Dec. 25th 2013
Some Stats in US only App Store (mid-Feb 2014 estimates by ThinkGaming)
App Name Daily Installs Top Grossing Rank Daily Revenue
Minecraft Pocket Edition 21,460 #19 $48,963
Survivalcraft 2,857 #109 $9,875
Terraria 1,677 #121 $8,989
The Sandbox 13,155 #223 $3,829
Eden World Builder 1,497 #223 N/A
Junk Jack X 487 #282 $1,701
The Blockheads 12,865 N/A N/A

Alien Life Elements 400,000 Fans
250,000 Fans
> 9M
Robots Element
200,000 Fans > 8M Retro Gaming
Zombies Element Elements
100,000 Fans > 7M 300,000 Fans
1 Year Anniversary
50,000 Fans on Facebook
> 6M
Launch on
Google Play > 5M
> 4M
Humans Element
> 2M
What can I share with you?
Simple Facts
- Marketing Team =
• 1 Community Manager
• Myself (not even full-time)
- Average Organic to Paid Users ratio = 95%
- Monthly Marketing Budget = $10K USD max
- Indies don’t have money, but creativity and

time!
Let’s Get Started!
Multiple Strategies
How-To Craft your Success to the Top!
- Understanding Target Audience
- Community Management
- User-Generated Contents
- Cross Promotions
- App Updates
- Multi-Platforms Support
And many more! (that it would need a full day to talk about )
- PR
- Core Virality (K-Factor)
- Word of Mouth
- Paid User Acquisition
- Search Engine Optimization (ASO)
- Apple/Google Featurings
- Etc.
The Toolbox (SDKs)
Analytics or
Social Media
User Acquisition Tracking or
Cross-Promotion
Virality
Going Further or
(optional)
Who are my players?
Geeks and Hardcore players of course!
Still sure about that?
Results of a study conducted on 4,800 Minecraft players:
90% Male
Over 60% are <= 24
Food for thought?
How do I adapt
to my core
audience?
Know your Users Better!
What other (similar) games do they play at?
What are the Demographics of your fan base?

Community Management
Community Management
- Facebook Page with regular updates (banners,
announcements, posts etc.) – 400,000 FANS
- Twitter Feed with fun facts
- Official Game Forum to answer questions:
http://forum.thesandboxgame.com
- Organize regular Contests with Prizes (real or in-
game)
- YouTube Channel: 160 videos – 1.6M views in total!
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSandboxGame/
- Feature the TOP of your players’ creations (Daily
screenshot on FB / TW + Weekly Best Of Video on
YouTube)
- Answer Support Emails!
Facebook Page
Be FUN and ORIGINAL!
Facebook Page
Reward players regularly with FREE Describe the new features… Ask players what they want 
contents Make sure players try them!
Facebook Page
More Tips, courtesy of Facebook 
Fans Fans Fans
It will be Party Time!

(200% guaranteed)
User-Generated Contents
Turn your players into your evangelists!
Let your players take screenshots, brag about their scores
or achievements on all social networks!
IT WORKS EVEN BETTER WITH VIDEO REPLAYS!

2 solutions to consider:
or
Cross Promotion
Direct Cross-Promotion with other games allows you to:
- Free exchange with other developers
- Ability to choose where your game is promoted
- Control the price you pay for new players
Is it too good to be true?

Now, it’s time to make friends 
The beginning of a long journey…
App Updates
Updating keep your players engaged.
An app which has not been updated over the last 3 months looks like dead!
App Updates
Check your priorities but don’t forget:

Any update should bring value to your players!
New Contents
New Features
Bug Fixes
Marketing Features
Various SDKs
Multi-Platforms Support
You need to get where the players are 
The more platforms you can be available onto, the better!
for today 
Do you have any questions?
It’s never too late for asking!

Thank you!
Sébastien Borget
[email protected]
skype: borgetsebastien
www.pixowl.com
Thank you!
http://www.thesandboxgame.com/publishing
We want to share our success and help indie developers!

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Postmortem:

Crafting Your Success in

Mobile Game Studio Founded in April 2011

Market Size = 200M players - $500M USD revenues in 2013

Almost only Premium titles, with few exceptions

Survivalcraft 2,857 #109 $9,875

Terraria 1,677 #121 $8,989

The Sandbox 13,155 #223 $3,829

Eden World Builder 1,497 #223 N/A

Junk Jack X 487 #282 $1,701

The Blockheads 12,865 N/A N/A

- Average Organic to Paid Users ratio = 95%

- Monthly Marketing Budget = $10K USD max

- Indies don’t have money, but creativity and

User Acquisition Tracking or

Results of a study conducted on 4,800 Minecraft players:

What are the Demographics of your fan base?

It will be Party Time!

IT WORKS EVEN BETTER WITH VIDEO REPLAYS!

Is it too good to be true?

Check your priorities but don’t forget:

It’s never too late for asking!

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