Funtap officially released the mobile game Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo on February 28. Previously, the game has achieved brilliant results in global markets. According to AppGrowing, the game has been in the top 10 of App Store games for two weeks in a row and has occupied the No. 1 spot on Google Play role playing.
Source: AppGrowing
01 Funtap's Treasure Chest Game Publishing Attempt
Treasure Chest games are often known as minigames in hardcore RPGs. Now, it has been extracted as the core gameplay of a light-core mobile game. All the players have to do is acquire treasure chests and open them. The way of gaining treasure chests and the battles after getting equipment are usually associated with idle gameplay.
Some of these games have already been popular in Vietnam, such as Chest Quest: Mini RPG, Dragon Legend: Chest Hunter, and Starting with an Egg. Despite the fact that, as a whole, treasure chest games are considered niche, some game publishers have seen its potential.
Source: AppGrowing
Funtap chose to publish Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo as one of its attempts in the treasure chest game category. Thematically, Chinese fantasy has a wide audience in Vietnam. Innovation-wise, players are allowed to choose one of Pig Demon, Bird Demon and Fish Demon as the main character. Taking into account its success in other regions, we can say that it is a wise and safe attempt.
Source: AppGrowing
However, even though the game already has experience in publishing and advertising in global markets, it is not all without challenges for Funtap. As a leader in a new category, how to reach target players quickly is key to the game's advertising strategy.
02 Rapid and Precise Advertising Strategies of Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo
Unlike mid-core and hard-core games, Funtap released Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo directly without pre-registration. According to AppGrowing, its ad campaign started on February 27, just 1 day before its release, and gradually expanded.
For light-core games, a long period of pre-registration may sap players' curiosity and interest. The ad campaign, which was largely synchronized with the release schedule, allowed players to access the game quickly and achieve excellent app store chart results.
Since then, the game has adapted its inputs approximately weekly based on market performance, with a maximum of 360 ads released on March 17th.
Source: AppGrowing
In terms of media, Facebook Ads is undoubtedly the key battleground. Unlike the advertising strategy of MMORPGs that all favor Meta, Funtap allows AdMob and YouTube to grab 14.7% of the ad investment. This may be related to Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo's advertising experience in the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan of China, both of which utilize Google Ads to a greater extent.
Source: AppGrowing
Relevantly, we see proportions in ad formats that are consistent with media. In-feed and rewarded videos take up about 80% and 20%, respectively. In terms of creative formats, vertical video accounts for 50.43%, image for 34.98%, and horizontal & square video for 14.59%, a scientific distribution for a vertical light-core game.
Source: AppGrowing
The experience of publishing idle mobile games has been effectively applied by Funtap to the advertising strategy of Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo. It can be said that it is an excellent successor and grower, which is also thoroughly reflected in the creative content.
"Don't choose the pig demon, the bird demon is better." This line, often used in creatives for global markets, appeared in ads for the Vietnamese version. It seems unnecessary and hilarious to offer serious gameplay tips to viewers who have yet to experience the game. However, the video utilizes a friendly and sincere voiceover to bring the viewers closer. Meanwhile, selling points such as gameplay, character and equipment effects are presented.
Source: AppGrowing
The viewers' willingness to stay is largely determined by the first 3 seconds of a video ad. Therefore, adding eye-catching clips before a normal game introduction is a simple and effective way to boost ad impressions. In Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo's creative list, the most used are fun clips and live-action.
Fun Clips Containing Popular Internet Elements
Funtap is one of the best Vietnamese publishers in following trendy topics. The youthful marketing team is able to quickly grasp internet trends and utilize them to make ad creatives accurately acquire players. Interesting memes and funny videos are widely shown at the beginning of video ads.
For example, the video below starts with a funny video of a monkey, which has recently taken the Asian internet by storm. The smooth editing quickly shifts the scene to in-game. According to AppGrowing, this video was Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo's second most impressed one, with 1.1 M. Such a creative strategy allowed it to reach a success far beyond that of normal content.
Source: AppGrowing
Live Action with Conflicting Plots
Creating complete live-action creatives can require a huge amount of work. Then, short live-action performances that exist only at the beginning are a solution. Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo is good at making live-action videos with sudden conflicts. Instead of boring viewers, short and quick performances keep them immediately focused on the content. The introduction of the game content follows, combined to entice players to download.
Source: AppGrowing
Image creatives make up over 30% of Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo's ads. It costs less and is usually considered harder to attract players than video. However, Funtap uses many innovative tactics in its image ads to boost ROI.
For example, this image resembles a carousel ad. It utilizes contrasts of light and dark and an in-game UI-like design to engage users to click on a character, but it's not the same as a carousel ad. Although it focuses on one character, more content is also simply presented, making it more likely to get viewers to click and download the game.
Source: AppGrowing
03 How Can Funtap Become a Leader in New Mobile Game Categories?
Back 3 years ago, we would have thought that mobile games except Chinese fantasy MMORPGs would be difficult to survive in Vietnam. Nowadays, the Vietnamese market shows inclusiveness to a wider range of game genres.
Leading publishers are exploring the potential of more categories in the fierce competition among MMORPGs. Cyberpunk-inspired action game Kỷ Nguyên GenZ has become the new star of VGP. VTC's LaLa Land: Lục Địa Bí Ẩn was the leading Vietnamese anime game last year. Funtap has released a number of idle and card games, such as 3Q Legend: Danh Tướng Truyền Kỳ and Danh Tướng AFK.
Source: AppGrowing
In addition to developing mobile games born locally, publishing global games in Vietnam is a great way for leading developers to break into new territories. VNG published Metal Slug: Awakening from Tencent Games, and quickly became one of the leading players in Vietnam's arcade mobile games.
Source: AppGrowing
Now, Funtap has released Tiểu Yêu Tầm Đạo. In terms of the general category of gameplay, this is a further development of its idle games. In terms of the niche category, this could be the first leap for treasure chest mobile games in Vietnam. The marketing strategy of keeping up with trends has brought Funtap multiple successes, and this trait is likely to allow it to get a head start on more promising game categories.
