Subway Surfers · B2C · endless runner mobile game
Let anyone use the game in their videos, and repost the cool ones
Creators, including a K-pop star, make unpaid content; the game became a meme format
Workedword-of-mouthorganic-social
What they did
Produce content designed to be reusable for UGC, allow users to use the IP in videos without takedowns, and amplify (reshare) user-made content the team finds cool. Creators such as a K-pop band member post videos reacting to the game's sounds without being paid; the game became a known backdrop format for TikTok ('sludge content').
What happened
Unpaid creator content and mainstream mentions (Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Justin Bieber) that 'other companies would pay for'.
- Stage
- scale
“So we've always had a strategy of producing content that could be used for UGC. So every user generated asset is also amplified if we think it's cool.”
“And again, people think, well, how much did you pay? And it's simply just that they think that this is a cool content piece to make.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
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: Have a small in-house team post 5-10 videos a day riding pop culture trendsViral hits of 75M-100M views on salaries only; guest says it lifts app store featuring
- 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