Brawl Stars Dev Tracker

@AdrianHaggqvist @LanaLC_ 😂😂😂😂

@LanaLC_ "I got kidnapped by El Primo and it felt great."

@Sri_Hellfire Apple announced a small business program - if you make less than 1M USD/year you only pay 15%. There's other exceptions here and there (ex. subscriptions) and some stores (Epic) charge less.

@Sri_Hellfire Server cost varies based on a lot of factors. Some games with high latency tolerance (asymmetrical, turn-based) have a low cost, action games have a high cost.

The nominal platform fee for pretty much all marketplaces is 30% - there's some exceptions, but it's still it.

@Arturo_BS1 Besides - if you have a regular 5M DAU mobile game - if you are midcore - only a small percentage of total player base will watch esports.

So what does the sponsor get out of it? How many eyeballs? For how long? And how does that translate into sales?

@Arturo_BS1 Yeah, sponsorships can offset esports cost - but it's not "free".

First, you'll likely need to build a Business Development team of a few people (which has a cost), partners will have needs and conditions (ex. you need to use device X at worlds).

@Frank_Supercell: Some fixes and some balancing. One buff didn't make it into the notes:

✅ Mandy's delay for longer range was reduced…

Hope this gives you a small insight how game companies operate. That might also explain why companies take games off-line, stop updating or stop their esports efforts (in regions where it's not profitable).

So we need to find the sweet spot, and the only way doing this is to look at a ton of data and keep an eye out on how the community feels. This process NEVER ends.

Managing our in-game economy is a fine balance. Too F2P friendly? Unsustainable. Too harsh economy? Also unsustainable - it's harder to find players who want to stick around (low retention) which leads to higher cost for user acquisition.

We try to strike a good balance between making the game F2P friendly while making it worth our while as a company to keep developing it actively for you.

So when me or people from other games companies talk about the economy of games, that's what we're talking about. Above isn't our specific reality, but the basic assumptions are the same.

To be fair, it's rather unlikely that in above scenario anyone would sign off on esports in the first place, given the unclear return of investment.

Esports would likely be something like 1% of revenue or $80,000/month in our example - I'd be surprised if more than $20,000/month could be made available for price pools - that's $240,000/year including finals, etc.

In all of this there's not even talk or growing the company or creating other games...

You might also run out of cash before you turn a profit = company dies if you can't find further investors/a buyer. Depending from where that money comes from in the first place, there might be angry board meetings pushing you to do things you don't like.

Good luck trying to retain the best industry talent under these circumstances in a hyper competitive market.

In all of this: bonuses are often based on profit sharing. So as long as you don't generate a profit, employees will likely be stuck with their base compensation, company shares aren't worth much if you don't get dividends and you can't sell them.

There's a gazillion other micro things going on ofc. How long to players stick around (retention)? Can you improve spending? Does it simply take 24 months to get the payback from the User Acquisition?

Depending on your cash from initial investments you burn through that until you start to turn a profit once the payback happens or you improve any of the other factors.