How to choose IPs for a collaboration in games
Julie Levin is head of brand Marketing at Nexters
How do you keep your game fresh, engaging, and exciting enough to retain players while attracting new ones? It’s a challenge even the most successful titles face.
Marketing is constantly coming up with new solutions. A few years ago, branformance - a mix of brand building and performance driven marketing - was the trend. Now, the collaborations with IPs have taken center stage.
PUBG and Fortnite have set a golden standard of successful cooperation with IPs, inspiring others to follow suit.
For example, Supercell сollaborates with iconic franchises on almost all of their games. In 2024 alone, they partnered with Transformers, Godzilla, SpongeBob SquarePants, and even Baby Shark.
Supercell сollaborates with iconic franchises on almost all of their games.
Simply put, IP collaborations are the partnerships that bring creative assets to a game - like its characters, storylines, and unique game worlds, all protected by copyright, together with well-known brands to create something new and exciting.
Why IP collaborations work for mobile games
For mobile games, collaborations with IPs are a natural fit. Most of the games are free to download and generate revenue through in-game purchases.
According to Layer Licensing, almost three-quarters (71%) of IP integrations are in mobile games, compared with 70% in PCs. These partnerships help gaming companies create new and exciting content that engages players while raising brand recognition.
Here’s how we approach IP collaborations at Hero Wars and my advice on choosing the right IP for your game.
Why collaborate with an IP?
Overall, IP collaborations enrich your brand; for example, we symbolically put Hero Wars next to such icons as Lara Croft or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
This way, we add extra value to our brand and create a huge event for players with unique and exclusive content. On average, partnerships with IPs and/or brands increased a game's daily active users (DAUs) by 11% in the first seven days after launch (Newzoo).
When planning an IP collaboration, we focus on three primary objectives: engagement, revenue, and acquisition.
For players, every collaboration should feel like a celebration.
Engagement: For players, every collaboration should feel like a celebration. That’s why we produce a lot of exclusive content including new gameplay and multimedia content, introduce new mechanics, change the meta, and give players gifts.
Content is the way to bridge two brands. For example, in collaboration with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we created a high-quality comic about their adventure in Dominion since it creates a natural connection between TMNT and Hero Wars.
Unique events and great content during a set period bring new value to our players. They have fun, spend more time in the game, and connect with the new characters.
Revenue: Collaborations with IPs are a good opportunity to generate additional money in the short term.
Players are often willing to pay a premium for licensed content, understanding that it comes with added value. Since our game is free-to-play, the purchases indicate we’ve picked the right IP for collaboration.
Acquisition: We use the buzz around the collaboration to attract new users, particularly those we couldn’t previously reach. At Nexters, our marketing efforts are extensive; we estimate that people worldwide have seen Hero Wars ads approximately 30 times on average.
However, many of them know about the game yet avoid free-to-play games or aren’t drawn to our genre. A collaboration with a popular IP, like Lara Croft or TMNT, can change their perception and encourage them to play the game.
How to choose the right IPs
When selecting an IP, we consider two key factors: target audience and brand fit. According to Newzoo, gamers are nearly three times as likely to download a game when it features an IP they enjoy.
Men aged 30-50, who make up the majority of Hero Wars' audience, are more drawn to IPs that evoke nostalgia or have earned their admiration over the years. For them, Lara Croft is a perfect match; she’s a gaming icon and a well-known character in popular culture.
Choose the IPs that feel organic to your brand and universe. For example, Pac-Man is a character that our audience definitely likes. However, introducing them in our game would look strange because it's a completely different entity. Yet, Neo from The Matrix would be a perfect fit.
What does the collaboration package include?
The scope of a collaboration depends on the scale of the IP. With iconic, well-known titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Lara Croft, we always introduce the IP character as a new playable hero and additional cosmetics (skins).
Additionally, all the art, narrative, and content creation - trailers, action sequences - are on our side. A new hero always has a narrative for their introduction and other elements.
With iconic, well-known titles like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Lara Croft, we always introduce the IP character as a new playable hero.
We design new maps and battlegrounds and reskin city elements so everything in Hero Wars reflects the collaboration and looks vibrant and cohesive. In special themed quests and task chains, players earn rewards.
In event shops, they can purchase resources to upgrade the new hero or their existing favourites. Smaller collaborations only involve cosmetics and ideas, such as narratives, skins, and avatars, without the introduction of a new hero.
In collaboration with music bands, we can make a themed event and offer cosmetics. There's room for creativity here. After the event ends, all IP characters remain with players permanently. While the events are time-limited, the content is exclusive - players who miss the event can’t obtain the characters later.
Challenges in IP collaborations
IP collaborations come with certain difficulties.
The Hero Wars universe is diverse and offbeat; we don’t have strict rules about what belongs in our world. However, some players are very protective of the Hero Wars' authenticity and perceive characters from other franchises as alien.
Sometimes we can’t meet the requirements of licensors. Imagine this: licensors may agree to cooperate but also prohibit any marketing activities. Since marketing is one of our three key goals - maximizing impact on product, revenue, and audience growth - we reject such offers.
Some partners might not be ready to work with us due to their schedules being packed for the next four years. Agreements may fall through due to differences in price, timelines, or the scope of content.
The approval process touches almost everything related to your IP. Your licensor needs to sign off on the game itself, most updates, marketing and promotional materials, and more. How quickly and flexibly they handle approvals can vary - for some, it may take two weeks just to approve simple marketing assets, while another gives the green light for a major content update the next day.
Another challenge arises when movie IPs involve both the character and the actor portraying them. Take The Terminator - it’s represented by the iconic Iron Arnie only.
Another challenge arises when movie IPs involve both the character and the actor portraying them.
By the way, World of Tanks (Wargaming) had a successful collaboration with Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, meaning they made agreements on character and actor sides, which is impressive.
With Harry Potter, you face issues because there’s Harry Potter as a character and Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who portrayed him. In this case, you need rights for both the trademarked character and the actor’s likeness, licensing both Harry Potter and someone who looks like Daniel Radcliffe. It complicates the negotiation process a lot.
Wrapping up
When planning your next IP partnership, think beyond the numbers. Focus on partnerships that excite your team and your players and bring something truly special to your game. The key here is to find the perfect match - an IP that resonates with your audience and fits into your universe.
When done right, collaborations with IP breathe new life into games. They create a “wow” moment when players see their favourite characters or stories brought into the game in ways they never imagined. It's a unique gaming experience.
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