Monster World developer Wooga looks back at three years of success on Facebook
Three years after the launch of Monster World on Facebook, Wooga has taken a look back at its wildly successful farming game, releasing some stats and examining how the company has been able to retain such dedicated users three years after release.
Since launching in April 2010, Monster World has been installed by over 65 million players. The game still pulls in over 4.6 million monthly active users and 1.7 million daily active users, according to our app tracking service AppData.
In Monster World, players are asked to grow a variety of plants in a garden populated by monsters. As users plant new crops and level up, they’ll unlock additional gameplay options, plants and more, continuing the cycle of progression over the long term.
Wooga has released a variety of game-changing updates over the last three years, with each helping to sustain veteran players’ interest in the experience. In fact, over 1.1 million players have tended to their own gardens for over 200 hours each. Many players are just as interested in the social features in Monster World, as 535 players have more than 4,000 friends.
In July 2010, Wooga introduced story missions to give players a constant goal to push towards, aside from just planting and unlocking new crops. Factories and WooGoo came later, bringing a whole new layer of crafting to the game, accompanied by much deeper and complex story missions.
August 2012 saw the first of many timed missions released, focusing on the seasons of nature as players were introduced to a new character named Buzzy, and could achieve great progress by crafting the right things at the right time, depending on the season.
The most recent update is just as large, as Wooga has this month unveiled a brand new underwater environment in Monster World. As player’s visit Octi’s underwater garden, they’ll receive new crop spaces, new plants to grow and a variety of themed missions that Wooga is confident will keep the game pushing forward for at least another three years.
Monster World inventor Stephanie Kaiser attributes the game’s continued success to the monsters that inhabit the world. “They are the heart of the game,” says Kaiser. “While they are not important for the core game loop, they set the theme of the monsterish world, make it lovable and let our users smile every day over and over again.”
Monster World is available to play for free on Facebook. The game is supported via microtransactions, allowing users to purchase premium items in the store and expand their gardens, as examples. You can view a complete infographic of Monster World’s life on Facebook below.
