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A monthly look at the best examples of IP licensing in video games and the latest news on collaborations, brand partnerships and in-game events.
What makes a great Barbie game? Toy maker Mattel has been doubling down on its video efforts following recent IP integrations in major games such as Forza Horizon and Roblox, but the recent announcement of a new Barbie game, Barbie Project Friendship, could become Mattel’s next big hit if it wins over fans on 25 October. Does this co-developed game for PC and console have what it takes to trump Barbie Dreamhouse Tycoon in Roblox?
Life in plastic is fantastic, but what about life as a celebrity in a mobile game? We used Sensor Tower to explore the weird and wonderful world of celebrity mobile games and discovered plenty of sleeper surprises. Who would have thought that a Gordon Ramsay mobile game released in 2020 is making more money than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League on Steam?
Finally, we take a look back at the history of porting PC and console games to mobile after recent reports of Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding not being the hits that people were expecting on iOS. What are the wider lessons to be learned here? Would license holders (game studios) get better value exploiting their IP through IP integrations in existing mobile games rather than porting AAA experiences onto mobile?
Find all of these stories below, along with the latest news on collaborations, partnerships, and live events from the worlds of licensing and video games.
Ever since the plastic icon made her video game debut in ‘Barbie’ on the Commodore 64 in 1984, more than 60 licensed Barbie games have been released across various platforms. Mattel hasn’t been too picky with who’s worked on what over the years, with more than 20 development studios working across the IP, each with its own idea of what an ideal Barbie game should look like.
While most of these games have focused on decoration or make-up mechanics, we’ve also seen Barbie games built around sports, sim management, music, racing, and puzzle mechanics. Some of these games have sold well, such as Barbie Fashion Designer, the ninth best-selling PC game of 1996 in the UK. Others have performed relatively poorly, such as Barbie Island Princess on the PS2, which was panned by critics for its short completion time (under an hour) and general lack of depth.
Of course, the video game industry has greatly changed since the golden age of licensed PC and console games in the ‘90s and ‘00s. Games are more expensive to make, and studios are finding it increasingly difficult to recoup licensing costs and make a profit in a market as competitive as the global video game industry.
Mattel has even switched up its licensing strategy for Barbie in recent years, favoring IP integrations and partnerships with the likes of Forza, Candy Crush and Xbox over new video game experiences – only one new licensed Barbie game, Barbie Color Creations, has been released in the last five years.
There’s perhaps a good reason for that. Mattel has four live-service mobile games based on the Barbie IP that are still incredibly popular, no doubt helped by the overwhelming success of the 2023 Barbie film. These four games amassed nearly 2 million downloads in July and have more than 750k daily active users.
While Barbie is performing well in the mobile market, there’s work to be done on PC and console. The recent announcement of Barbie Project Friendship is part of Mattel’s broader ambitions to broaden the appeal of Barbie video games to the older audiences that engaged with the film. Mattel’s Head of Business Development and Digital Gaming, Erika Winterholler, reiterated this to IGN when she said: “Barbie is for everyone.”
Barbie Project Friendship is an adventure game where players restore a run-down community center, with gameplay mechanics similar to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing New Horizons on the Switch, where players improve their Island and home. Sales of New Horizons surpassed Nintendo’s expectations due to its virality amongst older female players who had never experienced the franchise before. Hence, a Barbie game with similar mechanics stands a good chance of success if it can win over a similar audience, especially if it takes lessons from the success of Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon on Roblox, which has had more than 265m lifetime visits since it launched.
Barbie Project Friendship is being developed through its ongoing partnership with Outright Games, a studio best known for licensed games based on Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol. The studio’s experience working on licensed games will benefit Barbie Project Friendship as long as there’s enough to satisfy older fans.
In addition to Barbie Project Friendship, Mattel is working on another “mass market Barbie game” for mobile in partnership with Rollic and Zynga, two of the biggest names in mobile. As the release mentions: “Mattel’s ongoing expansion of its licensed digital games portfolio is part of a strategic initiative to bolster its digital games business.”
So far, so good. Mattel is establishing the Barbie IP as a major player in the console space, proving that a calculated strategy and partnerships with credible developers can help IP-based video games still find success in a crowded market.
Celebrities have been licensing their IP for mobile games since the dawn of mobile gaming. The market for mobile games based on celebrity IP has given rise to development studios specializing in developing these games, such as Glu Mobile. While some of these games can disappear as quickly as they appear on the market, others stick around for decades. Kim Kardashian Hollywood grossed more than $600 million after ten years in the market, and some of the world’s most prominent news organizations reported on its delisting earlier this year.
While most people are aware of the Kim Kardashian mobile game, plenty of other mobile games based on celebrity IP are performing incredibly well, given their time on the market. This proves that celebrity IP is still going strong in 2024, and there are plenty of opportunities for licensors if they work with the right developers.
We used Sensor Tower to spotlight some of the surprise celebrity sleeper hits in the mobile market, providing insight into how these games perform and the secrets to their success.
Gordon Ramsay’s match-3 puzzle game is still proving popular with players even years after its release in 2020. Since then, it’s made just under $10 million from 5.17 million downloads. Last month, Gordon Ramsay Chef Blast made $125k and picked up 15.5k new downloads. And with 7k daily active users, more people are playing this four-year-old mobile game than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League on Steam, which was released this year and cost $200m to develop.
The secrets to Chef Blast’s success? It attaches a clever recipe collection meta to proven match-3 puzzle mechanics, so players are rewarded with new recipes they can try at home for engaging with the game. Revenue mainly comes from the purchase of Coin Packs, which can be used to purchase extra lives, boosts, or moves.
Okay, so it should come as no surprise that one of the biggest South Korean boy bands in the world has an incredibly successful mobile game. But we wanted to highlight that there’s still a large market for games based on major bands and artists outside of the traditional rhythm game mechanics you might associate with them.
HYBE’s mobile game has made more than $30 million from eight million downloads since its release in 2022. Similar to Gordon Ramsay Chef Blast, its match-3 gameplay mechanics might be to thank for that!
PewDiePie’s mobile game is still netting the influencer an average of $40k every month, despite being last updated in 2022. PewDiePie Tuber Simulator is a tycoon game where players build a vast YouTube empire while collecting items and upgrading their studio. The game’s monetization comes from in-game currency purchases which are used to speed up the process of upgrades.
PewDiePie Tuber Simulator has made more than $13.1 million from 38.5 million downloads since its release in 2017.
Recent mobile ports of AAA video games such as Resident Evil VII, Resident Evil 4 Remake and Death Stranding have bombed, according to reports. At the time of writing, Resident Evil VII has made just over $40,000 in one month after launching on iOS, as Apple plans to make AAA games a reality on its mobile devices through Game Porting Toolkit 2, software that makes it easier for AAA developers to port their games to mobile.
It’s worth mentioning that it’s hard to definitively call such ports flops or failures without knowing how much they cost to port, and this information isn’t publicly available. Similarly, we don’t know (and wouldn’t be surprised) if Apple was subsidizing some of the development costs to port these games over so it could position iPhone devices as a platform for AAA experiences. These are all subjective takes, and everyone has their own opinion on the performance of these recent ports, from inaccessible touch-screen control schemes to overpricing for the mobile market.
That said, $40,000 in one month for a major mobile game port like Resident Evil VII isn’t great, especially with 80k downloads as it means the conversion rate to the full paid experience was around 25% (these AAA ports are free to download so players can experience a small portion of the game before paying to unlock the rest).
Some important context here: AAA games have been getting mobile ports since 2013 (ish), but these ports have been older games from the 360/PS3 era. There’s an interesting debate waiting to be explored here about the reception of AAA games on mobile, and if studios might be better off making mobile adaptations of their IP or integrating it into existing mobile games to keep up their presence in the mobile market. So let’s explore it!
We used Sensor Tower to analyze the performance of nearly 40 AA and AAA ports, and 10 mobile game adaptations (new mobile games based on AAA IP).
You can find the full link to the data here, along with our thoughts below:
There are significant differences in conversion rates between some games. Death Stranding and Resident Evil Village are both priced at $39.99, but Death Stranding made more revenue from 14,500 downloads than Village did from 720,000 downloads! This is open to interpretation but could suggest that some game genres and mechanics (such as Village’s over-the-shoulder third-person shooter) aren’t suited for iOS unless you’re playing with a controller.
Here are some of our other favorite brand collaborations, licensing deals and partnerships from the last month.
And in other news…
