Neopolis (Re)Build in Public: Week 1 — Turning Back the Clock to Make the Game Fun Again

Hey! I’m Julien, co-founder and developer at Revolt Games, and we’re the team behind Neopolis.

Neopolis is a mobile game where players buy real-world buildings and landmarks. It’s all about rediscovering your city, exploring the world, teaming up with others, and building a real estate empire in what we call the Neoverse.

But there’s more — Neopolis also has a blockchain-based economy. We’ve divided the world into millions of virtual lands (NFTs), and the landowners, called mayors, can organize events on their land and earn $NLAND based on how well their land performs.

A few cool things we’ve done so far:

• 3M players across Europe and 200k active users
• Our first decentralized land collection of 10,000 lands sold out in just 7 minutes!
• We’ve raised over $2.5 million from investors and amazing founders in gaming, Web3, and social consumer.

Now, here’s where things get real. After 5 years of development, we’re still struggling to break even, and we’ve only got around 3 months of runway left. So, we’re gearing up to make some big, bold changes to save Neopolis.

I’ll be sharing our journey through this transformation every Monday. Stick with us as we push to give Neopolis one last shot!

Turning Back the Clock to Make the Game Fun Again

We’ve realized something critical: user acquisition costs (CPI) have skyrocketed, partly due to iOS 14 changes but also because of growing competition in the mobile gaming space. In 2022, our CPI was around $0.50, with a lifetime value (LTV) of $0.70. But in 2024, CPI shot up to $1.50, and even though our LTV also increased to $1.50, the margin was too small to scale effectively. Traditional user acquisition just isn’t working for us anymore.

Neopolis doesn’t attract casual gamers; our audience is more mid-core to hardcore. A while back, we were close to scaling, but with costs spiraling, running profitable campaigns became almost impossible.

In response, we gradually pushed more monetization into the game. Unfortunately, without realizing it, we chipped away at the fun — despite our community’s warnings. Neopolis became less enjoyable and more “pay to win,” moving further away from the original game we envisioned.

With just 3 months of runway left, continuing in this direction would likely lead to failure. So, after talking it through with Nathan and Ben Kaltenbaek (the 2 other co-founders), we decided to refocus on what truly matters: making the game fun again. Our first step is reducing the monetization pressure and bringing back what makes the game enjoyable — competition, social engagement, and simplicity.

Here’s what we’re focusing on:

1. Making the game fun again: Reviving competition, reducing the “pay to win” feel, removing unnecessary complexity, and enhancing engaging social interactions between players.

2. Optimizing onboarding: Improving the first moments in the game to hook future mayors from the start.

3. Pushing our decentralized economy: Going all-in on our blockchain-based economy within the booming Solana ecosystem to gain momentum and integrate it meaningfully into the gameplay experience.

Marie (our talented game designer) and Nathan (who knows the game and our players better than anyone) are already deep into brainstorming bold changes in the mechanics. They’re focused on making the game more competitive and reducing the “pay-to-win” elements. We’re also planning to simplify or remove features that were overly complex or didn’t resonate with the community.

Additionally, we plan to decentralize the game so that our most engaged players — our mayors — can take on an even more active role. We want mayors to help run and shape Neopolis, organizing events and creating new dynamics within their lands. In fact, we’ve observed an 80% retention rate after 90 days for players who transition to the mayor gameplay (blockchain), which is unprecedented for any feature in the game. This will bring the community even closer to the game’s development and make it feel like Neopolis truly belongs to its players.

Conclusion

In the face of rising user acquisition costs and losing sight of what made Neopolis fun, we’ve reached a turning point. After listening to our community and reflecting on where we went wrong, we’re making bold changes to bring the fun back. With only 3 months left, this is our last chance to revive Neopolis and create the game we believe in.

By shifting focus to simplifying gameplay, reducing monetization, and making the experience more competitive and enjoyable, we believe we can recapture what made Neopolis special in the first place. On top of that, we’re decentralizing the game so that our most engaged players can help shape its future as mayors. It won’t be easy, but we’re committed to giving Neopolis everything we’ve got.

Stay tuned as we share more about this journey. Together, we’ll see where this adventure takes us.