This company made over $9 Million by Productizing ONE feature | Short Business Success Stories Aladdin X Suika Game

Short Inspirational Business Stories to Get You Motivated:
= Aladdin X Suika Game

WATCH on YouTube: https://youtu.be/nVvXWx9KsO0 (Recommended if you want to see some of the creator streams)


In this episode, we look at the history of the Suika Watermelon game, Aladdin X's business and brand strategy, and the lessons for success that can be found in the cool video game value-add they included in their product, the Aladdin PopIn 3-1 Projector.

Timestamps:
0:00 Short Motivational Business Stories for Inspiration: Aladdin X's Suika Game
1:55 What is Suika Game and Who Made It?
4:06 How did Suika Game go Viral? How much money has Suika Made?
6:03 Lessons for Success and Business Strategy from Aladdin X


You can grab Suika Game from the Nintendo store: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/suika-game-switch/

And check out Aladdin X's site here: https://www.aladdinx.jp/

The versions you see in the app store or available by browser are unofficial versions and not affiliated with the company.

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If you like inspirational business stories like this, let me know on any of the channels above!

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Transcript

0:00

Hey guys, so we are going to get aspirational today and take a look at unique success story from Aladdin X. They are a Japanese company who specializes in high end luxury projector items, Their product is really cool, their marketing strategy is really cool, we're gonna see. Their product itself is supposed to be multi purpose, you can stream from your projector, you can call in radio broadcast from your projector, and it's also a built in ceiling light, so there's utility functions. And their brand is centered around experience, interactiveness, and convenience. There are even hotels in Japan that have rooms dedicated to the Aladdin PopIn projector. the benefit of that? Say you're traveling with family or for business, and you're used to pulling up your favorite news programs every morning. And your kids know exactly how to pull up their favorite game or show on Hulu. Well, if you go to a hotel room that already has the same technology that your family's familiar with, it's right there, ready to go. There's no learning curve and there's no missing entertainment or information that you would normally have in your daily routine. If that isn't cool enough that a hotel chain builds rooms around having your product built into it, I've got something else for you. And this is the real meat of this video, because we're gonna get five lessons in success from a stupidly simple viral video game called Suica Game that was created as just a fun feature to be part of the PopIn projector system. And whether you're listening to this casually, or... In the background while you're getting some work done. I really think this is the type of story that we can all tie into our own aspirations. So I'm really excited to bring it to you. If you're an entrepreneur or a business owner or you're working on side projects, drop an introduction in the comments. Let us know who you are and what you do or give us a quick update on a success story, a recent win, or a project that you've made some improvements on. For me, I'll joke, I guess my small win this week is getting over 2, 000 points in the Suika game. But let's jump in because I'm so excited to bring you insightful lessons from this really unexpected place today. So we're going to be looking at the Suika Game, which is also known as the watermelon game. Honestly, it's a stupidly simple game, but it's taken the internet by storm over the last half of a year Even though it came out in 2021. and I think the story of Suika Game can be so inspirational to us because it's becoming a new revenue generating thing for the Aladdin X company. In today's increasingly fast paced world where we surround ourselves with industry peers and can see their success stories and results every time we open social media, I think it's really easy to feel like we're trying to keep up with the Joneses. That we're constantly in some type of rat race to reach our next big goal. And that's a growing and extremely self limiting belief that, products of our work effort must be big, grand, and perfect all the time. But this story here I really think debunks that. So, what exactly is Suika Game? Well, Suika Game is a Japanese puzzle video game developed and published by AladdinX, which combines the elements of falling and merging puzzle games like Tetris, but with bouncy fruit physics. Pretty much as you can see me playing here, the game involves the player trying to build a high score by dropping fruits into a container without having the fruits overflow out of the container. To earn points, the player must combine two of the same fruits together to create a new fruit in the game's fruit cycle. And as I described earlier, it was originally created by AladdinX for the PopIn Aladdin Projector. Now, you can see in the picture here on the screen, it's the first icon that pops up in this projector setting. That's the Suika game icon. And this was all the way back in April 2021. Because customers loved the game so much, Aladdin X decided to rework the framework of the game to bring it to the Nintendo Switch platform. This was released in December 2021 in Japan. And its global release, though, didn't happen until October 2023. In fact, October 20th, 2023. So at the time of this recording, it's worldwide release on Nintendo Switch. Happened less than 30 days ago. Now, you can see it's in U. S. dollars. It's 2. 99 for a purchase. We can see here, it is the only game that they have under their publisher name. It's rated E for everyone. And then there's an online ranking score that updates daily, which is, you know, kind of a good incentive for people to keep trying to go and, play and compete with others in the Suika gaming community. We'll see how that comes into play in a minute. Now let's talk about virality. So, Suika Games started to go viral because of YouTube streamers, Twitch streamers, Vtubers. Starting earlier this year, largely in Japan, in May 2023, and then it's started to seep globally since then. Some of these videos have hundreds of thousands and millions of views of people watching others play the Suika game. In the month of September 2023, Suika game had over 2. 84 million hours watched on Twitch, and it was ranking as the 82nd most watched game. Wait, hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh! And you can see here, the short video on the right here, we have like 70, 000 likes on it. And he's playing, I think it was an edition that came out for the, like the Halloween, there's some different variations of the game. But you can see the sense of community all over in the side there. There's tons of commentators reacting With each other not just with the game creator, but with each other We've also seen other game creators come out and say they're challenging another game creator, game streamer, that they're gonna beat their high score. So there's a lot of competitiveness and community collaboration happening around this game that was released to be part of a projector. With its worldwide release, it was also praised by critics, and To see Nintendo Life Mitch Vogel give a 7 out of 10 to this stupidly simple game, is how I'm going to keep characterizing it, is really high praise. You can also see some feedback in the comments on their blog where someone says it's very addictive, I got hooked on it. And someone else says that their girls, presumably their kids, have played it more than Mario Wonder at this point, even though they only bought it on Tuesday, so I don't know how many days that was, but obviously seven or less. And they're already beating Mario time. I've spent hours playing Mario in my life, so that seems pretty significant. Touch Arcade also gave it a 4 out of 5. And if that isn't proof enough, as one last indicator, we have Google Trends characterizing all these related terms for Suika Game Watermelon, Watermelon Game, Watermelon Game, Suika Game, Suica Game, and Watermelon Game Switch, all as Breakout and rising inquiries. So we understand how the game works and who the company is, but let's look at the five invaluable lessons that I think you should know about success and strategy that the Suica game, this stupidly simple game, can impart on all of us. The first lesson is not seeking instant gratification. it's highly unlikely that Suika game strategy was to go viral, but when I talk to people, and I'm sure you've been in the same type of conversation, A lot of people think going viral has to be the goal of everything that they do, of all of the content that they produce and put out there. Sometimes it feels like,"how can I go viral?" Is the starting point for people in their content creation brainstorming. But the truth is, some of the greatest things out there stay under the radar, all the time. Planning your projects and endeavors around the idea or expectation that it's going to go viral, or that the work will only be meaningful if it does go viral, is going to set you up for disappointment, and that disappointment will open the door for analysis paralysis to pay a visit you don't want it paying. Suika Game, impacted Aladdin X's revenue. And I'm sure they were not expecting that back in 2021, that this would be the case. But they created the game, they got it out there, their customers loved it, and two and a half years later, here we are with something that may have never been launched or shipped If the initial goal was, how can we do something to go viral? So this takes us really smoothly into lesson number two, which is creating for an audience, no matter how small the audience is. So remember, AladdinX created SuikaGame as a game that could be easily enjoyed by customers. So initially, AladdinX created SuikaGame as something that could be enjoyed by its customers. And they stated exactly this in an interview. They said the game was originally built into the Projector PopIn Aladdin with integrated lighting for use at home, developed by Aladdin X, which is not a game maker. More so, it was developed specifically As a, quote, game that can be easily enjoyed. So if you think about it, Suika Game was created as a value add for the Projector product. It was not created for the millions playing it in the Nintendo Shop or online or any of the unofficial versions today. I think I've already sneak peeked this lesson a few times throughout this video so far, but lesson three is just embracing simplicity. The beauty of the Suika game is that it's stupidly simple. I don't know anyone that's not familiar with at least some type of fruit, like a strawberry or watermelon. So the objects of the game are immediately recognizable. There's no bells and whistles. There's nothing you need to Google a game guide to help you get through and figure out what you're supposed to do. And you can start playing it in seconds, whether you jump over to the Nintendo eShop and pay the low price point of 2.99, or you jump and play one of the unofficial versions for free in an internet browser where you don't even need a console, you don't need a credit card, you can just jump in and start playing. And while those unofficial versions are obviously not generating revenue, Anytime someone is exposed to the Suika game, it's a chance for them to hear about the PopIn Aladdin projector. And really, the takeaway here is that the next time you're strategizing a new marketing funnel, or a content series, or a product launch, consider giving simplicity a try. Try to think of something that people can start doing in just seconds without needing to read a full how to guide or strategy guide or seek support along the way. And if you need to hear this lesson in other words, it's just keep it simple, stupid. Lesson number four, and I think this is so huge for this specific example, is flexibility in use case. again, , the first and primary use case for Suika Game, was just a add on feature that was built in. It was a game for entertainment built into a projector product. But now it has a laundry list of use cases. and each of those use cases provides a new business benefit as a brand impression because I certainly have never heard of Aladdin X until I was, I heard of this game and I was like. Wait, this came from a projector? What are people talking about? and it's also a revenue opportunity. or it's both. It's a brand impression and a revenue opportunity at times. So whether someone's buying the high ticket projector, unfortunately it's only directly sold in Japan right now, you can get, you'd have to go through eBay if you want it in the United States. but can you just imagine booking a family, I can picture kids somewhere talking about their yearly family vacation and they want to go back to the Suika hotel because they know that that hotel had a room built in that had this projector and they want to play that game. The virality of this game, even though the hotel, it's not really a direct sale of the game or a direct sale of the projector. It's a B2B type sale and a reinforcement of why we should continue building these rooms that feature this PopIn Aladdin Projector because it's something that can be in the room for a family vacation to keep the kids occupied while the parents need peace and quiet. Or maybe the parents want to play themselves because if you look at YouTube, they're all people my age and older, it seems, playing this game for hours and hours. Additionally, the Nintendo Switch game has been sold over 3 million times. That's 9 million U. S. dollars in revenue. And I saw that statistic last week, at the beginning of the week. I don't know if it was like completely recent. but it's still going viral, there's still people playing it live. And if we hop over to the current bestsellers on the Nintendo Shop, you have Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and then Suika Game is number two. Both with the same release date, actually. So. I mean, you have this right up there in line with a Super Mario game. Like, think of the name notoriety that Mario has, and it's sitting right there. But yeah, just imagine something that you created to deliver a happy experience to your customers, also ended up churning out 9 million extra in revenue and counting. That's awesome. And then the last lesson is engaging through competition and collaboration. For me, the biggest takeaway about the whole Suika story is how quickly something can happen if and when, right? Because it wasn't instant in this case, but when "the internet", the collective internet, starts buzzing about it, the Twitch streamers doing 24 hour Suika game streams. Reddit post talking about why have I played this game so, so much? Why is it so addicting? and creators making TikToks about how viral the game has gotten, which is initially how I heard about it, was because I saw other creators talking about how this is, meta level viral at this point. and no matter what corner of the gaming community that's playing the Suika game that you pop over to, there's a sense of community and competition, all in good fun. And what we're looking at here has a combined million and a half views, more than a million and a half views between these two videos. Originally, four weeks ago, Ludwig's video is about beating the hardest game in Japan in one hour. And apparently it took him weeks of practice to do this, because ConnorDawg responds with his own video saying he beat Japan's hardest game in five hours. When it took Ludwig weeks to do. there's fun competition, each of these streams is filled with live comments, and then comments posted after the fact. They're like, I died laughing at this. Like, look how fast, this is a Twitch chat, but look how fast everyone's engaging with each other. Okay. That worked out. I, that's why I didn't give up chat. Never give up. Never give on your dreams.'cause you might've just had the best play of your life. Ah, but that's so true. But to sum up, you guys, the Suika game is an inspiration for all of our own success journeys. I mean, true greatness, no matter what we think it's supposed to be, it really isn't creating the most perfect and grandiose work products of all time, all the time. Sometimes greatness is just creating something stupidly simple that's enjoyable, fun, easy to use, fun to talk about, and maybe even a little bit competitive. You can play an unofficial version of Suika at suikagame. com, or you can get the official version in the Nintendo store. But as we're wrapping up, I invite you to take a trip down memory lane and share a game that holds a special place in your heart. What type of game do you remember playing for hours? There's really no wrong answers. I'll give you a few of mine, um, I can beat Super Mario World in under 20 minutes, so I've obviously played that a lot. I love the game Secret of Mana. And, I used to play RuneScape back in the day. I used to come home from school and jump online and play RuneScape. It's still around today, but if you remember, like, back in the day, if you've ever played that, please let me know in the comments, because that is Memory Lane right there. But let me know your own games that you've spent time playing that always give you memories, good memories and nostalgia. Additionally, I hope you feel inspired by this and you see why you should think bigger sometimes when you're thinking about your business success and strategy. If you aren't already subscribed, I'd love to have you come back and visit the channel and hit the like button on your way out. And again, drop your comment. Let us know what you're working on, what your favorite game is, or one of your favorite games. And until next time, take care, have a good one.