Subway Surfers is the first game whose downloads from Google Play amounted to 1 billion. How did it happen?
Danish runner Subway Surfers has become the most downloaded game on Google Play. This is the first game project in the history of the app store, whose downloads have reached 1 billion. This was announced yesterday, March 15, by SYBO and Kiloo, the developer and publisher of the project.
A key nuance. On the game page in Google Play itself, the counter has not yet moved from the position “from 500 million to 1 billion” to the position “from 1 billion to 5 billion”. Most likely, this will happen only in the coming days.
What kind of game?
Subway Surfers is a traditional three–dimensional runner.
The user plays as a street artist running away from a railway inspector. The player must dodge obstacles, trains rushing at him and collect coins.
The game was released by mobile standards a long time ago. Its release took place in 2012 on the wave of popularity of Temple Run, a pioneer in the genre of three-dimensional mobile runners. Unlike other ideological followers and clones, the project was able to overtake the Imangi development in popularity.
What’s so special about it?
The game had two key innovations.
The first has become the standard, the second is still exceptional for title features.
Firstly, SYBO refused to control using a gyroscope, which was previously used in Temple Run and its imitators. Instead, three tracks were introduced into the game, between which the player swipes the character.
Secondly, an unusual progress system was included in the game.
How many points a player gets for a run directly depends on the player’s level. The higher the level, the faster the user collects points for the same period of time. Thanks to this, the game session time remains constant, but the reward in the form of points increases each time.
The player is given a level for completing every three tasks. The higher the level, the more difficult they are. Due to this, the speed of progress is tied to the real growth of the skill.
What is the secret of continued popularity?
SYBO and Kiloo took the issue of updates very seriously.
And they solved it in a non-standard way.
A classic update in traditional free–play games is the expansion of the library of content and functionality. This often leads to the fact that it is difficult for new players in the old project, no matter how simple it was initially, to figure it out.
The Subway Surfers content library is also growing, but not as actively. But another thing is important: the whole look of the game is completely transformed every month. In January, the player flees from a policeman in Chicago, in February from a mustachioed inspector already in Paris, March he is met by the city of Tokyo.
Each city is a different background, different trains and, of course, new characters available exclusively during this period for purchase. The player cannot choose cities. The city is always the same, but it changes regularly. So the game is constantly perceived as fresh, really updated.
Are we sure we won’t forget about the game in a year?
No one can guarantee this, but most likely we will not forget the game.
2017 was a record year for the game in terms of downloads. If in 2015 the game on iOS and Android was downloaded 350 million times, then in 2017 this figure was 400 million. The game’s audience continues to grow despite its age.
Is 1 billion exactly a lot?
We often write that someone has earned a billion, and someone’s downloads are in the hundreds of millions.
Because of this, it may seem that such a number of downloads is not a very serious event. But this is not the case.
As of fall 2017, only 25 mobile apps have managed to achieve such a number of downloads exclusively on Google Play. You know most of them very well and use them every day: Instagram Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, Skype, and the like. And now they include Subway Surfers.
What’s next?
Despite the fact that SYBO and Kiloo manage to keep attention to the project six years after the release, both in fact remain companies of the same game.
Despite numerous attempts, none of them has yet managed to create even just a successful project (at the same time, all their games are distinguished by a very high level of production and high-quality gameplay, but they “don’t shoot”).
Companies whose well-being directly depends on Subway Surfers’ indicators are trying to get out of the situation by working in three directions. SYBO strengthens the team with game development veterans, hoping that new projects developed under their leadership will be able to put an end to failures. She also plans to turn the game brand into a major franchise with her own series of cartoons. Kiloo is looking for external projects.
