430* Million + Lifetime Revenue; 80* Million + Lifetime downloads
*Source: https://sensortower.com/blog/8-ball-pool-revenue
Ever since its launch on mobile way back in 2010, 8 Ball pool has been a consistent performer on top grossing charts in US and UK app stores. Whilst it did show signs of ageing and slowing down, losing ground to newly sprung sporting rivals like Golf Clash a year back, the relatively recent addition of new features has uplifted the core and meta loops of this iron horse. 8 Ball pool has made up for the age gap and continues to be a dominant force in the sports arcade category.
Game design and UX wise, 8 Ball Pool is a game of excesses - a melting pot of skill and chance based gratification that is apparent in every aspect of the game.. a layered buffet treat approach that monetises well.
But before diving deep, let's first look at the state of the sports games genre on the top-grossing charts.
State of play: Sports arcade & simulation games
In order to correctly categorize sports games, they can be divided into two categories,
Sports arcade: These include games like Golf Clash, 8 Ball Pool, MLB Tap Sports, all of which have core loop based on real-world sports game combined with other state of the art F2P social and meta loops resulting in a casual gameplay experience.
Sports simulation: These include games like Top Eleven football manager, FIFA Manager which focus more on the team management aspect rather than tactical gameplay and leans more towards strategy-based gameplay.
As far as F2P sports games on mobile go, there are plenty of games on app stores but only a handful of these have found notable success and popularity on top-grossing charts
This popularity club includes the likes of Golf Clash (read deconstruct here), Mini Clip's 8 Ball Pool, Madden Football, MLB Tap sports and Top Eleven Football Manager.
Even though the sports category has a lot of potentials and has had a fair amount of success in their yesteryears, it seems to be on a decline in the last 2 years. A handful of titles that have managed to hang on to top 30 - 50 grossing charts have done it on the back of factors ranging from streamlined UX to casualising the core experience (reducing the barrier to entry for casual or non sports playing audiences) and the addition of meta and social loops with a strong emphasis on gacha based systems.
Another notable mention is that the UK market (compared to the US) is a good testbed for finding success and fine-tuning the game early in the sports game category. Both Golf Clash and 8 Ball Pool rose up the top-grossing charts in the UK first in their early days.
It may not be wrong to say: if you are launching a sports arcade/simulation game, breaking into UK top-grossing in soft launch might hold the key to gauge long term success and worldwide potential of the game.
Miniclip: The developer
Before we dive in, let’s take a brief look at 8 Ball Pool's developer Miniclip
Miniclip was founded in 2001 by Rob Small, a young games enthusiast fresh from university with a dream to build the next generation game entertainment company, and Tihan Presbie, an entrepreneur in computerized financial trading.
It started out as a free online games website launched way back in 2001 and is known for having a large and varied collection of flash-based games.
The Tencent Connection
As per information on Miniclip's website, in February 2015 Miniclip received a majority investment from Tencent, the world’s largest games company and 5th biggest global internet business and both the companies are now working together to blend their Western and Eastern expertise.
Infographics above charts Miniclip's impressive journey, from web to mobile!_ *Source Miniclip.Com
Having a solid grip on web based games and with other previously online-only casual game developers like King.com finding immense success on mobile, it made sense for Miniclip to follow suit and launch 8 Ball Pool along with a host of other popular games (Agar.io fame) on mobile.
Since Miniclips games were already popular online, it made sense that they would also gain traction on mobile platforms given that a similar pool of casual players were now also playing on their mobile devices.
Deep dive - 8 Ball Pool
Core Gameplay Pillars: The Recipe for Success
The success of sports arcade and simulation games relies heavily on the following three important pillars:
1) First pillar: Mimic real world mental models. Gameplay simulations and rules need to feel as satisfying as the real world counterpart and more importantly feel skill-based reminding the players of the mental model, nostalgia and rules involved in the real sport. Subconsciously players will always be comparing the experience to challenge, fun and rules of the real world precedent, more so in case of users who at some point indulged or are familiar with the real world sport.
