How the remaster affects the metrics of the game — the experience of the War Robots developer

Dmitry Osipov, the leading project manager of Pixonic, was among the participants of the WN Conference today. He spoke about the creation of the War Robots remaster and its impact on the title metrics.

Dmitry OsipovPixonic released War Robots in 2014.

• To date, the shooter’s audience is 200 million users, MAU keeps around 5 million people, and revenue has reached the $500 million mark.

• As Osipov noted, the game earned well before the release of the remaster. For example, in 2017-2019, the revenue of War Robots exceeded $ 100 million. But over the years of operation, the shooter has become outdated. Although the company did not feel an urgent need for a remaster, it understood that the game was becoming difficult to maintain on the current technological stack. With the help of a remaster, Pixonic would solve this problem and update the life cycle of the title.

• As a result, the company decided to completely update the graphics without touching the core gameplay. During the work with the remaster, the developers have added a number of new technologies to it:

• The Pixonic product rollout was carried out in stages. At first, the company launched the updated War Robots only in the Russian Google Play, and then began to deploy it for other countries.

• In the process, Pixonic had to face problems. The company found that the build size directly affects the conversion rate. According to Osipov, before the remaster, the shooter weighed 800 MB, and after that it was already 2.5 GB. Because of this “weight gain”, the conversion in the game decreased sharply.

• The developers managed to “shrink” the build size to the previous 800 MB, but they had to sacrifice the HD graphics preset. Whereas this was one of the key features of the new version of War Robots.
• During the remaster rollout, the shooter’s monthly active audience reached 180,000 people. Nevertheless, there was no significant growth. Pixonic decided to create a new distribution system. It allowed the user to download not the entire huge client, but only the so—called “packs” with the necessary updates – on average, one “pack” weighed 200 MB. This helped to increase the metrics. For example, the share of users who switch to the first battle after getting acquainted with War Robots in the store has increased.

• Also, the new distribution system allowed developers to release hotfixes for War Robots, bypassing lengthy reviews in app stores. This reduced the amount of lost profits, which, according to Osipov, can reach from several tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• In September, Pixonic returned the HD graphics preset to War Robots. After that, the shooter’s conversion rate increased dramatically.

• “The remaster is a very expensive and long “quality of life update”. Not everyone needs it. It should take time for you to feel the impact of the remaster on your metrics,” Osipov summed up.