We have talked several times before about Clash Mini, which has been in soft launch for over two years [1] [2]. It is Supercell’s more approachable take on the autochess genre. A genre that was all the rage back in 2019 but failed to grow beyond a niche.

Why does this game matter? Well, Supercell hasn't launched a new game since Brawl Stars in 2018, so Mini becoming a hit would have an impact on the trend of the whole company. It is also the only remaining title out of the trio based on the Clash IP that was announced in early 2021. And it’s the only game soft-launched to date from Supercell’s Shanghai Studio, which was opened 5 years ago. Finally, Clash Mini is going through by far the longest Supercell soft launch, with more than 2 years and counting.

So of course, when Clash Mini and Supercell social networks started teasing about something big coming up in December 2023, many of us thought it was the global launch.

… It was not.

It was a very big update, akin to a re-release of the game, appropriately labeled Clash Mini 2.0.

Most of the changes are on progression, upgrades, and cosmetics, which have been entirely replaced by new systems reminiscent of Marvel Snap cosmetic upgrades. But there are also deeply impactful changes to the gameplay, which expand the new gameplay direction that was established in the July 2023 update.

So it’s fair to say that Mini is a very different game now than in early 2023. But is it different enough to completely transform its metrics?

In this article, we will examine the changes from the last updates, analyze the results so far, and we will make our prediction on whether they will be enough to turn things around for Mini.

Exec Summary

Clash Mini has been in soft launch for over 2 years, struggling to get metrics worthy of a global launch despite multiple incremental updates.
Since July 2023, Clash Mini has been executing a new direction to improve KPIs by changing the game foundations, which has consolidated with the latest update. The July 2023 update introduced big changes in gameplay, and the latest update (Dec 2023) has replaced the progression and cosmetic systems, and added even more changes to gameplay.
The progression changes have removed all gameplay functionality and stat increments from upgrades. Upgrades are now mainly cosmetic, and they increase a Collector Level that unlocks units and rewards (in a way similar to Marvel Snap), including additional skills for the Heroes. There is also a new gacha box system (Toy Machine) to acquire lootbox-exclusive units and cosmetics.
Cosmetics have included multiple new collection mechanisms that grant rewards when acquiring enough of a specific type. They also have included skins sets (collections of similar themed-skins) and a timed chest (piggy chest), which is upgraded through a building decoration system.
In terms of gameplay, core rules have been changed to increase depth, bringing it closer to the standard autochess formula: The July 2023 update removed the ability to reposition units once deployed (improving predictability on the opponent positions) and added drafting rules to the Rumble (increasing the depth on deckbuilding). The most recent update has introduced Classes (bonuses for deploying multiple units with the same tags, which also increases depth).
Overall, changes seem to be oriented to: 1) increase engagement by adding gameplay depth; 2) improve monetization by putting more focus loot boxes for the acquisition of new units; and 3) aim to make players diversify their units through modes where they play with the entire collection, and more incentives to acquire and upgrade all units.
In terms of results, revenue metrics have had a modest positive impact performance compared to versus past updates, but still seems below the values worthy of a global launch. KPIs are significantly below hits like Marvel Snap or Clash Royale, and the game is still below the category leader TeamFight Tactics.
The update has been received with mixed reactions in social networks, with players praising the gameplay additions and big amount of new playable content, but disliking the strong focus on loot boxes.
The massive scope of these changes points out that Clash Mini is far from a global launch, and - in our opinion - a likely scenario is that if future updates fail to significantly improve its metrics, it may get canceled.
Overall, our assessment is pessimistic. The thesis behind Clash Mini was that it was possible to create a more accessible, mass appeal autochess that could bring the genre to a new high. However, there are no signs of Mini being able to achieve an untapped potential in the gene.

The story until now…

In our most recent analysis about Clash Mini (May 2023), we noted that Revenue Per Downloads (RPD) had remained flat since launch. On any game this would be problematic, but it was even more so in Mini since the baseline was already low compared with other midcore titles.

In May 2023, the Revenue Per Download (RPD) was looking flat back in key territories, meaning that the game was not generating recurrent revenue from its users. Source: data.ai

The flat trend happened despite a constant stream of incremental updates that expanded and added systems on top of a fairly stable game core (Time Limited Events, Clans, a new gameplay mechanic, extending the upgrade system…).
It seemed obvious that to truly move the KPIs, Mini would need major changes.

Which is what they did next: Clash Mini strategy has switched from launching a succession of slightly incremental updates, to releasing few but very big and transformative ones.

In other words, since the July 2023 update, Mini is clearly following a new direction, which has now been completed with the most recent update in December 2023. Together, the last 2 updates have effectively revamped the core gameplay and the progression systems, as well removed a lot of the underperforming additions (Gizmos, Clan Raids, Solo missions…).

The last 2 updates mark a breaking point versus the previous ones, replacing a lot of past additions and focusing on big changes in core gameplay and progression systems.

So before jumping into the results, let’s see what this new direction is…

What changed in the last 2 updates?

Gameplay Changes

The gameplay changes seem oriented to make Clash Mini more strategic (by decreasing luck factor) and add gameplay depth. Therefore, the goal seems to be to increase engagement and, through it, retention.

In general, I believe that pretty much all of the gameplay changes make Mini a better game. They answer key issues: Lack of gameplay depth, players caring only about a single team of minis, too many distracting game modes…

However, it’s problematic to introduce such drastic changes so late in a soft launch.
Now, it will be much harder to evaluate if the changes have made the game more fun (and have better stickiness), because they will likely damage retention of the engaged players that just saw a shocking change in the rules that they had grown used to.

Better late than never. But the ideal timing to do these big pivots would have been very early, to have clean readings when adding new territories, and avoid disrupting the golden cohorts.

Explaining the gameplay changes in detail:

1) No Unit rearrangement

One of the most noticeable changes in terms of gameplay, introduced in July 2023, is the fact that units cannot be replaced or rearranged in the board between rounds. The only exception is the Hero, which can be moved once (that is a recent change from the December update).

The July 2023 Update removed the ability to reposition units after the turn they’re deployed, and the latest update (Dec 2023) has added the ability to reposition the Hero once.

Previously, on every single round players could exchange deployed units for elixir, and reshape their entire army. This meant that it was almost impossible to predict what the opponent would do next, since all the units and their placements could change.
Ultimately, this made Mini not be very strategic, as the main way for players to predict the opponent mini’s position was through pure luck.

This change was very divisive among Clash Mini fans in social networks. While the debate was very polarized, my impression is that the sentiment tended a bit more towards positive.

Players against this change argued that it made the game too predictive, and could generate snowball situations where you know you’ve lost since turn 1. There may be something true to those statements which, I guess, is the reason why now devs have allowed the Hero to move once per match.

My perception is that ‘no movement’ is a good improvement: It makes the match more strategic because players can more predictably react to and counter the opponent's actions, while it maintains the mindgames about predicting placements of the latest minis, it simplifies and accelerates decision-making, and being able to move the Hero still grants a degree of adaptability mid-match.

2) Unit Classes (Synergies)

Introduced in the latest update, all units belong to one or multiple classes, which grant bonuses when 2 or 4 units of the same class are placed in the board.

This is a standard mechanic (synergies) existing in all other autochess games, and in fact it was quite strange that it wasn’t featured in Clash Mini until now. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it has been universally received positively by players as well in social media.

Classes grant powerful bonuses when a player deploys units that belong to the same class.

In my opinion, classes are a fantastic feature: They add a layer of gameplay depth in deck building and usage that was much needed in Mini, while simultaneously providing a great balancing tool to give relevance to specific sets of units and discourage unbalanced combinations, and a great incentive to acquire all units belonging to a Class.

3) In-match Rank Ups are more valuable

Another big change that affects gameplay is that unit upgrades (outside of the match) no longer increase stats or unlock gameplay perks.

While the implications of this for progression and monetization will be discussed later, in terms of gameplay it means that rank ups (players upgrading units during the match by deploying duplicates) become more useful by removing the prerequisite of having upgraded a unit outside before being able to use the rank up has disappeared.

After the latest update, units do not upgrade outside of the match. This removes the handicap on newly acquired units, meaning that a deck can be built around them right away.

One thing worth not missing out is that now Heroes can be ranked up during the match, just like regular minis, and that they have 3 choices of perk to activate (Promotions).
These Promotions are unlocked by raising the Collector Level (each hero requires different Collector Levels, building a progression), meaning that ultimately there is still a gameplay-related incentive to upgrading.

During the match, players can only choose one Hero Promotion. Promotions are unlocked by raising Collector Level.

4) Rumble is a 4 players draft rules

In the original release, the 2 main game modes were Duel (1vs1) and Rumble (a tournament-like 8 player mode). This meant that a Rumble took much more time per match than a Duel, moving Mini away from the “game that you can play in a bathroom break” territory, which explains why the number of opponents has been progressively decreased.

As for the draft rules, originally all game modes were played with a small 6 units deck, which ultimately meant that players were incentivized to upgrade and play exclusively with a single Hero and 5 minis, ignoring everything else.

To avoid this, Mini has been using the draft rules more preeminently, first through Events and now in a permanent and more noticeable way through Rumble.
In draft, the deck is built during the match, by choosing among random units to add to it every turn, among the whole player collection. This encourages players to expand and upgrade their entire collection, adds an element of gameplay depth, and ultimately brings more variety to gameplay.

In draft rules, at the beginning of every turn the player chooses one unit to be added to their deck, from a random selection.

5) 24h Rotating Magic Tiles

Magic Tiles are special tiles in a board that trigger a unique effect. While an interesting concept, on the original release they felt a bit pointless and lacked visibility, as they were linked to specific boards that appeared based on the Trophy Road progression.

Since the July 2023 update, the Magic Tiles are present in all boards and game modes, and they rotate every 24 hours.

In my opinion, Magic Tiles still seem like a tertiary mechanic with untapped potential.
While the mechanic now has better reach, they are not particularly engaging and they generate little effect on making players choose using some units over others (the relationship between bonus and units is not even very obvious). Magic Tiles are not powerful enough game changers, and thus they don’t really encourage to change the played decks due to them.

This is particularly if compared to the deck usage influence and engagement generated by similar features like Marvel Snap locations, which is possibly the best execution of the rotative bonuses concept in the market.

6) Removal of underforming modes and mechanics

Gizmos (a sort of unique unit type that became available mid-match) were removed from regular game modes in the July 2023 update. And in the most recent one, Team Raids and Expeditions (solo levels) have been removed from the game entirely.

In my opinion, this is a good decision as these features were distracting from the main game rather than true engagement drivers. However, with the removal of Clan Raids now Clans don’t have anything to do in the game, so devs will have to deliver new interesting Clan activities.

Progression & Cosmetic Changes

While the latest gameplay makes Mini different but still recognizable, the same cannot be said for progression and cosmetics. Outside of the match, Mini is a completely new game.

The new system follows closely the design of Marvel Snap: Upgrades now provide no direct gameplay benefit (are purely cosmetic). And the weight of progression (and monetization) relies on the acquisition of units, through gacha and through a Collector Level.

I have mixed opinions on the new progression.
Both in Mini and in Snap the acquisition of new units is strongly linked to gacha (random distribution), which difficults the access of players to the content they want to be competitive, even if they want to pay for it.

Countering the inefficiency of gacha is the core of Snap monetization, because they don’t sell loot boxes. So they have several systems acting against gacha: A key new card is given right after buying the Pass, Collector Tokens allow players to pick the card they want, there is a system to mark the desired new card, offers that sell specific cards, etc...

On the contrary, Mini model pushes hard towards the inefficient gacha, through loot-box exclusive units, and the lack of those “anti-gacha” mechanics. The intended behavior in Mini is that players open a lot of loot boxes, acquired through game rewards or paid directly, and eventually get their desired item.

That is a problem, because loot boxes in Mini are frustrating due to the lack of intermediate value rewards. Because of the lack of valuable upgrade systems, loot boxes only have highly scarce ultra-valuable items (exclusive new units, skins), and very low value items (soft currencies). Therefore the regular experience of players opening loot boxes in Mini is negative: They always feel they’re getting garbage instead of what they wanted.

In my opinion, I believe that integrating this system didn’t require making upgrades purely cosmetic. That decision forces acquisition of new units to be expensive and very restrictive.

If they had kept a gameplay benefit in upgrading (like small stat increments), it would be possible to have a much better unit acquisition experience, because monetization would balance between acquiring new units and upgrading them, and it would allow the addition of intermediate-value rewards on the boxes.

The main progression changes are as follows:

1) New model of Unit Acquisition (Collector Level, Toy Machine)

Originally, Clash Mini featured a unit acquisition and upgrade system similar to Clash Royale: Once players acquired units (through the Trophy Road, Battle Pass or loot boxes), they started collecting fragments which allowed to upgrade them. Ultimately, this meant that acquiring new units was relatively easy. The difficult (and expensive) part was upgrading them.

In Clash Mini 2.0, the acquisition of new units is way more restricted.
There are only two sources for new units: increasing Collector Level and opening Loot Boxes (Toy Machine).

‘Unit acquisition and upgrade’ loop in *Clash Mini* 2.0.

How does the Collector Level work?
Units are now distributed across different Rarities, which “open” when the player reaches a certain level. “Opened” means that those units are now available as rewards, both in the random rewards given when reaching a new Collector Level and in regular loot boxes.

Both in Mini and in Snap, the only way to increase Collector Level is to upgrade units, which makes investing on upgrades an unavoidable step in the progression.

After each Collector Level level up, players get a reward which can be either a new mini or loot box keys.

For those familiar with Marvel Snap, the ‘rarity unlock’ is the equivalent of their card pools, which also progressively become available once players reach a certain Collector Level.

How does the Toy Machine (Loot Boxes) work?

On top of Collection Level rewards, the other way to acquire new units are loot boxes, which take the form of a literal gacha machine, called Toy Machine.

In fact, the Toy Machine is the only way to acquire a few loot box exclusive minis (SP units). Obviously, this is a very aggressive move (even more considering the frustrating balance of the loot boxes), and thus it’s been a controversial topic among players.

Loot Boxes are arranged in several types, with some being time limited. Depending on their value, Loot boxes will require a different type of Keys to make a roll (Silver Keys, Gold Keys and Epic Keys), with Silver and Gold keys given relatively often as game rewards.

Interestingly, instead of a box containing multiple rewards like in most games, one key generates a single roll of the box, with the idea being that players try to perform many rolls at once. Unfortunately, this remarks even more the unrewardiness of the Clash Mini loot boxes.

I find the design of Clash Mini Loot Boxes subpar, and frustrating for players.

In my opinion, good loot box designs avoid creating on the player the sensation of disappointment. This is achieved by avoiding having layers of garbage rewards.

For example, Magic: The Gathering draft Booster Packs have a predetermined composition, all of them having 1 land, 10 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 Rare or Mythic Rare. This means that while some Booster Packs may be better than others, they’re limited on how bad they can be. At least you’ll get a Rare and several uncommons.
Additionally, ultimately cards serve for the purpose of filling up the collection or can be traded for missing cards from the set.

This is completely opposite to the design we find in Clash Mini lootboxes: Here, the balancing follows a “hit the jackpot or nothing” design where there are extremely scarce, highly desirable elements (new units or skins), on a sea of small currency amounts.

There is nothing in-between in terms of value. Mainly, because that intermediate value reward doesn’t exist: Other than worthless currencies, everything else that the game has available as reward is an ultra-valuable permanent.
And this is made worse by the “one key = one roll” ratio, which means that boxes can’t include multiple rolls, some of which guarantee a higher value.

Therefore, every time the player rolls, expecting to get something at least useful, they will get a disappointment:

Example: The Hog Rider special loot box, which should be the default way to get the loot box exclusive unit, only gives a 1.05% chance to get it. This means players will get *worthless* gold over and over…

To compensate for extreme cases of bad luck, and to encourage repeated use, the loot boxes incorporate pity mechanics which grant a high reward after reaching a high number of rolls.

However, rather than an encouragement to keep rolling, it feels a bit as if the game is teasing players instead…

It only takes 80 Gold Keys (around $56) to get a guaranteed Hog Rider. Not the best deal.

It’s possible that this hardcore approach towards Loot Boxes aims at monetizing Asian audiences, who reportedly have a greater tolerance for aggressive gacha than players in the West.

2) Cosmetic Upgrades & Autoemotes

In the original release of Clash Mini, upgrades granted gameplay benefits (units had more available perks and higher stats).
However, as explained above, in Clash Mini 2.0 upgraded units do not have any gameplay benefit (with the exception that upgraded Heroes unlock new perks).

Instead, the current incentives for upgrading are: 1) upgrading increases Collector Level, which unlock new units; and 2) because it adds some small cosmetic improvements to minis.

Upgrades are paid through a new currency (Fragments). These fragments can be universally used to upgrade any units, however there are also character specific fragments that can also be used.
From what I’ve been able to see, regular Fragments are used when the player doesn’t own character specific ones. However, fragments are rewarded quite often, rendering the character specific ones worthless. So I’m not entirely sure what they’re trying to achieve with them. My guess being that in the future, regular Fragments will become scarce or will not be usable with new units.

Players use regular fragments (blue) when they lack *character specific* fragments. However, blue fragments are common, rendering worthless the character-specific ones.

How the cosmetic upgrades work is that the character will automatically execute some emotes and special FX highlights on specific actions, as seen in the pic below:

Here there are 2 topics to discuss: First, the fact that the upgrade does not provide any gameplay benefit. Second, the cosmetics themselves (autoemotes).

Regarding the lack of gameplay benefits, I’m not really sure it’s really positive in the long run, neither for the game as a product, nor for the players.

While at a first glance the idea of not having stat upgrades may sound good and user friendly, in reality it doesn’t remove the need of spending depth. It just moves the spending depth towards acquisition, which is less user friendly.
In my opinion, it would be much better for players to acquire unit’s cheap, and be competitive with people at their level, rather than the current situation where the cost to acquire the units will necessarily be very high.

It will also force devs to have to pump out a big flow of new units constantly, to keep fueling the revenue generation.

Finally, regarding the autoemote cosmetics: I think they’re a nice thing and if I was working on a game with cosmetics I would integrate similar ideas. However, the emotes are visible in brief moments and a bit hard to notice, which means that they don’t shine a lot. For example, unit skins are way more noticeable.

Compared to Marvel Snap (which were the ones that popularized cosmetic upgrades), I feel that Snap card cosmetic upgrades are more noticeable and exciting. On top of being linked to card skins rather than cards, which adds more spending depth.

3) New Pass System (Daily + Seasonal Quests)

Previously, the Clash Mini Pass progression was obtained by completing Daily and Weekly quests, on top of Special Challenge quests that would be available on a time limited basis.
This rewarded players that were constant, since players had to grind during the entire season, but punished late joiners or irregular players that had no way to complete the Pass.

The new system has Regular Quests (up to 4 which spawns multiple times per day), and Seasonal Quests (that get progressively unlocked during the season). This means that while constant players have the advantage, players that come late will find a big list of Seasonal Quests already unlocked, which they can use to progress faster.

Players also get Pass progression by winning matches, but this is a minimal amount.

Additionally, the Pass now includes a set of valuable rewards unlocked right after the purchase:

It’s obvious that the biggest inspiration on this new Pass design has been Marvel Snap, which features the same structure of regular and seasonal quests, and purchase benefits.

However, one difference is that on top of these Pass Quests, Clash Mini has additional quests that do not contribute to the Pass, and which grant regular rewards.
This often generates a situation where after playing some matches the player needs to go through 3-4 menus collecting individual rewards, which is common in many Asian games.

After a few matches, players often need to do a *victory lap* over 3-4 menus, collecting rewards from quests.

3) Upgradable Piggy Chests and Dioramas (Decorative Upgrades)

Every few hours, players can collect a timed Piggy Chest which grants rewards such as Gold and Fragments. Additionally, players can permanently upgrade these chests to increase the amount of rewards, drop rates of every type of reward and amount of chests that can be accumulated.

How players can upgrade the chests is probably the weirdest system that I’ve seen on a midcore game in a while, called Dioramas.

Dioramas are pictures which can be upgraded using Crystal Coins (a type of cosmetic soft currency), progressively completing the picture. Each of these upgrades requires time (which can be skipped through gems), and only one upgrade can be built at a time (unless players buy the Pass in which case they can build 2 at once).
Upon completion, an upgrade generates Piggy Chest XP, which eventually levels up the Piggy.

Additionally, each Diorama features specific Unit skins. Collecting those Unit Skins also completes the diorama, granting Piggy Chest XP.

My opinion on this system? I’m confused.
Having a sort of upgradable appointment reward system somewhat linked to collection of Skins is an interesting idea, however I find the specific execution quite bizarre, unrelated to the player fantasy and not self explanatory.

I think that a visual metaphor about completing toy boxes or similar would have been more effective at making players understand the mechanic.

3) Cosmetics Gallery (New Cosmetics Structure)

On top of the Dioramas, another (smaller) change in the Cosmetics Gallery has now been divided into sections, one for each different cosmetic type (Skins, Emotes, Avatars and Boards).

One interesting thing here is that every section has its own progression system, which progressively grants rewards when the player obtains enough cosmetics of the specific types.

So for example a player that upgrades Minis unlocks emotes, which make the Emote gallery reward bar progress:

But if you think those are enough rewards for cosmetics, there’s one more:

5) Skin Sets (Skin Theme Collections)

When players complete specific collections of similar-themed skins, they unlock a reward. Yes, this reward is on top of the reward they may get for collecting enough skins, and on top of the Diorama skin rewards, which are also collections of similar themed skins.

Because why have a single reward system if you can have 3?

I suspect that the multiple parallel rewards systems may be a deliberate decision to make the acquisition of skins feel very rewarding, and similar to what happens to quests, make players do a victory lap collecting rewards.
This is not very common in western games, however not rare in collection-oriented asian games.

6) Trophy Road (More granular, unrelated to boards)

Another minor change introduced in Clash Mini 2.0 is a rework of the Trophy Road, with more granularity of rewards and a look&feel closer to other Supercell games.

What have been the results so far?

The short term results have been positive.
However it is tricky to assess how much of the impact will be permanent, because:

The update was released during holiday period, which often outperforms
It added about ~10 times more new units than regular updates, so it’s likely that part of the increment in revenue it’s because there is a lot of new content for players to buy.
The angle of presenting it as a relaunch has boosted downloads, although this boost seems to be fading away.

That said, my educated guess is that the latest update changes have increased significatively the baseline, but not enough to bring Mini to WW launch levels yet.

The update has generated a decent increment in revenue in both Canada and Hong Kong (used here to simulate western countries and mainland China respectively), which seems to be stable:

In Canada, the update brought a modest boost in both downloads and revenue, which seems to have stabilized into a new higher point. Source: Data.ai

In Hong Kong, revenue also seems to have stabilized at a higher point than before. Source: Data.ai

So why do I say that the increment (provided that it truly is stable) is not enough to bring Clash Mini to WW launch levels? It’s because of 2 reasons:

Clash Mini is still trying to catch Riot’s TeamFight Tactics (leader of the autochess category), when to be Supercell-worthy it should be surpassing it by far.
Clash Mini is significantly below Clash Royale soft launch metrics, and unlikely to get the same organic massive reach as Brawl Stars.

Clash Mini versus TFT

Mini has barely catched up to TFT in Canada, and it’s significantly below it in Hong Kong.

This is disappointing news for Mini because TFT is barely making any money in the West. Mice nuts. On TFT, the majority of its revenue comes from China (data not available), and South Korea (which excluding China represents over 65% of TFT revenue).

So it seems unlikely that Clash Mini could win by conquering China and South Korea, unless the game somehow becomes viral on those territories.

*Clash Mini* is still trying to catch up to TFT, while to be Supercell-worthy it should be surpassing it by far. Source: Data.ai

Clash Mini versus past Supercell Hits

The latest update has improved significatively Clash Mini RPD values, however they are not showing the explosive growth of hits like Marvel Snap or Clash Royale. In fact, it seems to be going down.

In the graph below there’s a comparison of RPD for Clash Mini and key benchmark titles, including Clash Mini excluding all data previous to the latest update (which is a bit tricky, but IMHO isolates the performance of the update):

The RPD of Clash Mini since the release of the update is not showing explosive growth of *Clash Royale* or *Marvel Snap*, and in fact seems to be flat/decreasing. Source: Data.ai

It could be pointed out that the latest RPD is higher than Brawl Stars’.
However, Brawl Stars' silver bullet was that it targeted a massive young audience with low revenue per user, many of which were reached organically. Therefore, it was able to be very successful once at scale.

This seems an unrealistic proposition for Mini, which is a much more hardcore game. Realistically, Mini should have a ‘small user base, big spending’ model, closer to Marvel Snap or Clash Royale. And thus, the RPD trend should be growing constantly, instead of staying flat.

In my opinion, the lack of revenue mechanisms that aren’t linked to the acquisition of new units (like a deeper upgrade system), as well as possible issues with long term engagement, are likely factors explaining this flat RPD line despite a diminishing amount of downloads.

In summary, the results so far mean that none of the 2 paths how Clash Mini could succeed don’t seem likely.
Success could be achieved either by conquering the West by reaching broader audiences than regular autochess (in which case it would have to surpass TFT by far, and be on par with Clash Royale) or by conquering China or South Korea (which doesn’t seem to be the case looking at the Hong Kong performance, unless the game becomes viral on those territories).

What could change this picture is if new and reactivated players showed higher engagement and retention, and kept on monetizing effectively after each injection of new content.
This would set Mini on a path of growing its audience and progressively its RPD with each successive update.
Which is possible, but far from trivial.

Conclusions

Tactical victory, strategic defeat.

Regarding the latest updates, I think they have been much needed steps for Clash Mini.

Since its launch, at DoF we’ve argued that Mini needed big changes like these if it was to succeed, especially after seeing that the strategy of moderate changes and increments of content wasn’t moving the KPIs. This is the proof.

Although I personally don’t agree with some of the changes introduced (in particular, I believe that removing stat upgrades is a mistake, and that the design of the gacha it’s subpar), I think it’s good that the team has pivoted, and is trying new breaking things.

In my opinion, a lesson for everyone to take away is that soft launches shouldn’t wait long to execute drastic changes, particularly if trying to improve engagement and retention: the last 2 updates have been more impactful to Clash Mini than everything else in the past 2 years, and probably the most insightful as well.

Unfortunately, thinking about the game as a whole, ultimately I am pessimistic about the chances of Clash Mini to succeed.

The thesis behind Clash Mini was that it was possible to create a more accessible, mass appeal autochess that could bring the genre to a new high. However, that doesn’t seem true: Mini has struggled just to catch TFT in the West (which in itself should be the starting point), and it seems it will never catch it in Asia.
So far, there are no signs of Mini being able to achieve an untapped potential in the genre, it’s getting to be just a decent autochess. Which is too small for Supercell.

But ultimately, only time will tell if this update becomes the turning point for Clash Mini, or if it goes into history as a last hail mary shot trying to save a sinking ship.

Special thanks to the many friends, mentors and reviewers that gave me their impressions and thoughts to this article, in particular to the superb Krishna Israney who shared with me deep notes with his impressions, and to Philip Black.

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