One of the newest mobile gaming apps to hit the global market in June has yielded strong early revenue growth for owner-developer iCandy Interactive (ASX: ICI).
Claw Stars (originally known as Hamstranauts) was launched worldwide on 30 June and raked in $299,570 within its first 14 days on the market.
The return followed the receipt of more than one million pre-orders on AppStore and Google Play.
User engagement rates for the game remain high according to iCandy, with a Day-3 retention rate of 25%.
A January early access trial of Claw Stars in collaboration with Google Play demonstrated a retention rate of 46% on the first day through to 18% one week later.
Masketeers comparison
The latest figures have been compared to iCandy’s hit product Masketeers: Idle Has Fallen, which brought in $265,000 over the first two weeks and had a Day-3 retention rate of 20%.
The single-player game recorded a comparatively lower early access trial retention rate of 37% on the first day through to 8% on day seven.
It also racked up significantly less pre-orders than Claw Stars.
Masketeers hauled in a generated revenue of $1 million just 63 days after its October launch, representing the fastest growth on record for an iCandy game.
Retention explained
The day retention rate is used as a measure of how engaging and addictive a mobile game can be to its audience.
It seeks to create a standard benchmark to determine the proportion of gamers who return to a game within a specified time period after installation.
According to iCandy, retention rates are closely watched by mobile gaming industry analysts as potential early indicators of a game’s future monetisation metric.
Interactive game
Claw Stars relies on player-to-player interactivity and is the first iCandy game to be multi-player driven.
Users can download and play the game for free, with the company generating income from in-app purchases and advertising.
iCandy said it was confident Claw Stars had the potential to emerge as one of its best performing titles.
