Chinese view on the success of local merge games abroad

Games with merge core mechanics from Chinese teams are increasingly getting into the top sales. Their box office successes are noticeable not only in their home market, but also in the USA.

Merge County

This was noticed by our Chinese colleagues from Gamelook in the material dedicated to Merge County from the Beijing Microfun.

This is a classic game in the merge-3 genre, strongly reminiscent of such hits as EverMerge and Merge Magic.

The project was released in November last year. And from that moment I managed to:

• earn $9 million (of which $5 million in the USA);
• collect 3 million installations;
• achieve a cumulative ARPU of $2.89 (in the US it is much higher — $5.56).

In addition, the project shows good dynamics:

• its revenue is growing by $500-700 thousand per month;
• at the same time, plus or minus downloads remain at the same level (the purchase, apparently, is carried out carefully, even less than 1 million installations were generated at the release).

Merge County Metrics (Data: AppMagic)
From the point of view of Chinese journalists, the moment is crucial here when a local team follows Western paths (in terms of visual and gameplay) and achieves success in the international market.

The history of Top War from the Hong Kong Topwar Studio is even more vivid. The project also basically uses merge mechanics. However, he is not a clone, but a successful hybrid.

The player builds military bases, like two drops of water similar in style to those in Boom Beach, and then participates in automatic battles. Merge-mechanics are used in the game during the construction phase.

Since the global release back in December 2019, the project:

• earned $459 million (of which $197 million in the US and $50 million in China);
• generated 69 million downloads;
• achieved a cumulative ARPU of $7.06 ($17.81 in the US and $9.24 in China).

Despite the release of two years ago, the project is holding up well at a plateau of $ 20-25 million per month.

Top War Indicators (Data: AppMagic)

According to Gamelook journalists, the success of these games suggests that local Chinese teams can succeed in the Western market. They say it’s not so difficult to work with players from Europe and the USA.

However, for Chinese teams to succeed, it is necessary:

• use the style popular in the games of American and European developers;
• try to avoid a high entry threshold;
• do not use rigid monetization (it is better to use the maximum number of tools).