The amount of money being spent on Raid has become a meme with numerous youtubers being paid to push it, using the same scripts etc. "Have you heard about Raid: Shadow Legends....?". A couple have also mentioned they reckon its the biggest ad spend ever for a mobile game, and Raid is the biggest youtube ad spender over recent months.
The revenue is there, despite it being in your face ads and pay to win. Raid generated USD110m in revenue in FY19, and it launched in Feb, which means only 8 months contribution. (9% of digital revenue)
Apparently it isn't at break even, which means they've probably spent over US100m on UA over last year. The strategy seems to be paying a lot of money to expose it to as many people as possible, capturing high value players who make it a habit, then turning off UA and collecting the cash from people hooked and/or facing a feeling of sunk cost on the cash already invested.
The whole design of the game centres around 'pulling' characters out of a portal to battle with, and the random nature of this is a gambling element, as you need to pay for the best 'shards' (crystals) to have a varying CHANCE at the best characters. Eg, one crystal buying one 'pull' and the better the crystal the better the pull. The battle system is also just turnbased chancy clicking.
Ethics aside, the wall of money ALL has been able to throw at this is a competitive advantage. Domimating the mobile strategy/fantasy genre with what is a pretty, yet completely uninspired mobile game.
As a shareholder, given all the investment, the fact that the gameplay is so forgetable seems a waste. It should be a game that is addictive to play, in addition to the obvious strategy of injecting addictive gambling mechanics. Not just the latter.
By creating a pretty game with gambling elements linked to in app purchasers, players get a dopamine hit when paying up and then 'pulling' high value characters, and then naturally crushing other players whom have spent less money.
It's a recipe for success. So long as the regulators don't come knocking.
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