Eatventure VS Cat Snack Bar: An evaluation of each video games | Pocket Gamer.biz

Eatventure debuted in December 2021, serving because the premiere challenge of the fledgling Lessmore based in 2021. Though the corporate’s age barely surpasses that of its hit sport, their core staff boasts a roster of seasoned professionals. These veterans hail from cell gaming titans like Kolibri Video games, Popcore, LoadComplete, and Rovio. The success of Eatventure wasn’t merely serendipitous, it was crafted from deep-rooted experience in sport improvement.

On this visitor put up, AppQuantum’s publishing producer, Anastasia Romakha (left), and affiliate producer, Anastasia Gushchina, talk about what makes Eatventure so standard and the way its first profitable copycat, Cat Snack Bar, additionally discovered its viewers on this area of interest.

Gameplay overview

Eatventure affords a pleasant low-poly idle gameplay expertise the place gamers delve into the world of restaurant administration. Ranging from a humble lemonade stand on a metropolis road, gamers can ascend to managing upscale fine-dining institutions.

Gameplay components embrace managing and upgrading meals and beverage stations, hiring workers, buying perks to reinforce manufacturing and increase income, and gathering gadgets. Notably, these things, other than perks, introduce common sport enhancements, affecting income and workers all through the sport, together with throughout LTE and never simply the place they’re acquired.

Eatventure strikes a stability with its gameplay, guaranteeing it is streamlined but participating and free from cluttered mechanics and modes. It possesses a simple core loop, a system for gathering gadgets that provides an additional layer to the gameplay, and a rotation of limited-time occasions that refresh weekly.

By July 2022, Eatventure noticed a major surge in downloads, clocking in practically 1.5m on Google Play alone. From that time onwards, its income has been on an upward trajectory. This success sparked the preliminary wave of copycats. A subsequent wave emerged within the autumn of 2022 when Eatventure ramped up its scaling efforts. Since January, the market has witnessed a constant inflow of comparable titles, with a number of new releases every month.

Let’s take a look at the info from SensorTower:

The origin of Cat Snack Bar

Most of Eatventure’s copycats or video games that draw inspiration from it are strikingly much like the unique. They typically embody not solely the identical food-making setting but additionally similar degree designs, sequences, an unchanged set of options, and a core gameplay loop. Given this panorama, the place does Cat Snack Bar slot in?

Cat Snack Bar launched practically a 12 months after Eatventure’s debut and simply three months after Eatventure’s preliminary scaling – particularly, in late October 2022. Even with this timeline, it was one of many earliest video games to attract inspiration from Eatventure and positively the primary copycat that appeared extra refined. Whereas the timing of its launch undeniably performed a job in its success, we consider there’s extra to the story.

Since its launch Cat Snack Bar has scored over 20m downloads (in comparison with Eatventure’s 40m) and has earned greater than $4,000,000 in income (excluding advertisements). Impressively, these figures make it essentially the most profitable amongst all of Eatventure’s copycats (we’ll additionally contact upon a number of different budding tasks afterward). However what units Cat Snack Bar aside?

Cat Snack Bar’s peculiarities

From a primary look at Cat Snack Bar, you may surmise its origins. The sport was crafted by the South Korean staff Treeplla. Though Treeplla is a newcomer, established in 2021, a part of its staff previously labored for Mafgames, a studio with a knack for creating endearing, fluffy cat characters that seize hearts. Inside a brief span, Treeplla rolled out a number of titles spanning varied artwork kinds within the idle and puzzle genres. Nevertheless, Cat Snack Bar emerged as their first huge success.

What units Cat Snack Bar other than the myriad of Eatventure copycats is its distinctive setting and artwork model. The sport immerses gamers in a comfy, enjoyable cat world. Whereas the core loop mirrors that of Eatventure, gamers work together with and serve lovely, plump kitties in Cat Snack Bar. And the technique has labored. A demographic evaluation of each video games reveals that this distinct visible attraction permits Cat Snack Bar to seize a youthful, predominantly feminine viewers, thus avoiding direct competitors with Eatventure.

Nevertheless, it is not merely about adopting a distinct setting and artwork route, though these components can considerably propel a sport in the direction of success. Treeplla wasn’t afraid to innovate. In stark distinction to many Eatventure copycats, Cat Snack Bar gives gamers with a distinct gaming expertise relating to options and mechanics.

Notably, the sport operates at its personal rhythm, whereas different tasks copy the Eatventure’s stability. Cat Snack Bar is way more vigorous and dynamic. The builders launched recent components corresponding to eliminating the requisite comfortable forex wanted to advance to subsequent places, introducing Vault a lot earlier, and recasting the Invite Helper characteristic or the Service provider Occasion with a progressive limited-time provide that mixes free and IAP rewards (Worldwide Cat Day).

Let’s delve deeper into Eatventure’s options adopted and refined by Cat Snack Bar to higher perceive Treeplla’s technique in enhancing their challenge.

Merchandise system

How the merchandise system is applied in Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar differs considerably. On the floor, they could appear comparable, however delicate nuances considerably have an effect on the perceived worth of things acquired.

In Eatventure, gamers can use any merchandise for upgrades in the event that they belong to the identical class (Hat, Physique, or Hand). The sport does not strain gamers to repeatedly buy and open chests in quest of a selected merchandise.

The Eatventure retailer affords two kinds of chests, various in dimension, with a pair of distinctive affords obtainable for every of them. It is believable that the builders intentionally selected this restricted set of chests. Such a design simplifies the decision-making course of for gamers after they think about shopping for chests containing gadgets.

This strategy displays the builders’ dedication to minimalism and ease in each the upgrading system and the shop design, attributes that resonate with informal gamers, their main audience.

In distinction, Cat Snack Bar adopts a extra hardcore technique: upgrades require similar gadgets of the identical rarity. This design selection nudges gamers in the direction of shopping for extra chests in hopes of securing the specified merchandise.

Furthermore, this technique elevates the perceived affords worth, in-game occasions, and actions that present particular gadgets. Gamers cannot freely select and buy any merchandise within the retailer. An exception is the Door-to-Door occasion, which permits gamers to purchase particular gadgets with exhausting forex at a reduced charge.

Past these affords and occasions, Cat Snack Bar affords one other risk to acquire gadgets: retailer chests. The sport options three kinds of chests: a small one, which gamers can entry by watching advertisements, and medium and enormous ones, purchasable with exhausting forex. On this side, we observe a minimalist strategy harking back to Eatventure’s design philosophy.

Invite helper

In Eatventure, this characteristic is launched as soon as the participant unlocks the third slot (Burger) on the fifth degree of the primary metropolis (San Francisco). This sometimes happens across the 4th or fifth day of the participant’s lifetime. Each half-hour, this characteristic ostensibly permits gamers to ask others to help in serving clients for a 5-minute period.

Moreover, your avatar might be invited by these “gamers”. Though it is evident these aren’t precise gamers, the characteristic encourages you to gather extra gadgets. The logic is easy: the extra spectacular your assortment, the upper the chance of your avatar being “invited” as a helper throughout offline intervals, granting you some exhausting forex.

In the meantime, in Cat Snack Bar, this characteristic turns into obtainable as soon as gamers improve the third slot (Bagel) on the 4th degree (Cafeteria). This milestone is reached a lot faster, typically on the primary day of a lifetime. In contrast to Eatventure, Cat Snack Bar doesn’t feign the presence of actual gamers for invitations. As a substitute, the helper resembles an NPC endowed with perks from collected gadgets. There’s just one Meownager, eliminating the necessity to choose from a listing of potential helpers. A notable distinction is that the Meownager stays lively even after their five-minute shift has ended. They continue to be predominantly throughout the degree, awaiting participant interplay. Upon tapping the Meownager, gamers can prolong their help for one more 5 minutes in alternate for viewing an advert.

Worldwide cat day

Treeplla did not resort to mere imitation. Among the many distinctive options in Eatventure-like tasks, the Worldwide Cat Day and the assorted sandwich affords included within the sport stand out. Based mostly on the info launched by the builders, it is evident that in August 2023, they noticed a major increase of their IAP income.

These sandwich affords are intrinsically tied to the core gameplay. This differentiates them from different informal video games with comparable mechanics, as gamers cannot earn rewards with out collaborating within the core.

To advance throughout the “sandwich”, gamers should fill the progress bar of the improve level and earn particular forex. After accumulating sufficient forex for the improve, they’ll declare the reward, unlock a brand new degree, and proceed to fill the progress bar to acquire extra particular forex.

The rewards for every degree alternate between being free and paid. As an example, gamers can’t entry the third degree’s free reward with out first buying the second degree’s paid reward.

Whereas this will likely look like an aggressive monetisation tactic on the floor, insights from the builders recommend there hasn’t been any cannibalization or diminished curiosity in making purchases.

Monetisation System

Concerning monetisation, Cat Snack Bar boasts considerably extra advert placements and IAP choices than Eatventure. The latter even lacks a number of generally used and customary placements like dashing up the manufacturing for a rewarded advert, Starter Packs, or No-Advertisements Provide. Eatventure has only a few humble affords, a number of boosters for exhausting forex, a pair (actually) of merchandise chests, and exhausting forex packs – that’s it.

Whilst you would possibly spot two or three new IAP choices throughout considered one of its weekly limited-time occasions, this pales in comparison with Cat Snack Bar. This one affords a double starter pack, full advertisements remover provide, piggy financial institution, totally different packs, chests for advertisements, progressive limited-time affords, and particular rent employee cats. The checklist goes on.

However when inspecting the Income and RPD of each video games, does Cat Snack Bar’s intensive monetisation technique really outshine Eatventure’s restrained strategy? Though the analytics platform, Sensor Tower, does not show advert income information, it is evident that Cat Snack Bar not solely has extra advert placements but additionally extra choices for IAP purchases and premium forex expenditure. Consequently, we would anticipate variations of their IAP RPD if such disparities exist.

From the supplied charts (that you could be discover under), a number of amusing info:

Firstly, Cat Snack Bar generates much less income general than Eatventure, with its RPD within the US being half of Eatventure’s.
Secondly, Cat Snack Bar’s income distribution sees equal contributions from South Korea and Japan (~30% every) and the US (~30%), whereas Eatventure pulls roughly 55% of its income from the US and round 15% mixed from Western European nations like Germany and the UK.
Lastly, the RPD for each tasks in South Korea is sort of similar.

Does this suggest that Treeplla’s monetisation methods have been ineffective? No, really. We contend that their efforts have been legitimate given they focused a definite viewers, which notably differs from Eatventure’s (with a heavier deal with the Asian market). In the event that they hadn’t devised such an intricate monetisation system, they most likely would not be a subject of our dialogue.

In closing, it is value noting that “extra” does not mechanically equate to “higher” (though we consider there’s important potential for enchancment in Eatventure’s monetisation). Builders ought to all the time be aware of their sport’s distinctive traits. Blindly adopting options from different tasks is unwise. At all times conduct A/B exams to gauge the affect of any new additions in your viewers.

Eatventure — Prime 3: US – 54.3%, UK – 7.8%, DE – 7.2percentCat Snack Bar — Prime 3: US – 36.4%, KO – 18.7%, JP – 9.6%

Artistic methods

Eatventure took a couple of 12 months to transition from its launch to scaling and attaining constant large-scale purchases. In distinction, Cat Snack Bar reached this milestone in a considerably shorter time. One would possibly speculate that Treeplla leveraged a ready-made advertising technique for its challenge. However is it actually so?

Whereas Cat Snack Bar initially launched gameplay creatives harking back to Eatventure, it isn’t with out its personal peculiarities.

Shortly afterwards, Cat Snack Bar transitioned to utilizing non-gameplay creatives that imitated the model of an isometric tycoon sport. That is nonetheless their standard strategy. In the meantime, Eatventure continues its distinctive strategy by utilizing creatives in its UA campaigns that characteristic altered gameplay carefully resembling the precise sport.

Whereas each video games might sound comparable product-wise, their advertising methods are markedly distinct. This statement reinforces our perception that Cat Snack Bar has carved a distinct segment for itself alongside Eatventure. By figuring out and catering to a novel viewers phase, they’ve ensured their sport resonates with its goal demographic.

What about different copycats?

We beforehand talked about a surge of latest tasks much like Eatventure that started rising after Eatventure’s first scaling in July 2022. Curiously, Cat Snack Bar additionally spawned at the very least two copycats of its personal. So, what grew to become of those tasks over the past 12 months? Briefly, none have really succeeded. Nevertheless, let’s delve a bit deeper.

We recognized over 25 video games that have been unmistakably impressed by Eatventure. These might be grouped into three classes:

Rip-off tasks aiming to money in by straight mimicking the unique sport (e.g., Lemonade Stand and one other Eatventure – an entire copy of the unique sport, together with the title).
Video games that merely swapped out the unique decor in hopes of changing into successful (e.g., Good Cream, My Idle Retailer).
Formidable tasks unafraid to experiment with totally different core mechanics, kinds, themes, and views (e.g., Road Cafe, Espresso Enterprise, Idle Artwork Tycoon).

The third class is undoubtedly essentially the most fascinating. Not all such tasks have proven promise, as seen with Good Metropolis Idle Store. Nevertheless, some, like My Resort Life, would possibly emerge as success tales, doubtlessly attracting copycats of their very own. Moreover, there are a number of new contenders that we’re keenly watching, corresponding to Order Up! and Undertaking Snack Bar.

Is there a spot for one more Eatventure-like sport?

We have lastly arrived on the principal query. In the event you’ve been holding out hope for a silver-bullet resolution, you could be dissatisfied. There is not one. Our deep dives into Eatventure, Cat Snack Bar, and quite a few comparable tasks have solely reaffirmed a reality. There is no singular magic characteristic that dramatically boosts retention, no particular provide that drastically will increase conversion to paying customers, and no standout advert inventive that makes your CPI twice decrease than LTV. Success on this business typically stems from years of dedication, numerous makes an attempt, failures, and improvements.

Many unsuccessful tasks bear similarities, whereas every profitable one carves its distinctive path to triumph. Cat Snack Bar did not merely emulate Eatventure. The Treeplla staff crafted a sport imbued with its personal distinct ambiance, tempo, and have set that harmonises superbly. As a substitute of merely treading the trail paved by Eatventure, Cat Snack Bar solid its personal route.

Certainly, we consider there’s house out there for one more sport harking back to Eatventure – presumably even for a number of of them. Maybe the one recommendation we might give right here is to not attempt to absolutely copy Eatventure or Cat Snack Bar. Whereas you should use them as foundational inspirations, relying solely on visible and ornamental modifications will not possible lead to successful sport.

For these looking for a extra secure and promising trajectory, we propose figuring out a setting that lends itself naturally to introducing recent gameplay options and modes. Tweaking the core gameplay can pave the way in which for enhanced monetization and meta gameplay methods.

Edited by Paige Prepare dinner