Remember Crossy Road?
It was a game that came at the right time, that executed well on a simple idea and had a great sense of style to back up solid, time-tested gameplay. Of course, it helped that the game was free and featured an inoffensive cosmetic monetization system[1], and the small size of the team ensured that its developers enjoyed financial success as well.
So it’s encouraging to see Crossy Road inspire a few other games to follow its template:
- Pacman 256 (from the same studio, Hipster Whale)
- Land Sliders
- Shooty Skies
- Blocky Highway
Specifically: the chunky 3D pixel art; the simple arcade-like gameplay featuring short play sessions and online leaderboards; and the progression of spending either real money or earned coins to buy new characters. The encouraging aspect is that the formula for success is simply good gameplay + optional cosmetics, instead of the usual timer gating and unfair difficulty spikes that have plagued cheap mobile free-to-play games for years.
Even if the model wouldn’t work for all mobile gaming, it’s at least a blueprint for App Store sustenance without scraping the bottom of the monetization barrel.
And most players ended up playing the game to win their characters anyway ↩︎