The Charticle

What's been the impact of adding guilds to Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes' grossing performance?

How to enthuse already engaged players

What's been the impact of adding guilds to Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes' grossing performance?

Much as we've enjoyed EA's Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, it's always been clear the game launched with some features missing.

But now developer Capital Games has addressed the main absence.

The most recent update on 22 April added guilds.

And with guilds also came guild raids, new resources to mine, and new characters to unlock.

Throw in some promotional retailing around the 4th May date - 'May the Fourth Be With You' etc - and it proved to be an excellent opportunity for our Charticle to revisit the game's top grossing credentials.

In an app store far, far away

First up, we looked at how the update and associated marketing affected downloads.

Prior to the update, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes was ranking around #400 on the US iPhone chart.

The update kicked it back into the top 100, and it now sits just outside the top 100. That's a clear success.

Of course, what really matter is how the addition of guilds has impacted the retention and monetisation of existing players. After all, players can't join a guild until they've hit level 22.

Looking at the three of the key English language markets - Canada, UK and US - we can see Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes performed well in January and February, where it was a solid top 10/top 20 grossing game on iPhone.

The 9 February update - adding the opportunity to unlock Yoda amongst other things - kicked the game back into the top 10.

But from March onwards, despite some big upward spikes, there was a clear decline with an underlying slide towards the top 30.

Note, the UK is consistently the best performing of the three, followed by Canada and then the US.

As for the 22 April update, that's boosted Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes back into the top 20, and that's where the game has been ever since.

Looking at the performance on Google Play (where we've also added Australia), it's a similar story.

In April, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes dropped from its previous solid top 10/top20 position, with the new update kicking it back up the charts.

Looking at two key European markets - France and Germany - we again see a similar pattern; both on iPhone and Google Play.

Incidentally, the update has had the biggest impact on the game's German Google Play position, taking it from outside the top 30 to a mid-teens position.

Looking east

Looking outside of key Star Wars territories in the west, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes obviously hasn't performed as well.

It has found solid support, though.

Although not yet out in China, the title is currently well within Google Play's top 100 grossing chart in Hong Kong, although it's more of a top 200 performer in Taiwan.

The spread between the two countries is smaller on the iPhone grossing charts, however, where it's currently around the #100 position in both.

The update has had some impact but not as much as in the west.

Only in Japan and South Korea has the update had little effect.

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is best placed on the Korean iPhone grossing chart, but this is a small part of Samsung-dominated market.

On Google Play in Korea, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is a top 200 grossing game, and currently ranks around #250 in Japan.

This isn't unsurprising in these territories which are heavily focused on content from local developers.

Play better together

In conclusion, EA will be very pleased about the update, which in its most lucrative and most engaged markets, has boosted Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes back to where it was at the start of 2016.

But as you'd expect from an update which is all about enthusing already engaged players, in less engaged markets, the impact has been much smaller.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.