Ultrapower Sails to the Overseas (I):Camel Games, Precipitation and Growth

Editor's Note: Going overseas is the core component of the "innovation-driven, global layout" business strategy of the Ultrapower Group, and it has also become one of the prominent labels of Ultrapower in the capital market. At the beginning of the Year of the Loong, we have launched a series of articles on "Sailing to the Overseas", and today is the first one, "Camel Games: Precipitation and Growth".

On the first day of the Chinese New Year, February 10, 2024, Age of Origins' Chinese New Year event for the year of Loong went live, and the entire main city of the game was transformed into a brand new city, full of New Year's flavor. Drums and gongs were beaten with Loongs and lions dance and red lanterns hanging high in the air, adding a strong "Chinese cultural atmosphere" to the entire game world with traditional Chinese elements.

A Chinese player, “Wen Da Zhuang Shi”, from Los Angeles set off fireworks in the game's main city to send his allies around the world the beset wishes in the Year of the Loong.

ShadowBladeX, a War and Order player from Berlin, Germany, chose a powerful panda as the War Beast; the exclusive skin of the panda beast combines classical elements of the Orient and the mysterious flavor of the Ancient Egyptian Desert, displaying a unique cultural charm. This delicate-looking panda provides powerful additions to the battle, and becomes a powerful partner in conquering cities and territories.

“War and Order" and "Age of Origins", two games that have long dominated the top 30 Chinese overseas mobile games, are both from Camel Games.

With the game as the carrier, Camel continues to convey Chinese elements to the world, and also reaps fruitful results - in the “China Game Vendors Overseas Revenue Ranking”, Camel Games has gained momentum by rising in the rankings for five consecutive years, from seventeenth place in 2018, to its first entry into the top ten in 2022, and then seventh place in 2023; and the game's flow has continued to rise, with an increase that far exceeds the industry average.

Behind the outstanding performance is the team's perseverance for decades - insisting on going overseas, insisting on deep ploughing into SLG, and insisting on long term operation.

Insisting on going overseas and growing in a fully competitive market

Around 2011, when smartphones were just born, Camel Games grew up with smartphones and mobile games, and at the same time started the road to go overseas.

Since then, no matter how the market environment changes, Camel Games has always been ploughing in the overseas track, which is not only the forward-looking analysis and judgement of the overseas market space, overseas players' paying habits and paying ability, but also implies the business philosophy of the game team and Ultrapower: choosing a large market and finding the right entry point for continuous growth and precipitation of ability.

As the person in charge of the game team said, "enterprises that can be immersed in this industry for ten years or twenty years, and have been growing, will inevitably encounter more opportunities, because the time is long enough. It is possible that the opportunities may not always be grasped when there is a lack of ability, but if there are enough opportunities, they can be grasped one day."

Ten years of immersion, ten years of persistence, ten years of growth. Low-profile forward Camel Games, has long grown from the original small workshop into a game company with global production capabilities and distribution capabilities, with game players covering more than 150 countries around the world, about 90% of the revenue contribution from overseas and China Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Adhering to SLG, engineering innovation and precipitation of the team's ability

At the end of 2011, Camel Games launched the real-time strategy game "Little Empire", which adopted the more advanced LBS and 3D technology at that time to realize the real geographic location and 360-degree free perspective in the game.

And was recommended by Google official market upon its launch, and occupied the first place in the best-seller list of the game in many regions around the world for a long time. This is the first popular game created by Camel, and also established the SLG gene of Camel.

How to precipitate the team's ability? The answer given by the chairman of the group is "engineering innovation":

Game products from production to distribution is a systematic project, which requires a clear methodology, and more importantly, the methodology needs to be solidified into a standard business system and workflow; from the preliminary project establishment, R&D, product development, to the post-launch promotion and operation, it is necessary to build the system according to the engineering idea, and finally realize the independent operation and smooth connection of multiple modules.

Adhering to the idea of engineering innovation, Camel Games adopts the usual agile development mode in software development, maintains high-frequency version iteration of a single product, and spares no effort to enrich the game content and gameplay, which effectively maintains player stickiness. Both Age of Origins and War and Order have been updated more than 40 times in a single year, which is much higher than the average update frequency in the industry.

Engineering thinking is also reflected in the promotion of Camel Games. Camel Games is the first in the industry to use its own data analysis platform to accurately portray each user's gaming behavior in different dimensions, establish a reliable data model, and improve key data such as user payment conversion rate and average user payment that affects revenue through data-driven product adjustments, advertisement placement, and operation strategies.

Insisting on long-term operation to create a high-quality evergreen tree

In October 2023, Age of Origins celebrated its fifth anniversary; in January 2024, War and Order entered its eighth year of operation. For game products, they should already be mature products, but these two popular games of Camel still maintain product vitality and growth momentum. The number of active users has been growing steadily, and the product's flow and profit margins are both solid, continuing to release profits.

At the end of last year, War and Order was selected as one of the "Evergreen Games” by SensorTower, and in 2023, Age of Origins, which has been on the market for five years, still continued to set a monthly flow record. In the "2023 China Overseas Mobile Games Revenue Top 30", Age of Origins ranked 8th and War and Order ranked 24th, and Camel Games's ability to operate its products over a long period of time was once again proved.

Today, Camel Games has become the backbone of China's mobile game going overseas. Behind the high-speed growth of Camel Games is the continuous precipitation of the business model, management model and strategic choice level, adhering to the strategic direction of "insisting on going overseas, insisting on ploughing into SLG, insisting on long-term operation", which will also drive the continuous growth of Camel Games to a broader road of globalization.