Compare the home screen of a phone from today to one from 2014, and you’ll likely spot some ever-present gaming IPs. For more than a decade, series like Angry Birds, Talking Tom, Candy Crush, and Cut The Rope have dominated as hugely popular and successful franchises.
These are games that have become more than a single mobile hit, instead spanning multiple gaming entries, platforms, merchandise, and – on occasion – TV series. While many mobile games seek to license popular entertainment IPs to increase their chances of success, these titles have become IPs in their own right, creating plenty of novel ways for players to engage beyond the core game. Interestingly, a new entry in a series or franchise doesn’t automatically mean the original game is rendered obsolete – in fact, in many cases the original retains its prime spot in the portfolio.
At SuperScale, we canvassed opinions from gamers across the company (so pretty much everyone) to collect five series that we think have fantastic potential to expand into franchises in the coming years.
Traffic Rider/Racer by skgames
Traffic Rider and Traffic Racer have collectively amassed 100s of millions of downloads, impressively so when Traffic Racer was the developer’s debut into mobile gaming. Whilst their names may sound similar, Traffic Rider replaces the top-down car perspective of the first game with a first-person motorbike.
When it comes to popularity, Rider has overtaken Racer with both games sustaining a respectful position on the App Store racing game charts at position 11 and 36 respectively! Players clearly love both skgames’ endless racing titles, and these figures demonstrate how multiple games in a franchise can succeed in tandem. The potential for more games in the series is vast with no end of additional vehicles, tracks, landscapes and camera perspectives to explore.
Among Us by Innersloth
Among Us developer Innersloth is no stranger to spawning multi-game franchises, having released six entries in the ‘Henry Stickmin’ point-and-click series. In September 2020, the Steam version of the game reached 447,476 concurrent players; to say Among Us saw a rise in interest during the pandemic would be an understatement given its earlier peak of around 1,000.
Following the popularity of Among Us, Innersloth has launched its own merchandise store with designs created by independent creators. Collaboration has also been an important part of the game’s marketing, bringing an Among Us emblem to the AAA shooter Destiny 2 and inviting other indie characters into the game in the form of skins.
What’s next for the colorful bipedal blobs? With the PSVR 2 edition released in December 2023, Among Us remains popular with player counts frequently above 10,000. Yet, it’s been more than four years since the game’s popularity count peaked so it could be time to expand the IP beyond the original.
Vampire Survivors by Poncle
Another indie developer seeing success on mobile is Poncle’s ‘Vampire Survivors’ which launched on Steam in 2022, following its itch.io release in 2021. The game quickly made its way to mobile, gaining more than one million players in a week.
When it comes to Vampire Survivors’ future, Deadline says there’s an animated TV show in the works – an impressive feat for an indie studio that started as a solo dev. Poncle is taking a unique approach to expanding its Vampire Survivors IP with the announcement of its ‘experiment’ program in which the studio will “[team] up with other indie devs to work on some VS-adjacent experiments”. Whether this is the creation of entirely new games (or additional cross-IP collaboration as seen with Among Us DLC) is still to be confirmed, but it’s a strong indicator that Poncle is looking to use its IP across new game projects
Coin Master by Moon Active
As a game about coins, it’s fitting that Moon Active’s ‘Coin Master’ has made A LOT of them, reaching more than $3 billion in revenue! Since its launch in 2010, Coin Master has continually seen a steady flow of revenue with gamers continuously coming back for more. With its long-term success and revenue growth in recent years, you may be wondering whether an additional entry in the franchise is needed, but series such as Candy Crush have shown that even hugely-successful games needn’t be cannibalized by further entries.
Moon Active has already expanded the franchise with the launch of Pet Master which paired familiar gameplay with plenty of animals, but there are other places for the series to explore in potential follow-ups – Coin Master in space anyone?
Pocket Trucks by NimbleBit
For our final choice, we’ve selected ‘Pocket Trucks’, a title we created alongside our partner, NimbleBit, using our IP expansion model. NimbleBit’s ‘Pocket’ series has gained millions of installs, featuring titles such as Pocket Planes and Pocket Trains. With a loyal community and plenty of data thanks to our engine SuperInsights platform, we saw an opportunity for an additional entry in the series; borrowing the IP from NimbleBit and taking on the development and marketing costs, while operating a revenue sharing model with the studio.
With the launch of Pocket Trucks: Route Evolution in December 2023, the Pocket series has now hosted planes, trains, and automobiles. And given the success of other franchises like Euro Truck Simulator, we think there’s strong potential to keep on truckin’!
Conclusion:
There’s big revenue potential in mobile gaming franchises. Data.AI insights show how successful franchises can succeed as both original and existing IP. From 2012 to 2022, Talking Tom has held its own against the likes of Disney and Marvel; even gaming staple Mario was no match for Outfit7’s series. There’s a huge opportunity for emerging original IP to become a blockbuster franchise for years to come and, as we mentioned at the start of this blog, new entries needn’t take attention from the original game – attracting new users as well as giving loyal fans more ways to engage.
If you’re interested in hearing about how SuperScale can support your IP expansion strategy, contact us here.
