French mobile developer Kilosaurus and publisher What Games had published the hyper-casual game Fluffy Fall back in 2017 and it was a big success. To take the game’s success to the next level, they published the game in China—where it was not a hit. They quickly realized they needed a partner who knew the Chinese market inside out. So they partnered with us at JoyPac.
Fluffy Fall
What(games)
WHAT(Games) is located in Paris, and specialises in making casual hit games.
“Being relevant in China compared to the west is a completely different question. We didn’t have that capacity, we didn’t have knowledge and so we decided to search for a publisher who had.”
Matthieu Brossard, Publishing Director at WHAT(games)
With our help, the same game that had failed initially became a big hit in China. It topped the charts and found a 25% boost in its revenue.
Here’s the story of how we did it.
Fluffy Fall is a hyper-casual and casual non-stop falling game. The player controls an adorable creature called a fluffy—swiping their screen to gravitationally guide their fluffy past various obstacles. Once the player reaches 100 coins, they can unlock a new, equally adorable fluffy.
What Games published Fluffy Fall in the western markets with great success. It was featured multiple times on the IOS and Android stores. It got good reviews, was downloaded over 10 million times, and made strong profits. Along with its cute, colorful style, all these factors meant it had a great shot at being a hit in China.
There was a shift happening in China's market. In the past, Chinese players had mostly focused on hardcore and mid-core titles. The Chinese market had plenty of these, and they were already perfectly tailored to their player base. So western developers trying to break in were faced with an already saturated market they were ill-suited to serve.
But when hyper-casual games suddenly exploded onto the scene, there weren’t many Chinese game developers who specialized in this new genre. With the rapid output of high-quality hyper-casual games in the west, Chinese players had a new interest in what the west had to offer.
The gaming industry (and culture in general) in China is very different to the western way.
What Games initially published Fluffy Fall in China themselves. But much like the falling fluffies in their game, they were quickly facing a lot of different obstacles.
“When we were self-publishing in China, we could do all the basic elements like translation and applying for a license. But we had no way of understanding the audience. We didn’t know which channels they were using, which websites they were using, or how to create user acquisition assets that would suit them. We needed completely different marketing to what we had in the west”
Matthieu Brossard, Publishing Director at WHAT games
We knew Fluffy Fall could find immediate success in China—if it was marketed, monetized, and styled to appeal to Chinese players.
We made several changes to the game before relaunching it:
At JoyPac, we have offices in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Japan, and Beijing.
At our Beijing office, we have Chinese-speaking industry experts to be our ‘boots on the ground’. They deal with the Chinese businesses and authorities, feeding accurate information back to Copenhagen.
And through our Copenhagen office, our partners can speak (in English) to our publishing experts to get all the information and updates they need.
This setup is the key to giving western publishers all the insight and access they need in the Chinese market—but without having to navigate an unfamiliar language and culture.
“We really liked the approach of having a team in China that specializes in that market and one in the west to maintain a relationship with us. We don’t speak Chinese, so we found it much easier to have JoyPac as an intermediary.”
Matthieu Brossard, Publishing Director at What(games)
Weeks after its rerelease, Fluffy Fall was in the top 30 most downloaded games in China.
And the difference soon showed in the game’s profits.
“After JoyPac republished the game in China, we noticed the revenue coming from this market was about 20-25% of how much this game was making in that year. This was much higher than when we were self-publishing.”
Matthieu Brossard, Publishing Director at What(games)
To answer this question, we’ll hand over to Matthieu:
“We enjoyed communication while working with JoyPac. They’ve been sharing all the data in the Chinese market and were able to understand the APAC market from that. We already knew how people behave and act in the game in the west, so to learn and understand how the Chinese players behave and compare that to the west was very useful for us.”
“So for other publishers or developers who want to enter the Chinese market, I would definitely recommend working with JoyPac—mainly because we were so satisfied with the communication we had. It’s hard to understand what’s happening inside the Chinese market, so having a partner that knows that information is really helpful.”
45+
Games launched since 2018
10
Games in top 50 in Asia
75+
Total downloads of our games
7B+
Sessions played in our games goes here
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