5 lessons from the Vainglory mobile MOBA game launch

When Vainglory launched six months ago as a major hardcore game on iOS tablets and high-end iPhones, skeptics noticed that it didn’t make it far into the top-grossing games list before it started declining. They wrote off the multiplayer online battle arena game (MOBA) from Super Evil Megacorp as a failure.

But Kristian Segerstrale, the chief operating officer of Super Evil Megacorp, said in a talk at the GamesBeat Summit that those critics didn’t understand what has been happening under the radar and that they were using the “metrics of the previous generation.” By contrast, community growth and usage metrics are heading in the right direction, and they mean that the company’s goal of creating a “game franchise that lasts for decades” is still intact, Segerstrale said. During his talk, Segerstrale outlined five major lessons about making the hardcore MOBA for a tablet, and they’re listed below.