Squad Busters: Supercell Hits the Apex or Spins Off-Track?

Thanks to Laura Taranto and Matthew Emery for the feedback and editing!

Verdict & Prospects

As it stands, Squad Busters is not a game players will remember forever. But it can be one. 

Squad Busters demonstrates Supercell’s world-class ability to broaden the accessibility of midcore mechanics, in this case, roguelikes and MOBAs, while weaving an effective character progression consumable-based monetization model. Squad Busters promises to evolve into a stronger, more robust, structured sandbox than its seeming counterpart, Brawl Stars. Squad Busters is Supercell’s most accessible game yet and has the most sustainable revenue potential among their offerings, bar Clash of Clans. 

It’s also a crowning achievement in Supercell’s IP building. Squad Busters’ characters draw from other Supercell IPs, with endless and tantalizing future potential tie-ins. Yet the art style, gameplay, and wholly original IP elements (that theme music!) manage to expand and enhance the IP it’s based on. Potential cannibalization between Brawl Stars and Squad Busters is overblown. We should expect a portfolio-high download volume.

However, a lackluster learning loop, muted character design, and two-in-round currencies hamper the ability of Squad Busters to transition players to elder gameplay depth. Long-term prospects remain the game’s biggest mystery, as the game was never soft-launched long enough to measure so much as a D30 retention rate. While these are fixable issues, the team must solve them “live,” which is much more difficult if the team headcount scales. Ultimately, Squad Busters needs more refinement time. 

In the short run, and as the first game to go global under Supercell’s “Next Chapter,” it has a shot at helping Supercell achieve its highest annual revenue on record. That would be a welcome reprieve for a company that seems to be under mounting pressure from its owners, Tencent. However, solving Squad Buster’s core issues is paramount to avoiding the inconsistent performance of Clash Royale and Brawl Stars.

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Fallout is the Final Nail in the Transmedia Coffin

The Fallout TV series has received widespread critical and audience acclaim, with 65M viewers and Amazon Prime’s 2nd most-watched show of all time. The show appears to have cracked the secret transmedia success formula: top-tier IP, backed by a six-figure budget, distribution through a 200M MAU network, and widespread critical acclaim. Consistent with the transmedia thesis, engagement with Fallout games has skyrocketed, with *all* games experiencing significant uplifts. However, price cuts have ended, and according to VG Insights, revenue is down 50%+ from two-week highs in titles like Fallout 76. While the uplift has yet to return to equilibrium, a generous guess might land $40M in incremental revenue across the franchise before returning to a steady state. The final revenue impact may tally north of $50M. And yet, hailed as a transmedia success, Fallout instead shows the exact opposite: if this is the best transmedia offers, then the concept is creatively bankrupt.

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The Call of Duty Puzzle No One Has Solved

Call of Duty Mobile (CODM) provided a watershed moment for mobile, proving Western gamers are ready for virtual dual analog stick controls and heralding a wave of Eastern titles to the West. Or did it?

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