Hit shooter Survivor.io has already earned developer Habby over $75m since its release in August. Downloads to date are 37m, according to Appmagic data.
Over the last 30 days Survivor.io has earned Habby over $2.5m per day on average, with 912k daily downloads. Last week, October 10-16, it raked in $8.2m and added 2.8m downloads. The game’s cumulative lifetime revenue per download stands at $2.09. Appmagic revenue figures are based on developer payout from IAPs, and do not include platform fees.
Top revenue markets are China ($20.3m), Korea ($18.2m), US ($12.6m), Taiwan ($7.9m) and Japan ($6.1m). The US leads on downloads with 9.6m, and is followed by China (7.2m), Korea (4.2m), Japan (1.7m) and Vietnam (1.6m).
The platform split is heavily weighted toward App Store players, with $55m IAP revenue on iOS versus $21m on Google Play. Downloads are more even, with 22m iOS installs versus 14m on Android.
The game’s continued growth is a mix of organic downloads and strong UA campaigns in China and the US, according to our friends at Naavik. Consultant Eva Grillova says in Naavik Pro‘s comprehensive deconstruction of the game that Survivor.io has already eclipsed its predecessor Archero.
“Two months in, the new game’s numbers look quite promising,” says Grillova. “Survivor.io quickly surpassed Archero’s previous peaks, especially its revenue numbers that keep reaching new heights almost on a daily basis. Archero, however, did have strong day-1 retention out of the gate (nearly 80%!), and Survivor.io’s retention is more in line with where Archero is today (mid-40% range).”
However, Grillova and the Naavik team note that Survivor.io, like Archero, could run into issues when it comes to longer-term retention and monetisation.
“The early experiences in both Archero and Survivor.io are similar: quick learning curve, quick rise to power, and quick to hit a progression wall, at which point it becomes attractive to pay for the cheap early [IAP] packages. The reason why this setup won’t work long-term (and a big reason why we saw Archero’s revenue drop) is because the player only needs one hero and one set of gear.”
In short: they each “have so few progression tracks that they are both grindy and unrewarding”. And later, she adds: “Given the way the meta is set up, the lack of (meaningful) progression tracks will lead to many occasions in which the player spends money only to not get stronger at all.”
Naavik cite data.ai retention figures that put Survivor.io’s D1 at 44%, D7 at 15% and D30 at just 4%, in contrast to Archero’s more robust retention (D1 49%, D7 23%, D30 11%).
“These issues will undoubtedly be partially offset by new features,” adds Grillova. “We’ve already seen a brand new battle pass, and it’s likely that more features proven in Archero will follow (new heroes, more granular item progression, events, etc).”
You can read much more of Naavik’s excellent games industry research – including game deconstructions, market analysis and current events – by signing up to Naavik Digest here.
