Clash Royale - Deconstructing Supercell's Next Billion Dollar Game

Clash Royale has an excellent spectator mode, which makes watching matches very easy.

Touchscreen esports games such as Hearthstone and Vainglory are streamed outside the game on Twitch, Mobcrush and other game streaming platforms. But Royale doesn’t push players out of the game to spectate a match. Instead, it offers Royale TV, which showcases the best battles in the game in a robust spectator mode.

Royale TV is not a replacement for streaming platforms, as it doesn’t offer a way to connect or even follow the players. The role of Royale TV is to help players overcome losing streaks, which are inevitable. When you’re getting beat up and your deck is not performing as it used to, you’ll turn to Royale TV and learn how the best of them are playing. Royale TV is a faster and more efficient way to get help compared to watching a teenager from Sweden play matches on Mobcrush. It might be somewhat less entertaining, though. Depending on your preferences. 

The Monetization

The key to monetization is retention, but more specifically it’s the player’s demand to progress faster than they are currently progressing. Players are primed to spend money when their progress flattens out and they feel a social obligation and/or competitive drive to keep up with other players. Good monetization design offers players with the ability to save time and progress faster in exchange for money. Good monetization is driven by the players’ desire to catch up or make headway to other players.

Tapering off the players’ progress

Clash Royale, just like the other Supercell games, excels in monetization by following the basics. First, you need to get players hooked to the fast progress. In Royale, this happens in the first couple of arenas, as 24 of the current 42 cards are unlocked when the player reaches the second arena. Initial fast progress is also supported by the extremely low card upgrade costs for the first set of cards the player unlocks.

As players continue to play they quickly plateau. Firstly, they start losing battles to players with higher-level towers and/or units. Secondly, they will get pinched on Gold as every card upgrade becomes quickly very expensive.

Gold pinch is further boosted by in-clan card donations. You see, my clan members give me cards, I still need the Gold to upgrade them. In other words, an active clan helps clan members to reach the point where they can upgrade a card but don’t have the resources to do it. Without the donations, the pinch would be weaker because it would take me longer to reach the point where I can upgrade a specific card and by that point, I likely will have more Gold, which would disincentivize me from purchasing more.

Card donations within a clan help drive monetization through a Gold pinch. The more of the same Card a player receives, the sooner they will be at the point where they can upgrade that Card. Upgrading a card requires a significant amount of Gold, which can be bought with in-app purchases, or earned over time.

I believe that in order to achieve a high level of monetization, games are better off with a less-is-more-approach. There should only be one or max. two points in the game where a player would want to spend money. I also believe that you shouldn’t run regular sales, as they simply create more work for the team, and instead of increasing overall revenue sales, they simply change purchase patterns.

Clash Royale, just like the other Supercell top grossing games, follow the less-is-more monetization strategy. In Royale, a player spends Gems, the hard currency, on two things: Treasure Chest Unlocks and Gold purchases.

The Treasure Chests

mechanic feels really punishing when you first start playing Clash Royale. Every win grants you one of the three Treasure Chests. Depending on the rarity of the chest, it takes three, eight or twelve hours to unlock a chest. A player can only have one chest at a time in the unlocking process, and they can hold a maximum of four chests. In other words, if your chest slots are full and you win a battle, you will simply not receive a chest.

Because of the pinch in time, it takes to unlock a chest and the limited amount of chests a player can hold, there’s a strong incentive to speed up chest unlocks. From a player’s perspective, there’s an opportunity cost with not speeding up chest unlocks. In the player’s mind, they lose a potential chest if they battle while chest slots are full. There’s a strong urge to speed up chest unlock and make the potential win count.