Monopoly Go has outperformed its main competitor Coin Master by a factor of 2 in the first quarter of 2024, generating $336 million in IAP revenue.

This is according to mobile app analyst AppMagic, which shared with us how the LiveOps of Monopoly Go have played a crucial role in providing the industry with valuable insights.

According to AppMagic, for many years, Coin Master has been the only game that dominates the casual casino genre space, but everything changed when Monopoly Go was released. It is important to understand, that one contributing factor to Monopoly Go‘s quick success is its IP – which is based on a board game that has been popular since the 1930s.

However, another factor pointed out by AppMagic is the event schedules for both games, with Monopoly Go having the length of events that would catch your eye.

While both titles tend to have around 6 to 8 parallel events running at the same time, you can see from the schedule above that Monopoly Go has more short-term events that change throughout the day. A concern about seeing such stacks of short-live irregular events would be that it appears confusing and chaotic for players.

However, this is not the case as the game manages to not overwhelm its players, but further engages them by boosting short-term retention with the promotion of multiple daily logins.

For Monopoly Go to be able to have such implementation of short-term events, the game would need to be flexible, and Monopoly Go does always have 40 slots for potential event current placement, while Coin Master only has 9.

On February 12th, Monopoly Go! runs both Valentine's Day and the Super Bowl 2024 events together. | Image Credit: Scopely

On the same day, Coin Master only hosted the Valentine's Day event. | Image Credit: Moon Active

An example would be February of this year when on the 14th, both games run the Valentine’s Day events at the same time. This date also coincided with the Super Bowl 2024, a major event in the United States, so Monopoly Go also included an event commemorating the tournament but Coin Master does not.

The Art of Balance

Further discussing these games, AppMagic compared how both titles manage their events. An example is how both titles have a wheel of fortune event, but while Coin Master‘s version took more inspiration from Dice Dreams, Monopoly Go took it further by having players bake a cake with friends. While the event wasn’t directly monetized, players would have the earn event points through the core gameplay, boosting additional move purchases.

The event in Monopoly Go was followed by a noticeable increase in the game’s revenue, with a 55% spike after the event.

What this shows is that Monopoly Go uses different instruments to achieve a psychological impact on players, especially as they consistently see how much more they are required to invest to achieve the next baking milestone and complete the cake – they feel responsible for finishing baking the cake.

This is different for Coin Master, where the fortune wheel event has no twists or additional layers of psychological motivation.

Monopoly Go! 

In verdict, Monopoly Go garnered its success from various cleverly employed LiveOps strategies, such as a synergistic event integration – events designed to complement the core gameplay to keep players engaged.

Developer Scopely has also leveraged the well-known IP for cost efficiency and engagement, while still continuing to innovate with new mechanics to diversify the core and meta gameplay. The game also shows the importance of aligning LiveOps with cultural events such as the Super Bowl, boosting player involvement. By combining competitive and cooperative events that cater to various players and enhance social interactions, Monopoly Go succeeded in generating x1.5 revenue.