‘Star Chef’, a mobile game based on cooking and restaurants that was launched three years ago, has helped Udupi-based 99Games Online generate revenues and also find some interesting trends over the years.
Anila Andrade, Associate Vice-President (Operations) of the gaming studio, told BusinessLine that Star Chef has been instrumental in getting 99Games listed as one of the top revenue-earning gaming studios in India and also helped it with two rounds of funding.
The game has made more than $20 million in lifetime revenue, she claimed. Of this, around 80 per cent has been from in-app purchases. The US, Japan, China, Taiwan and the UK are the top five countries by revenue.
Rohith Bhat, Chief Executive Officer, 99Games, said the game was launched worldwide in August 2014. It has so far recorded over 15 million downloads.
Announcing the release of a major update to Star Chef to mark the third anniversary of the game, Bhat said the game is one of the global success stories from an India-based studio.
Andrade said the player base distribution was 85:15 in favour of females when Star Chef was launched three years ago. The ratio has now changed to 75:25 in favour of females.
Asked about this shift, she said users play the game along with their spouses and family members.
“We think the increase in growth of male players is mainly due to this. Star Chef has compelling social features where you get a lot of benefits when you have more players in your network.
“Your friends can help you speed up cooking, help with watering your plants in the backyard, give you daily gifts, to name a few.”
Andrade said 35 per cent of the players are from North America, 30 per cent from Europe and 35 per cent from the Asia-Pacific region.
She said the company introduced Thai cuisine in the game once it saw a lot of traction from Thailand.
At present, the game has over 150 recipes (including six Indian) from across 12 world cuisines.