Animoca extends global reach and forecasts ‘extraordinary’ revenue performance
Game developer Animoca Brands (ASX: AB1) has announced another product launch into the mobile games market, as part of its staged distribution strategy.
On this occasion, Animoca has launched its “highly successful” Crazy Defense Heroes iOS game into the Americas (North, Central and South America) and Europe.
Animoca said that the game’s commercial performance has “exceeded and continues to exceed management’s expectations”, with the franchise generating A$1.26 million in the first month since the launch of Crazy Defense Heroes in January.
Animoca also said that the game has quickly assumed a leading position as one of the highest earning titles in its growing portfolio, to the extent that Animoca will provide “an extraordinary update on the revenue performance of the franchise in the near term”, at the end of the March quarter.
Keeping calm over Crazy Defense Heroes
Crazy Defense Heroes is a mobile game for iPhone and iPad, free to play with optional in-app purchases available from Apple’s App Store.
The sequel to Crazy Kings, it blends the deck building mechanics of a collectable card game with suspense and strategy elements of tower defence. The game also contains extended RPG character and equipment systems, overlaid by a fantasy storyline with over 500 levels of innovative gameplay.
Crazy Defense Heroes was originally launched on the App Store on 8 January 2018 in a limited Asia Pacific release and quickly established itself as Animoca’s leading commercial products if measured by revenue generation.
Barely a few weeks later in February, Animoca expanded the availability of the game to include Africa, Australia New Zealand and the rest of Asia.
Today’s supplementary launch expands the availability of one of Animoca’s most popular games to over 80 new markets including Canada, the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Russia.
Later this year, Animoca plans to launch the game in the Middle East, thereby further expanding its coverage, broadening its addressable audience and providing additional revenue opportunities for Animoca.
Android development
In addition to its primary iOS focus, Animoca says it is working on an Android version of Crazy Defense Heroes, to be completed in Q3 2018.
Once complete, the game will gain exposure to a mobile base about seven times larger than the current iOS market.
Latest estimates show that the global Android market share is currently 87.7% while iOS wields 12.1%, according to data obtained from Statista.
In order to obtain market traction with new audiences, Animoca said it is “negotiating deals to leverage Crazy Defense Heroes by ‘re-skinning’ it for popular intellectual properties in order to create new branded products based on its successful title.
Fuelling future growth
In addition to its strong metrics with respect to mobile games, Animoca acquired a 60% stake in Fuel Powered, Inc. from Lions Games Limited for an upfront cash consideration of A$752,263.
The deal grants Animoca Brands a controlling stake in Fuel Powered, a US-based developer of blockchain based gaming services and provider of a cloud-based features-as-a-service platform that maximises bottom-line results and Life-Time-Value (LTV) for game publishers through artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Under Animoca’s exclusive CryptoKitties distribution deal with Axiom, it is due to receive a share of revenue generated by CryptoKitties in Greater China and is entitled to worldwide royalties from Momo Wang’s designs and associated transactions under the artist series.
To further progress the development and expansion of CyrptoKitties, Axiom Zen has formed a separate entity and successfully raised US$12 million through a prominent New York-based venture capital firm, Union Square Ventures.
The funding round also included a number of strategic investors, including Coinbase Inc. founder Fred Ehrsam and AngelList CEO Naval Ravikant.