Monopoly Go's Growth Cycle Is Mobile Gaming's Most Interesting Problem
Coin Master Board Adventure is starting to circle Monopoly Go (MoPoGo) and test whether it can take share. Given MoPoGo's immense scale, seemingly the single most impactful decision in game design is advancing Monopoly Go's design paradigm.
The game scaled so quickly to such heights, and executed against its design so cleanly, that you have to wonder how much future growth the core game can support. In recent years, Scopely doubled down on the "jawbreaker" model, with LiveOps cutting into every game layer.
Increasingly, limited-time events are the key vector to earn dice, with the board taking a backseat. Albums and stickers continue to expand, and Partner Events, one of the game's signature innovations that almost no one has managed to copy well, has become seemingly more present.
That is the execution that got the game to its staggering level, roughly a $1.1B app-store run rate in the chart above and plausibly higher once webstores are included. Scopely has also layered brand marketing campaigns on top to defray the lack of performance marketing inventory at MoPoGo's scale. IP integration has already covered Marvel, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and now The Simpsons. But for all this, the incremental effects look meager. Sensor Tower's active-user estimates continue to decline, so cries of "but webstores" are certainly true for revenue, but AU declines suggest revenue will fall at some point, too.
And then there's the chat app. If ever there was a desperate marketing cry for help, that would be it. It's as barebones as it comes: no in-app reward claims or recurring engagement benefits. While it is cute that Hasbro made a board game based on the free-to-play game, it's hard to imagine that it is hitting anyone's bottom line either.
Look, there's no doubt that Monopoly Go is a Forever Franchise and its impact on the genre will be everlasting, but it has also become a growth sphinx. All of the traditional levers have been pulled to the max. Realistically, I can only imagine three outcomes that result in growth rather than managed decline:
- An extension app similar to Royal Kingdom, Homescapes, etc. (amen, Game of Life)
- A match-3 Super Light Ball type innovation
- Level-gate / fake drama type UA creative
Of all the choices, Scopely should be exploring option 1. The key innovation of Monopoly Go, and its pivot away from being a Clash Royale-style clone, was the realization of how to pair the IP, its fantasy and emotion, with existing mobile genre mechanics.
The playbook already worked for Yahtzee, which to this day remains uncopied. Ironically, Scrabble has failed. Clue and Risk are sitting there, too. While not nearly on the same scale as Monopoly, there are still opportunities to do something interesting in a way that no one else has. As always, the key is transforming these brands into a mobile paradigm that makes sense and monetizes. I still think The Game of Life is the cleanest answer.