Fall Guys Creative Brings Back Fun And Players?

Everything changed on May 10th when Epic Games introduced the “Fall Guys Creative”. This highly sought-after feature will hopefully revigorate casual gamers and streamers having fun dodging obstacles over the past three year. How can tailored customer experience push the game back to the forefront?

Introduction – Fall Guys

What is Fall Guys?
Fall Guys is a free-to-play platform battle royale game developed by Mediatonic and published by Epic Games. Up to 40 players (down from 60) navigate through a series of fast-action obstacle courses in the Blunderdome. Players called “Beans” can compete randomly or through a custom set-up for up to six rounds with the last person standing winning the coveted crown.

Fall Guys Trailer

The game was released in August 2020 and was greeted with good reviews from critics (as of May 2023, it has a Metacritic score of 80 through 25 critic reviews). The success was matched with more than ten million digital copies sold to date. More than 50 million players have registered to play across all gaming platforms like PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Monetization

The game uses different in-game currencies Kudos and Show-Bucks (Crowns was phased out). Kudos can be earned through events, in-game challenges, and unlocked via the Season Pass. Show-Bucks will be earned through competing in daily challenges and winning Rounds.

Both can be used to game items. Show-Bucks will be used for items such as costumes, emotes, nametags, faceplates, and more found in the Fall Guys Store. Kudos can be used to “purchase Single Costume Pieces of Common rarity, Common colours, all Nicknames and Nameplates, as well as Common Faceplates and Patterns.”

Fall Guys Creative Brings Back Fun And Players? / Shop (Image: Fall Guys)

Fall Guy Creative

One of the demanded features of Fall Guys is the ability for players to create their Rounds like in the Super Mario Maker series. The letter extended playability and interest. Lego was so inspired that it manufactured its version allowing players to create an infinite number of courses.

At release, players can create up to 20 levels with the same design tools in the level editor as the ones used by the game publisher. This ensures course creation complexity and in-game mechanics are refined from the start. The goal is to reduce the effort required to build amazing rounds.

The new Fall Guys Creative available on May 10, 2023, allows players to build their obstacle course.

Excel Through Customer Experience

Player feedback contributed a big part to the Fall Guys Creative rollout in Season 4. While it was a very popular game during its release in 2020, interest waned as the same old game mechanics and in-game purchases did not excite players. After an all-time peak of 172,026 active Steam players reached in 2020, participation dropped off significantly. The game has around 2,100 active players on May 9, 2023.

Fall Guys Creative Brings Back Fun And Players? / Player Data (Data from Steam)

There has been a wave of reporting in advance of the Season 4 and creator mode rollout. Ahead of the May 10, 2023 rollout date, early reviews of the new creator mode have been positive and reviewers noted how much easy and fun it was to build new courses.

This is a make-or-break moment for the game. Mediatonic can consider the following to engage, acquire, onboard, and service players:

Fresh Content with Creators
Mediatonic has created content to engage all active and non-active players in advance of the release. While additional engagement details are scarce, look for the company to work with popular game streamers like Ludwig, Valkyrae, Pokimane, and Sykkuno who heavily played the game previously to design custom tournaments and be featured in sponsored streams.

Regular Players
Regular players should be rewarded for creating popular or high-quality courses monthly. This shows appreciation for player creativity and time spent building new courses.

Partnership
Similar to Epic Games’ own Fortnite, brand partnerships have a large role in drawing players into purchasing skins and emotes. Mediatonic should extend partnerships with brands in anime, consumer products, and entertainment (e.g., Marvels, Star Wars, Minions, Mario Bro.) to design limited edition skins.

Tournaments
Unlike other titles, Mediatonic and Epic Games have not created leagues or a worldwide tournament for Fall Guys. This may be the time to treat the game as an e-sport.

In-game Mechanics
While the game is easy to play and takes minimal effort to master for hours of fun, the in-game mechanics can become repetitive and sterile after a length of time. In future releases, Mediatonic should invent new play movements and course mechanics to increase difficulty and randomness. The goal is to improve playability on existing courses and keep the game fresh even after multiple hours of play.

Monetization
Instead of a common in-game currency, Fall Guys’ system can be confusing and reduces opportunities to earn and spend the currency in the store. It would be better if the currency can be further streamlined with a tweak in conversion to make it less costly to build new skins, nameplates, etc. After all, what is the point in having unique partnership content if they are out of reach for most players?

Season 4 and the Fall Guys Creative will be available on May 10, 2023, across all gaming platforms.

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