Subway Surfers · B2C · endless runner mobile game
Have a small in-house team post 5-10 videos a day riding pop culture trends
Viral hits of 75M-100M views on salaries only; guest says it lifts app store featuring
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What they did
A core content team of under 10 people produces 5-10 assets a day, brainstorming freely and riffing on whatever goes global (Squid Game honey cake as the Subway Surfers logo, The Last of Us with game characters, a guard post about Justin Bieber's new album, rivalry posts with Duolingo, a new hire dancing in the guard mascot costume). They balance gameplay-relevant clips (so people know it's the game) with pure-fun viral content. The team is autonomous: brand checks by the head of play experience and head of brand rarely say no; the CEO has vetoed only twice in 12 years; trends judged off-brand (e.g. Skibidi Toilet, too many fart sounds) are skipped. All creative is in-house, not agencies.
What happened
Individual videos reached 100M and 75M views; marketing cost is essentially salaries. Guest says Apple and Google acknowledge TikTok success feeds app store featuring. Mentions on Tonight Show, Last Week Tonight and by Justin Bieber followed.
- Stage
- scale
- Effort
- Under 10 people, 5-10 assets a day, sustained for years
“The core part producing content is less than 10 people.”
“And they produce what? 5, 10 assets a day.”
“So if our content works on TikTok, we are also featured more on our app stores.”
“So whenever a TV series goes global, we also did the honey cake from Squid Games as a Subway Surfers logo.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Subway Surfers: Move the game to a new city every three weeksGuest credits it with keeping the game fresh for 13 years; no numbers
- Subway Surfers: Keep the core game free and unlimited, and never lock content behind paymentTop-5 downloaded game every year since 2012; 1M installs a day
- Subway Surfers: Let anyone use the game in their videos, and repost the cool onesCreators, including a K-pop star, make unpaid content; the game became a meme format
- Subway Surfers: Put a few hundred dollars behind posts already going viralTens of thousands of dollars total; helps hits spread to other platforms
- Subway Surfers: Let players watch an ad for a reward instead of payingAds bring in 80-85% of revenue; still the top game in tier-2 and tier-3 countries
- Subway Surfers: Ask players' age, show kids only child-safe ads, and block gambling and gun adsVery few complaints across a billion ad impressions a month
- Subway Surfers: Swap characters with other hit games, with no money changing handsBrings back lapsed players and boosts both games; Crossy Road got the bigger bump
- Slopes: Sell day and season passes next to the subscription for occasional usersHost cites it as working; no numbers