Clash Royale is dropping revenue like nobody's business after latest big update

We all know Supercell, that studio behind the Clash titles and all those star-studded adverts. However, despite the star power, it appears that the developers are in something of a backslide, according to their latest revenue figures. Not to mention the general disquiet from the player base.

Let’s focus on the golden child: Clash Royale. Last month, it brought in $36M, an amount any of us would be glad to have. However, let’s compare that to December; $58M. And to take two more steps back, November pulled in $68M, and October had $74M. It has lost literally half its revenue across three months. These figures may not include store revenue, but I doubt they are running $30M through there.

Why is Clash Royale losing money and players?

It is a drop that is undoubtedly being driven by fan dissatisfaction. A lot of this can be traced to the Level 16 update. I mean, just one Google search shows the vitriol players had for it. To condense it, Supercell took a lot of steps to make it so players had to pay to play. Which, if any, supposed F2P game doubled down on that would definitely cause some issues.

Now, you might be thinking how Supercell responded to all this.

Well, they are trying to retreat into the past, it appears. First of all, they have released a free emote for Clash Royale. It is a goblin version of the troll face, that one from 2008 that wasn’t even funny back then.

Their response to a player base criticizing the game, and then showing their opposition by tanking revenue, is to troll them.

I feel like that was not very well thought out, it's just going to make people quite faster when it gets spammed in matches. Not doing much to win the love back.

The second is a lot more noteworthy; Lil Wayne will be performing for the Clash Royale Half-time Show. It will take place on February 6th, and will have him performing his hit song, A Milli. That is a song that, somewhat coincidentally, also comes from 2008. Supercell wasn’t a thing then, don’t know why they picked that year.

These two things have one thread in common, besides the year; they do not address the concerns of fans. It is like Supercell is just trying to paper over the cracks, which is not going to go well. I am very interested in next month's stats to see if the trend continues.

If you want to watch this train wreck for yourself, download Clash Royale from the App Store and Google Play.