Hill Climb Racing 2 launched on alternative app stores thanks to the developer, Fingersoft’s, collaboration with Flexion. The marketing company made the game go live on Huawei AppGallery, Samsung Galaxy Store, ONE Store, and the Amazon App Store.
The Hill Climb Racing series has been quite popular in the mobile gaming community which is why Flexion was interested in working with Fingersoft in the first place. Hill Climb Racing 2 is a free-to-play physics-based driving game that challenges players to climb up hills and bumpy environments using various types of motor vehicles and was an instant hit once it opened to the public. In fact, Hill Climb Racing and Hill Climb Racing 2 generated a combined total of two billion downloads and a net sum of nearly 197 million dollars in revenue, so Flexion had hope of accelerating that amount by exposing the game to a wider audience. The partnership was first announced back in January which is around the same time that Hill Climb Racing 2 was said to be releasing on the aforementioned app stores. Fingersoft saw the partnership with Flexion as a chance to spread recognition between their brand and themselves to outside existing channels.
Flexion stated that “We announced our partnership with Fingersoft a few months ago, so we’re delighted to have launched the first game. Flexion is currently averaging around 10% extra revenue for Android games it distributes.”
A persistent topic throughout the mobile gaming company is the utilization of alternative app stores instead of Google and Apple. Seeking these options out has been impertinent to many developers since they would be able to publish their titles outside the mainstream systems. Especially since the issue of commission charges from both Apple and Google in regards to in-app purchases taking away a significant sum of profits, game development companies have been looking for ways to maximize revenue.
Google and Apple have come under fire with regulators all over concerned about their dominance in the mobile gaming distribution market. In fact, many markets have passed new legislation, the Digital Market Act, to allow third-party app stores installation in hopes of reducing the possibility of the two mega-corporations forming a duopoly. The third-party app stores would give developers more options to weigh between when deciding where they should distribute their app while retaining a majority of their profits.
Flexion, particularly, has been on the forefront for a while now. It is through their own distribution services that Flexion has added revenue and new players from alternative app stores using monetization, platform relations, and new user acquisition that the company has been successful in circumventing Google and Apple. With the aid of Lauritzon, the marketing company celebrated their eighth consecutive quarter of record revenue through alternative app stores. It was stated that, “adding distribution power to our platform and ramping up sales activities across the organization to capture the increased interest in alternative distribution is a priority for us in order to continue capturing market share.”
Furthermore, Lauritzon confirmed that Flexion has already set plans for the future as they have “signed several major titles that we will launch in the next few quarters.” Now, Android and iOS users can still download Hill Climb Racing 2 on their respective stores. However, Flexion and Fingersoft are using this chance as a way to showcase other app stores options to consumers.