A decade of Elvenar: €200 million in income and nonetheless rising

InnoGames‘ Elvenar lately simply hit its 10th anniversary. The name was once initially launched on browsers and has since long gone directly to turn into a cross-platform sport the place gamers can transfer between internet and iOS/Android units. 

Since its release a decade in the past, the city-builder has won 26.2 million gamers and surpassed €200m in lifetime income. 

To mark the milestone anniversary, we spoke with product supervisor Anna Sieprawska to speak about the sport’s evolution, its community-driven construction beliefs, and what the longer term would possibly hang for the name. 

From browser-based to cell

Elvenar was once initially launched in 2015, however in 2017 the sport transitioned to cell, which, in keeping with Sieprawska, got here with its personal set of demanding situations. 

“By the point we began speaking about creating a cell app, the sport already had a large number of options and an overly wealthy consumer interface,” Sieprawska explains.

“Adapting the UI to suit the guidelines our gamers want and making all of the options simply out there on a lot smaller monitors was once probably the most greatest demanding situations.”

The staff additionally needed to cope with the massive scale of visible belongings, one thing that fanatics had a top appreciation for.

“Each new tournament, each new content material patch introduced new belongings for gamers to obtain,” Sieprawska explains. “So, we needed to to find techniques to verify they might revel in the wonderful thing about the sport with out making the app unreasonably massive.

“The staff did an ideal task, and we’re nonetheless pleased with how Elvenar appears to be like on cell.”

Status the check of time

As a long-standing sport, Elvenar has needed to adapt because the marketplace has modified, and that implies making sure it is nonetheless preserving gamers happy while additionally final financially viable for the studio. The sport has remained free-to-play, but it surely has tailored to provide non-compulsory techniques for gamers to hurry up growth and earn rewards. 

“Elvenar is a free-to-play sport, and our major focal point has all the time been to be sure that our gamers can revel in it with out spending a penny,” Sieprawska says. “That mentioned, we do supply further content material for gamers who wish to make investments.”

One of the most monetisation options come with season and tournament passes, a top class forex choice and extra lately the inclusion of rewarded advertisements. Alternatively, Sieprawska issues out that the staff needs to make sure the name avoids a pay-to-win ecosystem.

“We imagine that our focal point on keeping off a pay-to-win atmosphere, blended with a gentle glide in in-game occasions and new chapters, is the recipe for Elvenar’s good fortune,” she states. 

In the back of the scenes, making all of this occur is a devoted staff of 23, made up of builders, artists, designers, QA and network managers, a few of whom were operating at the sport for the reason that very starting.

“Over time, our are living ops pipeline has turn into well-oiled,” says Sieprawska. “Lots of the paintings on in-game occasions will also be completed by way of our sport designers, the use of current gear for balancing quests, rewards and gross sales, with out a lot effort at the developer facet.”

Group and cross-platform 

Over time, the builders at the back of Elvenar have ensured they handle an in depth courting between themselves and gamers. Webhosting in-game polls, early get entry to check servers, and taking over participant comments to assist form the advance procedure via Discord, boards, and social media.

“Participant comments is a large a part of our construction procedure, and we’re all the time operating on techniques to get nearer to our network,” says Sieprawska.

Primary updates to the sport and adjustments that can be deemed as debatable are treated with transparency, says Sieprawska, reminiscent of contemporary changes to the Spire of Eternity rewards. 

“We lately made adjustments to the rewards device, Spire of Eternity. First of all, our gamers weren’t inspired with our proposal. Alternatively we have been a success by way of taking the time to hear their comments and iterating our plans a number of instances earlier than imposing the real adjustments.”

An exterior staff of network managers also are a part of the community-building, dealing with the other language variations of the sport. However there’s a robust hyperlink between them and the interior construction staff, which has helped to foster relationships through the years.

Over Elvenar’s lengthy lifestyles span, its network has naturally elderly with the sport, which led to a portion of its unswerving gamers transferring to having extra disposable source of revenue. With 40% of gamers being with the sport for over 5 years, those gamers are a number one focal point for the staff.

Sieprawska additionally credit the sport’s specialty and imaginative and prescient as a significant factor for its sticking energy.

“Whilst the town builder marketplace is slightly aggressive, I imagine our focal point on a singular and tasty delusion surroundings units Elvenar aside. What number of different video games help you have unicorns, elves, dwarves and dragons in one metropolis?”

Elvenar has additionally tailored through the years for its gamers by way of making the enjoy cross-platform, one thing which has additionally performed an important function in sustained expansion.

“Being cross-platform has a great deal expanded Elvenar’s achieve and accessibility,” says Sieprawska. “It lets in gamers to make a choice how and the place they play.”

“It’s a lot more straightforward to test for your metropolis for your telephone all through a espresso smash or whilst doing chores.”

Phrases of recommendation and the street forward

As a sport that has hit an important milestone of 10 years, Sieprawska stocks one piece of recommendation for builders who is also having a look to copy such an success. 

“Concentrate in your network and check out to truly perceive their issues and the way you’ll be able to remedy them. The best and shiniest sport options is not going to assist your sport if they’re bulky to make use of. Briefly, make it simple on your gamers to revel in your sport.”

InnoGames is an organization recognized for different titles that experience had endurance with the likes of Forge of Empires, which has been going for 13 years, Grepolis, which grew to become 15 ultimate yr and Tribal Wars, which has maintained a network for 21 years. Sieprawska even stocks that the latter sport had its maximum financially a success yr in 2024. 

As a part of this lengthy legacy of video games, Elvenar is ready to proceed to conform with its gamers.

“We’ve put a large number of effort into changing into increasingly more environment friendly as a staff. Making our builders extra generalise, simplifying our processes, or discovering extra techniques to make use of AI,” says Sieprawska. “We all the time have extra just right concepts than we will have compatibility at the roadmap.”

Talking on the way forward for Elvenar, Sieprawska tells us that the studio’s major focal point is discovering the steadiness between turning in new content material, current options, and making the participant enjoy smoother.

“Something I will say needless to say is that Elvenar will proceed to conform and supply our gamers with magical reports for many years yet to come.”