The story of Fatal Fight started in 2015. The time when going
global and having 5 million downloads on Google Play Store seemed
to be a dream of every game developer.
In this article, I will talk about the way we converted the dream
into our actual reality. To make it super understandable, find a
guide below where I will cover all the stages of development of
Fatal Fight and even more.
Research
The idea of Fatal Fight hasn't just come from nowhere. Before
understanding what game to develop, we needed to research what are
the current gaps in the mobile games market. And, to come to this
point, we took several steps.
First, we analyzed what are the most searchable mobile games in the
Google Play Store. It turned out, the top 3 mobile games that users
were looking for were the following:
- Puzzle Games
- Car Games
- Fighting Games
Here we narrowed down our research. We were playing most downloaded
games from each category to figure out if those games meet users
needs while trying to answer what kind of challenges they have with
those games.
As a result, Puzzle and Car Games had a wide range of mobile games
with pretty nice UI/UX design and other characteristics. However,
during the testing of the fighting games, the picture was quite
different.
We were surprised by the fact that we could not find any proper
games with satisfactory features. And I believe, not only we but
also the dozens of users who were craving for favorable experience
while playing a fighting game.
While asking ourselves the question Why? we found out that the main
reason was the gameplay. The interaction between users and the
games was complex. It was not comfortable to manage punching,
kicking, jumping and other possible moves separately or even all at
once on a smartphone.
Well, all of these for us was a subtle reference to a glaring fact.
Fighting Games was not meeting the needs of existing users in the
mobile games market.
Moreover, according to Google Play Store search rankings the
keyword addictive games was one of the top ones. It showed us that
users want something that will excite them to play the game on an
everyday basis. This information was an added value to the
conclusion that we came up with by that time:
We need to create an enjoyable fighting game with
easy-to-use gameplay that will retain users
We wanted to come up with the gameplay that would not be complex
for users in the first place. Once we give ourselves a question
What if we will duplicate the gameplay of a PC fighting game?. This
question seemed controversial, but it was raised because we
explored the One Finger Death Punch PC game.
This fighting game had simple gameplay. You could literally manage
the game only by clicking to the right and left sides of the mouse.
This type of gameplay was an absolute match to what we were
envisioning in our mobile fighting game. As a result, we took it as
a good case practice and added Right and Left taps on mobile as an
alternative to the same thing on the mouse.
Though we were grateful for the gameplay we could apply for our
game, there was nothing else to take as a good case practice from
this game. Even the name of the game was screaming I am the name of
the game that no one ever will remember. We got for ourselves that
probably their marketing strategy was not set up.
We created the prototype of the game to be sure that the gameplay
we created was actually fit users needs. You can see in the picture
that I inserted below that graphics were not the main thing we
wanted to test there, the main focus of ours was to understand
either the interaction between users and the game itself is
comfortably managed.
"
Winning the Google Play Store Optimization
Naming is another important point to take into account while
developing a mobile game. It needs to be easy to remember and
tailored to Play Store Optimization. The reason why we named our
game Fatal Fight was the popular game Mortal Kombat. Yes, the game
that won the admiration of billions was an inspiration for us in
many ways.
Back then (in 2015 for those, who might have forgotten) there was
no mobile version of Mortal Kombat. However, again the keyword
Mortal Kombat had high rankings in Google Play. This means a lot of
people were searching for this game on mobile but could not find
it.
The truth is: If SEO (or Play Store Optimization) cannot find the
exact keyword it always looks for synonyms.
Based on that, we decided to use synonyms for the words Mortal and
Combat and combine them. And eventually Fatal Fight naming was
created.
It meant to us that the audience that was looking for Mortal Kombat
would find the Fatal Fight in the first pages on Google Play Store.
It was a huge thing that we explored. Felt like a big
responsibility at some point, we did not want to disappoint the
Mortal Combat lovers, but to surprise them with a universal mobile
fighting game in all senses.
Another thing that was inspired by Mortal Combat was the graphics.
We were encouraged by some heroes such as Lui Kang. Raiden, Kung
Lao, etc. in our game as well. It was one of the ways we could meet
the expectations of Mortal Kombat lovers who were actively
searching for this game online in the mobile version.
Once finished with all that, we had one aim We want to go
global.
Soft-launch
Before opening up to the whole world, we made a soft-launch.
Soft-launch is testing your product in a market that you are not
really interested in. The reason is building up a feedback loop
where you get the reviews from the users while developing the
product according to the users needs.
Another thing that needs to be tracked during this period is the
following key metrics in the Play Store:
- LTV Lifetime Value
- ARPU Average Revenue Per User
- ARPPU Average Revenue Per Paying User
LTV metrics is the one that evaluates the average revenue that the
user brings throughout its lifespan. Returning users to your app
(in other words those who do not delete games right after the first
try, but in long-term perspective consistently being involved with
the game) are in the interests of the Play Store. Active users who
constantly use the app bring the revenue due to the advertisement
featuring in the apps through AdMob (which is the product of Google
too). This is where the increment of ARPU metrics happen. By all
means in the same way it also influences the AVPPU metrics. While
tracking these metrics, we could evaluate whether we are developing
the game in the right direction. The better metrics, the higher
probability that your app will appear on the first page of Google
Play Store.
We launched the game in Azerbaijan where we aimed to get as much
feedback as possible. This was the way we wanted to fix all the
bugs that they could face and be better prepared for the market
that we consider as a target one. As a result, we fixed all major
bugs in the app and got a 4.8 mark in the Play Store.
The soft-launch stage could finish there, but no, it did not. We
entered another alternative market Russia. The different cultures,
possible different habits of the users, and other factors made us
understand that we need to try soft-launch in a new country.
Another reason behind this was the scale. In Russia in 2015, the
number of smartphone users was around 51.3 million people. We
considered this market as a good platform where we could test our
app.
In a few weeks, after launching the game in the new market, we
started to receive negative reviews while losing the traffic. All
of them was regarding one thing:
Most of the Russian users did not have a Facebook account where
they needed to invite their friends or were not willing to pay $1
(one of these was required to proceed to pass to the next stage
once they reached the 10th stage).
It made us understand that we need to come up with something
universal in this stage of the game. We replaced Facebook
invitations to gain 30 starts during the first 10 stages and be
able to pass to the next stages once reached the 10th one kind of
solution.
As a result of all these procedures with soft-launching, we got
pretty high metrics in the Play Store that impacted our Play Store
Optimization. We appeared on the first page of the Play Store.
Google Play Store is giving you a rate based on the countries that
you already launched the app before. If you soft-launched the
mobile app in specific markets first and got good marks from the
users it equals the fact that when you will launch the game for the
global market it will already have high Google Play Store rates.
That was something that was supporting our vision.
Wise Choice of Operating System
You might notice that so far in the article I was mentioning
everything about Android and its Play Store. And that was not an
accident.
Usually, developers first launch mobile apps on IOS OS. The
argument behind it is that the majority of people are IOS users or
the purchasing power of this particular segment is higher rather
than the one that Android users have. We questioned this
understanding because for us it seemed like a myth.
We compared the metrics Average Revenue Per Paying User and Average
Revenue Per User
Besides. For both operating systems it was the same amount. In our
case, the weight of Fatal Fight was heavy and would only work on
flagship smartphones that anyways cost a lot.
Besides that, we had several other reasons why we consciously
choose Android over IOS:
Market Share. Sensor Tower reports that the Google Play
Store pulled in approximately 75.7 billion first-time apps
installed worldwide in 2018. Comparatively, the App Store only
drove 29.6 billion.
Fast process. The updates on Android are being approved
faster than on IOS. When giving our first build to IOS it took the
game 3 months to be added to the App Store.
The difference in algorithms. Google Play Store is more
generous with organic traffic. If you have built a great app, it
will reward you with organic traffic. However, in IOS this picture
differs. You need to buy traffic for money. For a long time, making
apps popular through incentivized traffic was the leading strategy
for Apple App Store. It involves some negatives including low
lifetime value for the users. When users are incentivized by a
reward, they are more likely to install your app without actually
wanting it. This often makes it easier for them to uninstall your
app after a few days. We wanted users to authentically choose us.
Users who choose to involve themselves with the app due to personal
interest was the priority both for our team and apparently for
Android. This is why we love Google Play Store over Apple App
Store.
Going Global
When we finally published Fatal Fight on IOS, Apple featured us in
the Top new games'' category. It was not just a matter of luck. The
game was developed using the Unity 3d engine, so we were using the
same code for both platforms. The secret was the whole journey that
this product passed with Android. The huge number of available
devices in Android OS allowed us to face a variety of bugs and as a
result, we have launched a polished product in the App Store.
Famous British blogger Deji also featured the game in his Paintball
Challenge video on YouTube. Right after that, we were on top
rankings in the USA and UK.
Now when we were in both stores and going global consequently our
aim was to be the most agile with the feedbacks that we were
receiving to keep the high ratings in both Google Play and App
Store. We were pretty successful in the beginning. However, there
were some bugs we could not fix.
Once we started to receive a series of feedbacks. All of them had
the same issue I cannot hear the music and the sounds users were
reporting. Samsung smartphones were the devices from where the
reports were coming. We had several Samsung devices in the house.
There were no issues with the sound in these devices. Then we
noticed another pattern. All the feedback was coming from one model
of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2. It turned out, specifically this type of
device was not producing the sound. We bought a Galaxy Tab 2 and
reproduced the bug and as a result, we fixed it and released the
update.
Time passed, and we faced the major crush that came with the new
update we released. All the users of Fatal Fight lost their game
progress. Does not matter the number of stages the user might pass,
it all crashed down.
Imagine losing the progress of a game where you spent your time,
energy, and also money on digital goods. In other words, millions
of users had to give up on the mobile game that already became a
part of their lifestyle.
After 3 years in the market, we sold Fatal Fight to ITech Media
Solutions in Estonia. Later they entered the Chinese market and
released it on taptap.com which was one of the biggest Android
mobile apps markets in the country. Fatal Fight became the number 1
most downloaded app on taptap.com.
This long journey with Fatal Fight made me face the major issues
when it seemed that all the risks were minimized. While reflecting,
I figured out that if there could be any platform where all the
types of devices would be available for testing, any game would
succeed.
The realization was a turning point for me and an
inspiration for my next startup.
I have built Buglance to help other developers to release better
mobile apps. It includes a network of 50k testers worldwide
representing 10k+ unique devices. Here you are free to choose the
type of device, country, demographics to test your app to make sure
it works best for your audience. In other words, we built a product
that could save Fatal Fight.