If you enjoy horror games, you will be familiar with Keplerians and their unique portfolio of quality titles, which together have amassed a staggering 250 million downloads over three years. The partnership of two brothers and a friend from the Basque Country, Spain, are the innovators behind the worldwide sensation currently topping the horror genre charts, Ice Scream Saga, and their journey has been nothing short of phenomenal.

What you may not know, however, is that Keplerians spent many years struggling with unsuccessful games before hitting the big time. So how did the small studio turn its fortunes around and become industry titan? 

Spark of Inspiration Propelled Struggling Studio to Global Fame

Keplerians was founded in 2013, but initially struggled to gain a foothold in the highly competitive games industry, forcing them to reevaluate. Then they identified a niche: unlike with PC and console games, there were few horror games on the mobile market. Their breakthrough game Evil Nun, released in July 2018, was a massive success in terms of both player satisfaction and revenue: the studio had found its path.

The team turned their attention to revenue optimization shortly after the launch of their second adventure about the bloodthirsty zombie butcher Mr. Meat. Up to this point, they had gotten as far as they had juggling check graphs and data in Ironsource. To optimize and maximize the revenue potential of their games, it was clear that an expert partner was needed.

A Chance Meeting That Changed Everything

An opportunity emerged in late 2019 when Keplerians were introduced to a Yodo1 representative by a mutual friend in Barcelona, leading to the studio deciding to give Yodo1’s Managed Ad Services (MAS) a try.

The studio was currently working on Mr. Meat, so it was the first of their games to use MAS; however, integrating the new monetization system was no walk in the park. Yodo1’s MAS team would need every ounce of expertise to pull this off, working tirelessly until the last minute into the early hours to hit the deadline and ensure a smooth transition.

It was a challenge, but everyone pulled together to make the release a success, and Keplerian was very patient throughout the process; the experience ultimately sowed the seeds for a trusted, productive, and profitable partnership.

“When we launched Mr. Meat with MAS, we were blown away by how much more money we could make.” – Keplerians, 2019

MAS far exceeded the studio’s expectations. Within two weeks, Mr. Meat increased its daily revenue by a staggering 74%. This result encouraged Keplerians to go ahead and add Evil Nun and Ice Scream to MAS, the latest becoming the game that propelled the studio to global fame with half a million Youtube followers.

Installing MAS on Evil Nun boosted the game’s revenue by 60%, while close collaboration on Mr. Meat’s ad design and game video production resulted in a further two-fold increase in in-game income, and Keplerian decided that Yodo1’s MAS would be standard on all-new games going forward.

An Ideal Collaboration With a Bright Future

The alliance between Keplerians and Yodo1 has been an asset for both parties. We have become a collaborative team with confidence in each other, no matter the challenge. Keplerians are no longer the three-man band making small games they once were. Their team has expanded to fifteen and a new office, where they can now devote their full focus on game creation.

Building Partnerships

At Yodo1, we are thrilled to partner with talented developers like Keplerians to help optimize and maximize their success, giving them freedom to innovate and grow. It’s a journey we feel proud to be part of.

We would be proud to be part of yours, too. Register on our MAS Portal today and set up MAS AI automation in just three easy steps, or contact a Games Growth Specialist here to learn more.

Developers have long since understood the value of building communities around their apps, but managing dispersed groups on multiple external platforms is inefficient.

KT Play aggregates 100% of your users, under one roof, right inside your app.

A well-managed integrated community maximizes player engagement and interaction, resulting in higher player retention and ultimately – increased monetization opportunities.

Bringing the community to players makes it part of their gaming experience.

Players can share gaming experiences via text, images, and videos. They can post questions, share tactics and strategies while providing feedback to you in real-time.

Monitor, analyze, and influence community behavior in real-time

You can curate and program all community content by using KTPay’s live-ops toolset to influence player behavior inside the game.

Better managed communities are your ticket to increased player retention and revenue.

By using KTplay to manage their community more efficiently, Yodo1’s Rodeo Stampede was able to:

• Generate +21 million video views on Douyin (TikTok)

• Influence 20,000 downloads in less than a week

• Significantly increase word of mouth interest and player retention

• Eliminate negative feedback to maintain ratings and reduce workload

• Deep-link between in-game store and community to boost sales by 11%

Want to know how we did it?

Check out the Rodeo Stampede case study here

By finding the right monetization tools, solo developer Ivan Panasenko was finally able to achieve the dream: making a living with mobile games. He is the one-man studio behind the hit games Ailment and Endurance— sci-fi action shooter games that quickly gained popularity.

The ailment was among the Best Indie Games of 2019 on the Google Play Store, while Endurance was featured twice in the Play Store’s favorite games of the month.

His story-driven games have a sci-fi-meets-retro vibe that pulls players into the world he’s created.

The Challenge: Getting Monetization Right

Traditional ad mediation platforms weren’t enough for Ivan to bring in the revenue needed to keep producing games at the high standard his studio is now known for. More importantly, he had users complaining that interstitials were showing up too frequently and interrupting the flow of the game.

He was searching for hands-on help with monetization and ad placement, so he could focus on what he does best: making awesome games.

The Solution: A Monetization Team that Supports You All the Way

That’s where our MAS team stepped in, quickly turning things around for Ivan with custom ad design recommendations, ASO suggestions, and UA advice. Before long, revenue had increased threefold. Now Ivan can focus on porting Endurance to Nintendo Switch and Xbox, as well as working on a brand new title.

Partnering with Yodo1’s Managed Ad Services (MAS) team tripled Ivan Panasenko’s game revenue and freed up more time for developing. Set up our MAS SDK today, and you can start cashing in on increased ad revenue as early as next month. Visit yodo1.com/en/mas for instruction and connect with our team for 24/7 support.

“I’m a happy customer and I’ll use MAS for all my future games. I would recommend working with them, they’ve helped me a lot!” –Ivan Panasenko, Founder

In 2016

Three high school students got together and started an indie game studio. Today, with a nine-person team, Banjiha Games is Korea’s next big thing.They love developing adventure games and puzzles with game mechanics that mimic real-world physics,
where players can be the hero.

In 2019

Banjiha’s “Seoul 2033” title won second place at the Google Play Indie Games Festival.

In 2020

Banjiha’s CEO Seungmin Paik found MAS.

The Challenge: Rapidly Falling Ad Revenue

When Seungmin came to us, they were using a traditional ad mediation platform in auto-mode: their eCPMwas falling fast and for no apparent reason. The studio had tried many products but none met their expectations. We introduced a simple solution: our single-SDK Managed Ad Services platform. “With the support of the detail-oriented and enthusiastic MAS tech team, integration was three times faster than expected,” the CEO reports.

How Yodo1 Helped: Quickly Maintaining a High eCPMthrough Customized Configuration

Why MAS?

With MAS, you will have an experienced monetization team at your full disposal. We will personally optimize your ad configuration, tailoring every setting to your game and player base. And with our team’s open-minded approach and dedication to providing continuous assistance, you won’t have to worry about language barriers being an issue: as Banjiha Games recently highlighted, anyone can benefit from MAS—regardless of where you are in the world.

“The reason to use MAS is simple: quickly maintain a high eCPM—in our case, almost ten times higher than before. In truth, there’s no reason not to work with Yodo1. Their team is passionate about helping you every step of the way.” –Seungmin Paik, CEO Banjiha Games

Contact bd@yodo1.com to know more!

Keplerians is a successful indie developer team from the Basque Country in Spain. Characterized by success in the horror genre, their impressive array of titles has amassed more than 30 million downloads.

After seeing a 156% revenue increase in Mr. Meat, Keplerians quickly opted to integrate our Managed Ad Services (MAS) into their even larger Evil Nun—an adventure game where players have to escape a homicidal sister of the cloth.

Evil Nun, Positively Diabolical With Optimized Ads

Building and expanding partnerships with developers around the world is what Yodo1 is all about—and it’s one of our greatest joys when a partner like the Keplerians team decides to work with us on more of their games.

“The results we saw with MAS in Mr. Meat were crazy—much better than expected—and the Yodo1 team was so helpful throughout that building MAS into our bigger game was a no-brainer. We moved right away, to coincide with the next Evil Nun update.” – Keplerians

“Yodo1’s Ad Ops team gave us some recommendations on how to better design our rewarded videos. In truth, we’d been thinking about some of these changes ourselves, prior to partnering with Yodo1. Their recommendations gave us the confidence to jump in and make it happen. And we’re very happy we did! The results were astounding.” – Keplerians

MAS boosted Evil Nun’s revenue by 104% on iOS and 24% on Android, for a total increase of 60%. What’s more interesting is that this revenue boost took place with almost no changes to total DAU—which increased by 2%, or total impressions—which saw a 1% decline.

Suiting Evil Nun up with MAS and revitalizing the game with new ad designs have proven more than successful, but Yodo1’s job of advancing ad performance is far from over. As we learn more about Evil Nun’s players, we will continue maximizing its ad revenue.

Partner For Success

Keplerians hasn’t stopped at only two ad-optimized games. Not long after having integrated MAS into Mr. Meat and Evil Nun, they decided to build it into a recently released game titled Ice Scream.

“We needed someone we could trust to manage our ads, and in Yodo1 we found the partner we’d been looking for. Now we can focus more time on developing our games, all the while knowing we’ve got a professional team working to improve our ad revenue.” – Keplerians

At Yodo1, we take pride in partnering with and co-driving the success of games such as Evil Nun. By helping them generate more ad revenue, our team has been able to free up solid chunks of the devs’ time. This allows them to focus on what they do best: entertaining players with their creative genius.

Get in touch to find out how our tried-and-proven MAS formula can elevate your game.