"Understanding that our games bring people together is incredibly inspiring," says Diana Weng from MYTONA about the results of 2024
Continuing our review of the year 2024 with gaming teams and industry experts. Next up is an interview with Diana Weng, Chief Business Officer at MYTONA.
How was the year for the company? What achievements would you like to highlight?
The year 2024 was transformational for our team. Recent years have been challenging, especially while working with a large distributed team, which required us to develop effective remote work processes. We focused on improving processes both in development and management, enhancing transparency, and updating the company's mission and values. Special attention was given to our internal cultural code, the MYTONA Code, which has become the foundation for future growth and achieving our goals.
Speaking of achievements, let me start with the successes of our projects.
Last year, our iconic XO project, Seekers Notes, celebrated its ninth anniversary and continues to be among the top three revenue-generating games in its genre, which is a significant success in the mobile games market. This year, Seekers Notes was chosen as the "Game of the Day" in the App Store in nearly 100 countries, for which we are especially grateful to our partners at Apple.
Seekers Notes
Cooking Diary, turning six years old, also consistently ranks in the top 3 games of its genre and rightfully serves as a trendsetter in its field. However, in recent years, the game faced some challenges with declining revenue, and the team worked extensively on restoring key metrics. In 2023, we identified the causes of this behavior and made necessary adjustments to the game. As a result, in 2024, we transitioned into a phase of gradual growth and are actively exploring new development paths for the project. For instance, this spring, the game launched its own webshop with unique offers and customization, whose share in revenue doubled over this time. Also, this fall, the team managed to reduce loading time by 21.6% on iOS and 42.4% on GP, making the game more optimized and accessible.
Cooking Diary
We celebrated both projects' birthdays by collaborating with YouTube Premium, gifting our players exclusive free promo codes.
This summer, our new game Chef & Friends, also in the time-management genre, achieved the required metrics at soft launch and became a candidate for global release. The project is showing excellent results in first-day retention and long-term retention. The current ROAS 30d is > 40%. We are now actively working on improving the LTV curve.
Chef & Friends
However, despite a successful start in early 2024, we faced a challenge in further profitability after 90 days. We found the solution in increasing content volume and working on the balance. The hypothesis was correct. By mid-year, we resolved the issue. Consequently, players noted that the game became more engaging, and we observed an increase in monetization metrics. We're now focusing on creating diverse events and improving player social interaction to make the game even more captivating for our audience.
Chef & Friends is a very ambitious project. Even at the soft launch stage, it already gathered millions of fans worldwide, and we are confident that more impressive achievements lie ahead.
Our top-down shooter Outfire, one of the longest in soft launch, also showed remarkable results last year. For our company, this game truly became a long-term project; over the years, it was relaunched and reworked several times, but we believed in it, and the development team never gave up, improving the game with each iteration.
Outfire
In 2024, we set a deadline for the game; we planned to close it mid-year if it didn't show results. However, unexpectedly, as the deadline approached, the project started demonstrating excellent results: the game achieved a record first-day retention growth of 60%, 30-day retention became comparable to our casual projects, and ROAS of the first days was the highest among all our projects.
This is particularly noteworthy, considering the game is not hyper-casual, and these results were achieved thanks to in-game payments. It turns out that everything we did over these years finally bore fruit and showed results. These metrics give us confidence that once we refine the game, it can achieve similar results in subsequent days (d30, d60, and beyond), and we'll be ready to scale marketing budgets.
The current challenge for the game is the insufficient number of heroes, events, and modes, as well as limited content for paying players. These issues remain a priority, and we will actively work on addressing them, focusing on enhancing these aspects.
Additionally, we have several projects in the soft launch and development phases, about which we hope to share news in the near future.
Speaking of achievements, I want to share about our offices.
Today, we have offices in seven countries worldwide. Talking about our main geographic locations, currently, these are New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Kazakhstan.
This year, our headquarters in New Zealand became a finalist of the national Best Places to Work 2024 award.
Thailand, a rapidly developing country with very dynamic energy, hosts a large team of about 200 people.
This year, we opened an office in Bangkok, in the tallest and most modern business center of the capital, One City Centre. Thanks to its convenient location, Thailand has become a primary hub for our offline meetings and quarterly gatherings.
We pay particular attention to our office in Kazakhstan, where many of our experienced developers are concentrated. We actively collaborate with Astana Hub, participate in their events, share expertise, and support the development of the local industry. This year, the team from Kazakhstan helped equip game development classes in several regions and sponsored the international accelerator B8. Now, we have jointly organized an art contest in honor of the professional holidays of 2D and 3D artists, as well as Kazakhstan's Independence Day, to support local talents.
Our distributed team continues to grow each year, now located in 30 countries worldwide. Over this time, we have amassed significant experience and expertise in managing a global team and are working to further enhance the efficiency of our work.
Personal, professional, and team development are core values at MYTONA. We launched the Growth Journey 2024 educational program, implemented the Wellbeing bonus program and the Billion Steps challenge, the proceeds from which will go to charity. We also introduced the Eco Challenge initiative: the team in Thailand cleaned beaches in Phuket, employees in Kazakhstan helped flood victims, and the team in New Zealand supported a rare bird farm — kiwis.
Today, most of our employees are of Senior-level. We are proud of the professionalism and accomplishments of the team. Experienced employees continue to refine their skills, while new Mytonians bring fresh perspectives and energy. We are confident that with such a powerful team, even more opportunities and achievements await us in the coming year.
Seekers Notes
How, in your opinion, has the gaming market situation changed?
The mobile gaming market continues to grow steadily, but very few new hits emerge; growth is largely driven by existing hits.
At the same time, global competition for screen time is intensifying, with mobile games competing not only with each other but also with social networks, streaming services, and other forms of digital leisure.
Particularly noteworthy is the growing popularity of games with social components. Cooperative and competitive formats, as well as the ability to build communities within games, are becoming increasingly demanded.
Cooking Diary
How was the year for the genre in which you operate?
This year was successful for the free-to-play mobile games industry. We see that the market has returned to its usual growth rates, allowing developers to focus on audience engagement.
In 2024, we decided to focus on deeply refining our niche and creating games that become genre leaders. This approach reflects our commitment to "listening" to the audience and considering their needs.
We take pride in our support team that assists and unites players. One bright example is a story from Cooking Diary, where two players met, connected in real life, and got married. Knowing that our projects do not only entertain but also create worlds that bring people together, incredibly inspires us to continue working and evolving.
Outfire
What trends do you expect to see enhanced or emerging in your niche in 2025?
In 2025, we expect an enhancement of trends such as the development of webshops and the diversification of channels.
The growth of mobile games revenue will continue due to new monetization models, such as subscriptions and direct sales, which are becoming an essential part of developers' strategies.
Additionally, players increasingly value transparent and authentic advertising content, making the honest approach in marketing particularly relevant.
Seekers Notes
What are the company's plans for the next year?
When it comes to teams, we see their growth points in increasing work efficiency, improving work processes, and working conditions. We will continue to work on these aspects, aiming to create even more comfortable conditions for employees, as well as enhancing their overall engagement and productivity.
Regarding games, we undoubtedly plan to continue developing our key projects and strengthening new titles.
One of the most important events next year will be the tenth anniversary of Seekers Notes! We plan to organize something special for our beloved players. It is too early to disclose details, but we are sure it will be an unforgettable celebration for our seekers. Stay tuned for updates!
Our flagship project Cooking Diary will continue to develop steadily. It has long become more than just a game; it's a kind of culinary universe. We will continue to expand and enrich the game, making Cooking Diary increasingly unique.
As I mentioned earlier, Chef & Friends significantly improved its metrics in 2024. We see that the game is ready for a global launch. We have set an ambitious goal to position the game in the top 100 in grossing. From early 2025, we will focus on enhancing the game's core mechanics, adding events, and increasing advertising activity.
Outfire also showed excellent results in 2024, so we will lead it towards a global release. The game has every chance of becoming a hit in its genre. We will actively add new content and then intensify promotion.
Our goal for 2025 is to bring Chef & Friends and Outfire to the same top positions as Seekers Notes and Cooking Diary.
Download and play our games, join our warm MYTONA player community! Happy holidays!
Chef & Friends