Subway Surfers City: The Next Chapter in an Endless Journey
Exploring SYBO Games’ Strategic Shadow-Drop and Its Legacy in Mobile Gaming
Yo Yo!
While I was checking AppMagic, I wanted to see the top soft launches on the dashboard to spot the trends. I focused only on “last month’s soft-launched” games. As I started checking the list, all of a sudden, I saw the game “Subway Surfers City.” I checked if I had missed the news but soon realized that it was a shadow-drop strategy for them.
Subway Surfers holds a special meaning for me. When I was working in another industry, my friend and I were trying to develop mobile games as a side project. After our market research, we realized there might be a huge opportunity in Endless Runner games. I played a lot of Subway Surfers in 2019, and our assumption was correct. However, as hobbyists, we couldn’t achieve the same success. Therefore, I would like to acknowledge SYBO Games, the publisher of the most successful runner game.
SYBO Games was founded in 2010 in Denmark. According to PitchBook, the total number of employees is 162.
Two years after the company was founded, they released their golden game, Subway Surfers. It was one of the most addictive games of its time and still remains popular. With the game’s success, it became an IP and a transmedia project.
Did you know that Subway Surfers has an animated series on YouTube with over 200 million views? If not, you might want to check it out :)
Additionally, the game has its merchandise items on Amazon.
After their successful hit, the company tried to release other titles, but none of them became as successful as Subway Surfers. Over time, the company released its games under the Subway Surfers IP. This became a company culture and strategy for them.
Even the CEO of SYBO Games has a quote about game development studios’ culture in Kim Nordström’s book, Up Down Up:
“Culture is patterns of behavior over time”
Mathias Gredal Norvig, CEO of SYBO Games
Let’s check the numbers: Subway Surfers has over 4 billion downloads and 150 million monthly active users. The game has consistently been in the top 3 games by annual download numbers for the last 4 years. The performance and sustainability are amazing, to be honest.
After seeing the performance of Subway Surfers, it is legitimate to continue with the same gameplay but with better graphics.
SYBO Games released the second version of Subway Surfers as Subway Surfers City on July 4, 2024. They are doing their soft launch in six countries: Canada, Denmark, Indonesia, Netherlands, Philippines, and the United Kingdom, according to AppMagic’s data.
The huge improvements in graphics
The visual difference between the two games shows huge improvements in graphics. Subway Surfers’ original version looked outdated with its graphics. Instead of improving the graphics by updating the original game, SYBO preferred to release a new one with small gameplay changes. However, there are still some additional elements like new characters and hover styles. The download numbers and revenue don’t mean much yet, so I would prefer to share them in the future to evaluate the success of the game.
As a person who was influenced by Subway Surfers in my early journey, I wish SYBO Games the best for a successful global launch soon.
