+116% revenue from a hero-based competition

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A new competition in Disney Magic Kingdoms shows why you should release content alongside events or features. Season 11 of The Tower Challenge boosted revenue +116% for 16 days by letting players complete challenges to compete against each other and unlock a new hero.

During The Tower Challenge, players select teams of heroes to complete timed challenges. Each challenge has unique requirements that dictate which heroes players can use.

Teams can contain up to five heroes, and the more heroes players use, the more rewards players receive for completing a challenge. Rewards include tokens, points, and items that players can use to unlock a new hero.

Takeaway #1: Release content with events or features that incorporate that content.

Disney Magic Kingdoms builds events and features around content releases by offering challenges that allow players to unlock new heroes—and then having players use those heroes in future challenges. You can see this approach at work in The Tower Challenge as well as the app’s hero mission events, which averaged over +100% revenue across three multi-week events.

This technique is also very effective in the core market: Heroes that were released with features or events averaged a +31% WoW revenue impact compared to just +0.3% WoW for heroes released without them.

Takeaway #2: Reward competitive achievements and individual progressions.

Research shows that combining competitive and non-competitive rewards intensifies engagement in competitions (see the full report for the study). The Tower Challenge achieves this by using players’ points for both a competitive leaderboard and a non-competitive event store. 

Another successful example of this can be seen in Game of Sultans’ Imperial Road (+27% revenue 3Wo3W), which rewarded players for their performance on a competitive leaderboard as well as in two non-competitive progressions.

Video Insights: Using Licensed IP to Generate Downloads

In this week’s video insights, we dive deeper into Cookie Jam’s Family Feud Sweepstakes event—a highly interactive mini-game with licensed content that helped Cookie Jam get featured in a number of categories on the App Store. Watch the video to learn how interactive promotions and novel gameplay can draw in and retain new players.

Download the full Casual Report for our complete analysis, revenue impacts, and other notable releases.