iCandy launches popular Masketeers on Samsung’s Galaxy Apps store in the US
Masketeers: Idle Has Fallen debuts on Samsung’s Galaxy Apps ahead of busy Christmas season.
Video game publisher iCandy Interactive (ASX: ICI) has made further inroads into the US mobile gaming market with the launch of its latest game on Samsung’s Galaxy Apps store in the US.
In a statement this morning, iCandy Interactive announced it had successfully unveiled its Masketeers: Idle Has Fallen game on Samsung’s online app store ahead of the busiest time of the year for retail sales and video game spending.
The timing of the move is critical for iCandy to maximise the game’s commercial performance with the important Christmas and year-end festive holiday season expected to be even busier this year, especially for online content, as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Just last week, iCandy published an early revenue update regarding Masketeers and said the game set a new company record by generating $1 million in revenue within 63 days.
Masketeers is a role-playing game and was first available on 6 October 2020 via Google Play and Apple’s App Store. The game has proved to be popular and well-received, achieving a 4.5-star average rating from over 30,000 reviews in addition to its healthy revenue figures.
In a bid to extend sales even further, iCandy has now released the game via Samsung’s online platform in the US and hopes it can attract further interest from parallel marketing campaigns.
According to Samsung, its Galaxy Apps store has more than 400 million monthly active users globally – an audience iCandy is keen to tap into over Christmas.
Going global
The US launch of Maskteers on Samsung’s Galaxy Apps could prove to be an important milestone and a major distribution channel that supplements existing sales via Apple and Google’s respective platforms.
To improve the game’s chances of being popular on a global scale, iCandy said it is currently in the “preparation stage” to add multiple language support and expand the current number of countries it can sell the game.
Masketeers is currently available in 70 countries although this figure is expected to rise significantly as iCandy adds more region-specific content, languages and conducts further game development.
According to the game publisher, its prime focus following its US launch will be the world’s second-largest retail market: China. The country recorded almost US$37 billion (A$49 billion) in gaming revenue in 2019 while China’s mobile gaming market is expected to reach 497 million users by 2023.
iCandy said it plans to roll out its Masketeers game via a partnership agreement with a local distributor in China but has not revealed any further details.
“Discussion with a strategic partner for this matter is ongoing and iCandy management believes that it will be in a position to launch Masketeers in China in the near future”, the company said.