Deconstructor of Fun•February 10, 2025•8 min read•1 views
Dylan Tredrea is a product & publishing consultant with over 12 years of experience in mobile free to play games at studios such as Disney, Rovio, Zeptolab, & CrazyLabs. Dark War: Survival’s (DW:S) bold bet—and its emerging success—on ‘more drama’ is an early indication even core audiences are increasingly acquired, retained, and monetized with highly dramatic narratives. With the clear trend of increasing ‘dramatic’ in casual games: it’s time for developers across the industry to ask themselves: is our audience more interested in new gameplay, or new stories?
’ We got to work with professional writers and craft stories featuring iconic characters. After release I was responsible for analyzing churn and sharing the results with the team: the cutscenes were driving users out of the game. The only reliable fix was ensuring they were easily, quickly skippable.
I concluded from this experience: that narrative in mobile free-to-play games was often an immense waste of resources. Players sought progression and accomplishment through compelling gameplay and systems. Increasingly, it seems that is no longer the case!
‘Fake Ads’ as Real Marketing : Fake ads may be distasteful to us as creators, but they solve a real problem for players. A significant, and growing, audience isn’t interested in new gameplay. Dramatic Narratives Drive Growth : Across genres from casual to core, narrative which delivers on this demand for drama is increasingly central to acquiring, retaining, and monetizing players.
Beyond ‘Cutscenes’ : Today’s dramatic content isn’t yesteryear’s skippable cutscenes. Narrative Inherently More ‘UA-able’: UA creatives only have a few seconds to capture the attention of a potential player. Creating gameplay which achieves this- as well as retains and monetizes- is incredibly and increasingly difficult.
Narrative content, on the other hand, is virtually unconstrained. Casual Narrative Trend : The trend is even more evident in Casual gaming. Industry’s Dramatic Turn Perhaps an early sign of the potential for narrative product positioning is the sustained success, at scale of fake ads.
Large, valuable audiences are not interested in finding new games by seeing gameplay. First, they want to know what’s at stake! Marketing, fundamentally, is a promise.
Fake ads promise tension & drama. The game has to then deliver on that promise. Of course there is room in the market for innovation, but the opportunities for gameplay innovation are waning.
’ And for good reason- it’s a great game with incredible design, product, ad monetization, & more execution. But it’s also not even close to the top of the top grossing charts- even with an (appropriate) generous assumption of ad revenue. Dramatic Narrative as Core : The overarching story unfolds in cinematic chapters, with key moments driving player progression and monetization.
). Source: Appmagic DW:S (Probable) Top Grossing Heritage The game officially released by Florere Game out of Hong Kong appears to be the work of the same team behind Last War: Survival and Top War . While Florere Gam isn’t directly linked there are clear indications that the team, technology, and resources behind their titles are shared.
This is similar to how Last War: Survival and Top War were released under different companies but most likely came from the same creators. Last War has been incredibly successful in Western AND Eastern markets, even surpassing Whiteout Survival . However, Whiteout Survival reportedly remains the top-performing game in China.
Top War enjoyed significant success and remains in the top 10 grossing 4X titles long after release in 2019. However, its peak on the iPhone/Games Top Grossing chart was around position #20 and it has been trending downward since mid-2023. S.
iOS Top Grossing "4X" category. Top War , their first success, leaned on generic character designs—arguably inspired by Boom Beach —and minimal storytelling. Last War: Survival growth is solidly centered on hypercasual gameplay- players are oh so carefully introduced to full 4x systems.
The FTUE, however, features a highly dramatic ‘mini narrative’ driving a key conversion event. ) Deconstruction of DW:S’s Drama As 2 & ½ gamers podcast aptly called it: DW:S is almost ‘just Last War with a revamped FTUE. ’If the game continues to scale, these elements are worth deeper analysis.
AI Generated Marketing Even without paid access to advanced tools like sensortower for analyzing ad campaigns the saturation of AI generated content is clear in Facebook Ads Library. It’s likely precisely what you’d expect. The ads deliver a clear promise: high-tension drama.
, iOS). Example UA creatives from FB ads library ASO/App store creatives for Google continue the AI/fake trend, while Apple, presumably due to stricter store policies, features screenshots from the actual game. Gameplay Visually, DW:S ’s presentation of 4X systems looks entirely different, but the core gameplay remains highly similar to its predecessors.
Fans of the genre will recognize this immediately. However, from a player perspective, DW:S stands on its own due to its distinct theme, narrative, and FTUE. Revamped FTUE & Dramatic Key Conversion Events Unlike Last War , DW:S throws players straight into the 4x gameplay.
Most likely, this decision stems from the vastly different audiences coming into the games. Last War featured dramatic characters and narratives to drive key conversion events, but lacked an overall story for the game. In contrast, DW:S opens with cinematics and characters meeting tragic fates.
” Players were motivated to progress through the map, collect wire cutters, and free the woman. DW:S expands this product strategy to drive early conversion significantly. Of course, there’s still an attractive woman- now with even less clothing.
More than that: you’re saving her beloved puppy! Once you rescue the animal by progressing on the saga map (spoiler, turns out to be some giant battle beast now) the animal ends up injured and permanently lays in need of help in the center of your home base until purchased. Who once saved, becomes injured, and the only way to save him is an IAP!
Driving Conversion and Scaling In the current UA environment, early conversion isn’t just good practice—it’s essential. Event-optimized campaigns are especially vital for high IAP genres like 4x. Dark War: Survival, In Summary Dark War: Survival is still scaling and whether or not it gets even close to its predecessors remains to be seen.
Casual ‘Drama’ The trend of successful games with dramatic, narrative product positioning is much clearer to quantify in casual games. Perhaps due to belief in this audience's predilection for soap opera-like content. Casual games have long included visually compelling characters as part of their worlds, if not full narratives unfolding along a saga map.
However, these games typically acquire players through marketing assets showcasing gameplay- though there are many using fake ads as well. What makes these titles ‘gameplay’ focused is player progress and monetization is driven by gameplay, not narrative content. (Players pay extra moves to complete challenges to see new mechanics/puzzles, not progress a story) Narrative-driven games are fundamentally different.
They start with a completely different promise. ” This doesn’t mean the games are of lower quality or less robust—far from it. Number of gameplaye or narrative focused games appearing or growing >10 spots in casual, annual top grossing ranking per Appmagic Methodology Casual titles (as tagged by AppMagic) which have either appeared or grown >10 spots in the top 100 grossing iOS, US chart Narrative games are defined as those which primarily acquire, retain, and monetize players primarily through characters, narrative, and drama.
” Excluded: Social casino as it’s a distinct market. Similarly, niche successes: like children’s games and the New York Times Games App also omitted. Example of data table: Source Using Sensor Tower data to estimate the downloads & revenue of these titles per year shows ‘gameplay’ is still dominating, but narrative is trending upwards and onwards.
However, even including Royal Match, the annual growth rates for downloads & revenue of narrative & gameplay tell two distinctly different stories. And only one of them looks good. Examples from 2024 of ‘drama’ from Marketing->Product Travel Town Merge Adventure Gossip Harbor Seaside Escape Klondike Adventures Additional Case Studies Narrative Incumbent grew with ATT June's Journey (launched April 2021, around the time of ATT) is the dominant title in the hidden object market.
It acquires, retains, and monetizes players primarily through narrative-driven content. Following ATT, the game managed not only to recover its downloads but also significantly grow revenue. This provides further evidence that the post-ATT ad tech ecosystem favors products positioned around strong narratives.
Family Farm’s Pivot to Narrative Family Farm Adventures is another interesting case study. It appears on ‘growing games’ list 2x- once after release in 2021 (just ATT was being implemented) as a ‘gameplay’ focussed game. The game wasn’t able to continue scaling, but it did achieve some notable post-ATT growth with a significant pivot from gameplay to a more narrative focused product experience.
FTUE 2020 in gets players right into the simulation gameplay Current FTUE is far more dramatic at the start and also includes more narrative ‘beats’ with story art tied tightly into the progression. Drama Box app success Success for ‘soaps’ extends into apps as well: Drama Box has been steadily climbing the charts! Conclusion The rise of dramatic narratives as a core product pillar is, admittedly, not something I would have predicted, especially across genres & audiences.
Yet, from casual to 4X, examples like DW:S and Gossip Harbor show that high-tension, character-driven storytelling can be a game-changer. Integrating high-tension, character-driven storytelling into marketing, FTUE, and key conversion events can unlock large, highly valuable audiences. While gameplay innovation continues to produce hits, an increasing number of successful titles are wrapped in drama.
As this trend reshapes the gaming landscape, embracing this ‘soap opera’ could be the key to sustainable growth and chart-topping success across the industry.
Deconstructor of FunFebruary 10, 20258 min read1 views