Space Ape said today that its Rival Kingdoms: Age of Ruin has been downloaded more than a million times in less than a week. The mobile real-time strategy game is the latest test for hardcore gaming on smartphones and tablets, and it represents the studio’s attempt to knock Clash of Clans out of the No. 1 spot on the top-grossing games list.
The game from the London-based developer saw more than 750,000 downloads in its debut weekend alone. YouTubers posting “lets plays” videos have gotten as many 120,000 views over the past few days and generated thousands of tweets.
Space Ape’s previous game, Samurai Siege, saw more than 10 million downloads in a year, and it generated $20 million in revenue. Its new game is a fantasy world with real-time strategy combat and base-building. The studio created Rival Kingdoms with the help of award-winning games writer Rhianna Pratchett (her credits include Mirror’s Edge and BioShock Infinite).
“We’re thrilled at the overwhelming response we’ve had to the release of Rival Kingdoms,” CEO John Earner said in a statement. “We’ve spent a lot of time exploring why players love the strategy genre so much, and we’ve seen fantastic reviews come in, with the game achieving over 2,000 reviews clocking in at 4.6 stars.”
Earner said in an earlier interview with GamesBeat that the competition includes Clash of Clans, but it is also competing with newer games like Brian Reynolds’ DomiNations and Zynga’s just-released Empires & Allies. It also competes many other games for the time of players.
Space Ape Games has 90 people. About 15 still work on maintaining Samurai Siege. About 20 worked on Rival Kingdoms. Others are working on a couple of other upcoming releases.
Earner said matches take about 10 minutes to play. The company hopes to differentiate itself on its sophisticated alliance system. The result is that some people during testing played on the weekends for hours at a time.
As for marketing, Earner said the company is targeting communities of hardcore gamers, such as those on certain YouTube or Twitch channels. The company is focusing on word-of-mouth marketing.
