The challenges of monetization in a deep and original project

Backpack Brawl is a project from our Danish partners at Rapidfire Studios. When they came to us, they already had a finished product, a strong creative vision, a loyal core audience, and a stable (though modest) stream of organic revenue.

The game has incredibly engaging mechanics with a high R1 (no spoilers yet), but at first, monetization was almost nonexistent. Together with the developers, we began looking for ways to increase LTV without breaking the game’s flow or upsetting the community, and the nuances turned out to be very interesting.

Backpack Brawl’s core loop is “easy to play, hard to master.” On the surface, it looks simple: you collect items with different stats, those stats activate automatically in battle. Many people still engage with the game exactly like that — log in, play a match, win, lose, win again.

But this simplicity is deceptive. Every item, every combination, every hero pairing affects multiple stats in unique ways. You can brute-force progress through luck… or you can dig into perks, synergies, and builds to squeeze out every advantage.

This mechanic delivered excellent retention, but monetization was almost absent, since there were virtually no interstitial ad placements. Only a few reward ads existed, mostly tied to the shop.

So we introduced the first meaningful monetization touchpoint: an extra life for rewards. Each map requires 15 trophies (15 victories), and players only get a limited number of lives to do so. Reaching 15 wins becomes difficult without a strong inventory build — perfect timing for offering an extra heart to players who don’t want to deep-dive into the game’s item logic.

Another inherent mechanic is post-battle item merging. If a player loses and doesn’t see merges activate afterward, that moment often nudges them toward watching an ad.

But of course, these are just first steps. They don’t fundamentally transform the monetization profile.

When it comes to IAP, the game’s tight-knit community reacts quickly to price shifts and simply migrates to alternative placements. For example, we tried increasing hero prices because the 1,000-gem pack cost $5 and a single hero also cost $5. But an unleveled hero could be bought for 300 gems. We raised the price from 300 to 900… and nothing changed. Players just switched to other purchases. Developers and players communicate closely, and we couldn’t justify breaking the entire economic balance for a hard pivot.

This is the challenge with truly original systems: you’re inventing the rules from scratch. There’s no blueprint, no genre standard, no “best practice” to adopt from other titles.

The trade-offs of deep gameplay

As mentioned, Backpack Brawl looks simple but contains a surprising amount of depth — the kind that will tilt the odds in your favor should you choose to dive in.

And this creates the central problem: the UI struggles to explain cause-and-effect relationships. How do you teach players to play better? How do you communicate that certain items scale together, that certain builds are stronger, or that certain stats matter?

As a result, many players simply don’t upgrade items through cards because the benefits are unclear.

In Clash Royale, the logic is obvious: two identical decks, but the higher-level one wins. Even if you outplay your opponent, raw stats win the match.

In Backpack Brawl, that clarity doesn’t exist. There are too many item types to display levels everywhere, the screen would drown in visual noise.

Compounding this, many players run battles at x3 speed just to get back to inventory management. At such speeds, it’s nearly impossible to convey why a certain item contributed to winning or losing.

One possible solution is favorite decks. Players can tag items as favorites, and the game will increase the probability of those items appearing in the shop. This organically teaches them which items are worth upgrading — because they drop more often.

The game is being actively updated with new content, but projects like this struggle with one universal challenge: how to help players see value in depth. If you add chests with cards but players don’t upgrade anything, those chests lose value, same goes for Battle Pass.

Another approach we’re exploring is PvP with leagues, allowing players to compete and climb rankings, an environment where optimization and item synergy matter much more.

The project arrived fully formed, with its own distinct feel and mechanics. Ideally, monetization should be planned early in development. But it is possible to retrofit good monetization, provided the team has enough expertise and sensitivity to the game’s systems.