Eatventure: The Success of a Game and its Copycats
Eatventure, the premiere project of Lessmore, a game development company founded in 2021, has quickly gained popularity since its debut in December 2021. The game owes its success not only to its engaging gameplay but also to the expertise and experience of its core team, which comprises seasoned professionals from renowned mobile gaming companies like Kolibri Games, Popcore, LoadComplete, and Rovio.
Gameplay Overview
Eatventure offers an enjoyable low-poly idle gameplay experience that revolves around restaurant management. Players start with a small lemonade stand on a city street and can progress to managing upscale fine-dining establishments. The game includes various gameplay elements such as upgrading food and beverage stations, hiring staff, purchasing perks to boost production and profits, and collecting items. The unique aspect of item collection is that these items introduce universal game improvements, affecting profits and staff throughout the game, even after they are acquired.
Eatventure’s gameplay strikes a balance between being streamlined and engaging, without overwhelming players with complex mechanics and modes. It follows a straightforward core loop, incorporates an item collection system to add depth to the gameplay, and features weekly limited-time events to keep players engaged.
Since its release, Eatventure has seen tremendous success, with nearly 1.5 million downloads on Google Play alone by July 2022. This success has prompted a wave of copycats, with multiple similar titles being released each month since early 2023.
The Origin of Cat Snack Bar
Among the numerous copycats inspired by Eatventure, Cat Snack Bar stands out as one of the earliest and most refined ones. Developed by the South Korean team Treeplla, Cat Snack Bar launched in late October 2022, nearly a year after Eatventure’s debut and just three months after Eatventure began to scale. Despite its relatively late entry into the market, Cat Snack Bar quickly gained popularity, surpassing 20 million downloads and generating over $4 million in revenue (excluding ads).
What sets Cat Snack Bar apart from other Eatventure copycats is its distinct setting and art style. The game creates an immersive and cozy cat world where players interact with and serve adorable, plump kitties. This unique visual appeal has allowed Cat Snack Bar to capture a predominantly younger and female audience, avoiding direct competition with Eatventure.
Furthermore, Cat Snack Bar introduces innovative features and mechanics that set it apart from other copycats. Unlike many Eatventure-inspired games that follow a similar gameplay rhythm, Cat Snack Bar offers a livelier and more dynamic gaming experience. It eliminates the soft currency barrier for progressing to new locations, introduces the Vault feature earlier, and reimagines the Invite Helper feature and Merchant Event, providing players with engaging and fresh gameplay elements.
Distinctive Features of Cat Snack Bar
The implementation of the item system in Cat Snack Bar differs significantly from Eatventure. While both games have a similar surface-level item collection system, the nuances in Cat Snack Bar enhance the perceived value of acquired items. In Eatventure, players can use any item within the same category for upgrades without the need to continuously purchase chests to find specific items. In contrast, Cat Snack Bar requires players to collect identical items of the same rarity for upgrades, encouraging them to purchase more chests in search of desired items.
Another distinctive aspect of Cat Snack Bar is its unique approach to the Invite Helper feature. While Eatventure introduces this feature later in the game, Cat Snack Bar makes it available much earlier, allowing players to interact with a non-playable character helper endowed with perks from collected items. This helper remains active even after their shift ends, providing players with ongoing assistance. Players can extend the helper’s shift by viewing an advertisement.
Among the standout features in Cat Snack Bar is the International Cat Day event, which offers various sandwich offers that are intricately tied to the core gameplay. Players must progress by filling a progress bar and earning special currency, unlocking new levels and rewards. While some rewards are free, others require the purchase of previous level rewards, creating a unique monetization strategy that ensures players engage in the core game to earn rewards.
When comparing the monetization systems of both games, Cat Snack Bar offers significantly more ad placements and in-app purchase options than Eatventure. However, despite the extensive monetization strategy of Cat Snack Bar, the overall revenue generated by the game is lower than that of Eatventure, particularly in the United States.
Creative Strategies and Copycats
The marketing strategies employed by Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar are noticeably distinct. While Eatventure uses gameplay creatives in its user acquisition campaigns to closely represent the actual game, Cat Snack Bar initially used gameplay creatives but later transitioned to non-gameplay creatives imitating the style of an isometric tycoon game, which became their popular approach. This difference in marketing strategies highlights the uniqueness of Cat Snack Bar and reinforces the notion that it has carved a niche for itself alongside Eatventure.
Since the success of Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar, numerous copycats inspired by both games have emerged. These copycats can be grouped into three categories: scams that directly mimic the original game, games that only change the decor without adding significant value, and ambitious projects that experiment with different mechanics, styles, themes, and perspectives. While some projects in the third category show promise, many have not been successful in replicating the achievements of Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar.
Is There Room for Another Eatventure-like Game?
Although Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar have achieved significant success in the market, their accomplishments are not easily replicable. The key lesson from their success is that blindly copying these games or simply changing their visuals and decor is not likely to lead to success. The key to developing another successful game in this genre lies in identifying a unique setting that allows for fresh gameplay features and mechanics. By tweaking the core gameplay and offering enhanced monetization and meta gameplay strategies, developers can create a game that resonates with a distinct audience and stands out from the crowd.
In conclusion, the success of Eatventure and Cat Snack Bar is the result of years of dedication, innovation, and perseverance. While there is room in the market for more games inspired by Eatventure, developers must strive to create unique experiences that cater to specific audience segments. Copying features from successful games is not enough to achieve success; developers must constantly test and iterate to find the right formula for their target audience.