What was supposed to be a grandiose entry into the world of platform gaming has started with a quiet yelp as game development company Mighty Kingdom (ASX: MKL) has failed to meet their expectations of game sales for their debut platform title Conan Chop Chop.
Long time developers of mobile games for kids, the launch of Conan Chop Chop was supposed to be an expansion opportunity for the gaming company to showcase their development capability in collaboration with gaming company Funcom. But eventuated sales have been below expectation.
Citing the poor sales, Mighty Kingdom attributed the underwhelming performance to player feedback around gameplay which have led to several gameplay improvements, and competition from other games that were released at the same time as Conan Chop Chop around early-March.
“Conan Chop Chop allowed us to showcase our creativity and development skills as we delivered our first console game by leveraging our unique story narrative and world building capabilities, backed up by our data-driven design methodology,” said Mighty Kingdom Managing Director, Phillip Mayes.
“Again we’ve shown our strengths in bringing a new perspective to an established brand to expand beyond the existing audience. We now have a strong, in-house skillset in the console space that can be applied towards our own Original IP initiatives as well as driving fresh co-development interest”
Developed alongside Funcom which owns the IP behind the Conan the Barbarian brand, Conan Chop Chop can be purchased for $30 and is playable on Playstation, Xbox, Switch and PC.
As an online multiplayer party game, players must collect loot and hack’n’slash through a vast range of adventure levels. The game is underpinned by a large amount of optionality throughout the levels where there are millions of combinations between weapons, armour and magic charms where no two run throughs will be the same, encouraging repeat playing by its players.
While the Company highlighted some positive reviews that appear in gaming publications, an unregulated market where there are no disclosure requirements, Google reviews of the game have been less favourable.
Despite this, Mighty Kingdom expects interest in the game will pick up in the coming months where they anticipate a longer revenue ‘tail’ on the game as more of their positive reviews are seen by prospective customers.
Under the terms of their partnership agreement with Funcom, revenue share will be split once costs for the game’s development have been recouped. No figures as to how many sales that will require, or the cost of developing the game have been disclosed.
While sales of Conan Chop Chop have been underwhelming, Mighty Kingdom has labelled the launch as “successful” based on the inbound enquiries they have received from other collaborators and the “positive shift in the markets’ perception of the MK development team” which is previously best known as the team behind childrens games linked to the LEGO, Disney and Mattel brands.
Alfred Chan is an Analyst at Emerald Financial, specialising in ASX-listed small cap companies.
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