Total Licensing

TOTAL LICENSING
By Roman Kasper
Iconicfuture GmbH
www.iconicfuture.com
What Brands can
do for Games
The relevance of branded content in terms
of the success of a game.
With so many games and apps on the
digital market, the question developers
and publishers must ask themselves
is how to monetize their product.
Unfortunately there is no recipe
that guarantees revenues, but there
are plenty of strategies that raise the
probability of success.
The first important decision every
developer must make concerns the
monetization model and whether it is
a free-to-play or a premium game. This
will determine the nature of the integration
of the branded items within
the game and help users interact with
the content in ways that increase revenues.
There are two common integration
models. In the first case, called a mash
up, a brand’s IP is offered as a distinct
add-on or extension to the original
game. The second creates a more fully
branded integration, where a version
of the game is built around a brand’s
unique universe.
Success through branded content
The immense potential of a fullybranded
game’s success is proven by
games like Marvel Contest of Champions,
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,
Jurassic World: The Game, Walking
Dead: Road to Survival, The Simpsons:
Tapped Out or Family Guy: The
Quest for Stuff. These games all generated
mid six figure to seven figure
monthly revenues (US Dollars) during
the last six months. A look at the app
store rankings shows that around 20%
of the top 100 ranked games are fully
branded, indicating the importance of
brands in the gaming market.
At Iconicfuture, where we match
brands with suitable games and apps,
we see the success of games through
brand integrations first-hand. The fully
branded Care Bears game that TabTale
created saw a high number of new users
and revenues immediately after
launch – the game reached #2 in the
app store within a number of hours.
We have also seen successful mash-
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