Lucas The Spider X The Ants: Case Study
Every mobile game hits a point where current players start looking for other games or entertainment options and finding new players outside of already-addressed audiences becomes more challenging.
Banding together with other games or other IP holders for crossover events renews interest among your core audience, expands your addressable markets, and boosts revenue. Licensing can give explosive power to a mobile game’s popularity and profits.
The trick is finding the right match between your game and a corresponding IP. In the case of The Ants: Underground Kingdom, a popular, insect-themed strategy title from StarUnion that caters mostly to young people, the challenge was to bring in an IP that shared thematic elements and similar story beats.
Yodo1 Licensing landed on Lucas the Spider (Fresh TV) as the perfect protagonist and universe to weave into the game. This case study shows how we identified the right IP partner for StarUnion’s game, how we crafted the partnership, and solved expected and unexpected challenges along the way.
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The Success
Bringing Lucas the Spider into The Ants: Underground Kingdom was a rousing success for the mobile game and the brand.
Over the course of the collaboration event, players downloaded the game over 800,000 times, blowing past the expectation Yodo1 set initially. Paying users also increased by an impressive 11%. Compared to the previous month, game downloads rose by 30% and revenue by 19.5%, with DAU increasing by 21%.
The crossover event also increased visibility for The Ants and Lucas the Spider. More specifically, the game’s rank rose by about 120 spots on Google Play and the App Store.
The event was split into five chapters, not including a warm-up period to hype players about Lucas the Spider’s imminent arrival. Interestingly enough, the biggest revenue spike occurred in the final chapter, right before the event finished, with the first chapter generating the second-most revenue. The event integration lasted for one month.
While it’s tricky to highlight a single factor behind the event’s performance, compelling content, a consistent rollout of rewards, and effective marketing all contributed to enough momentum to keep players aware, engaged, and excited.
According to Mobidictum, the collaboration generated $ 3.3M revenue in October 2024 with over 7,000 creative ads produced for the campaign.
Bringing these two worlds together
The Ants: Underground Kingdom is a mobile strategy game by StarUnion where you lead an ant colony to survive and thrive in a ruthless natural world.
As the commander, you’ll build and expand your nest, hatch powerful Special Ants, tame wild insects for combat and labor, and form alliances to fight for dominance. From defending the queen to conquering the Sacred Tree, every decision shapes your colony’s fate in this fierce battle for survival and supremacy.
When Yodo1 Licensing first started working with The Ants, it was already a known entity in Japan, SEA, and the US, among other key mobile gaming markets. It had also gathered 50 million downloads on Google Play and the App Store, and around 400,000 players were visiting The Ants every day. Overall, The Ants was already a strong performer.
The goal for StarUnion was to sustain this level of success while finding avenues of raising engagement and revenue without fundamentally altering what made the game an achievement in the first place. A well-orchestrated IP event became the winning strategy.
On the IP side, Yodo1 Licensing identified the popular animated web series Lucas the Spider, which first caught the attention of wider audiences in 2017. Created by Joshua Slice, it featured an adorable animated spider and grew from a short film to a viral series on YouTube and other social platforms.
The show’s stories and overall tone, along with its cute art style, seemed to fit perfectly as a way to expand the in-game universe of The Ants. This was also the first time Lucas the Spider featured in a video game, mobile or otherwise.
About our concept
To reengage The Ants’ current player base and welcome new audiences to the game, Yodo1 Licensing proposed a month-long crossover event featuring an IP that would exemplify what StarUnion’s players enjoyed about the game. Lucas the Spider fit from narrative, design, and play perspectives.
The Ants and Lucas the Spider shared values of curiosity, appreciation for nature, and social interaction. Yodo1 recognized that the character of Lucas had a specific charm and vibrancy that would enrich the game world, rather than distracting from the game’s core values and loops.
Understanding that the two universes would work well together, Yodo1 wanted to harness the Lucas brand to expand the game’s user base and retain its current fans.
The crossover event featured insect skins, special decorations for troops and anthills, unique avatar customization options, and redesigned chat bubbles and icons to add to the event’s immersive qualities.
To generate buzz and activate players over time, the collaboration would take place over six phases, including five chapters and a warm-up phase. Along with other features, we created a rollout plan for users to play as Lucas the Spider, Findley the Fly, Bidhi the Chameleon, Maizie the Bee, and eponymous Ants.
What we brought to the table
IP licensing can be a long and winding process, especially given that both parties need to be represented to their own rigorous standards. Yodo1 Licensing acted as the bridge between StarUnion and the IP holder so that both players maintained creative control and felt their works were being well represented.
As the bridging third party, Yodo1 brought several key actions to the partnership.
- Proactive planning: IP partnerships come with all types of issues, so we crafted an airtight yet flexible plan to counteract challenges that we’ve seen time and time again.
- Effective communication: Maintaining clear and open communication is absolutely vital. We helped set the right expectations upfront, prevented misunderstandings, and sped up decision-making.
- Adaptability: IP partners should always expect rejections along the journey. IP partnerships involve a lot of tough creative decisions. Our aim was to modify content quickly and preserve the project timelines, while encouraging a collaborative mindset.
- Expectation management: Game makers and IP holders across varying scales tend to have different expectations of what an IP partnership means and what it takes to go from conceptualization to implementation. One of the most important focal points for us is always helping our partners come to a mutual understanding of the process and intended outcomes. This is essential in balancing creative visions and approval standards.
- Focus on stakeholder satisfaction: IP partnerships should last well beyond one or two crossover events. So we take great care to support the interests of both parties and find common ground, laying the foundation for long-term success.
“The key was keeping both teams aligned on the narrative and design vision,” said Rachele Li, project manager for the collaboration. “Lucas and his friends needed to feel true to themselves within The Ants universe. We worked closely with all stakeholders to anticipate potential friction points early and provide practical solutions to keep the project on track.”
Actions Taken
After taking time to understand the game’s core loops and its aesthetics, we introduced exclusive skins and avatar customization options, weaving Lucas the Spider intricately and seamlessly into the game’s current experience. This gave players the chance to engage with a beloved IP without having to alter their behavior within the game.
Figuring out how the collaboration would look in-game was only one piece of the puzzle. Almost more important was the marketing around the collaboration, ensuring that a critical mass of current and new players experienced it.
Key Learnings
While Yodo1 Licensing has an established playbook for successful IP partnerships, every relationship and event come with their own unique challenges. Bringing together The Ants and Lucas the Spider yielded stellar results for the developer and IP holder, but the process also came with learnings for future collaborations.
Here are our five favorite insights from our supervision head Hector Wan about this collab:
- Teamwork is everything. Open collaboration between developers, IP holders, and partners is key to tackling challenges and getting over the finish line.
- There’s no substitute for a clear vision. IP partnerships involve a lot of creative people who care, and a well-defined vision helps everyone work toward common goals.
- Always be ready to adapt to the many setbacks coming your way.
- Infuse positivity into how you manage stakeholders and focus on human connections. Smoother approvals and feedback processes will follow.
- Iterate and learn from mistakes. Build in regular feedback loops so you never miss a chance to voice potential concerns or ideas for continuous improvement.
About the Company
Founded in China in 2019, StarUnion is a mobile game publisher that focuses on bringing games from its local market to the world stage. The company has established itself as a leader in simulation games, with major successes including its flagship titles The Ants: Underground Kingdom and Beast Lord: The New Land.
About the IP
Lucas the Spider is a popular animated web series originally created by animator Joshua Slice, later developed into a television series by Fresh TV Inc. The series features an adorable animated spider named Lucas.
The IP debuted in late 2017, when Slice grew Lucas the Spider from a series of YouTube shorts into a widely recognized property. It quickly gained popularity on social media and was subsequently acquired by Fresh TV Inc. for further development.
Following its initial success on YouTube, Lucas the Spider was picked up by Cartoon Network and Boomerang, and it has since been featured on major streaming services, including Max.
About Yodo1
Yodo1 helps mobile game developers grow globally through innovative solutions, including licensing, monetization, IP partnerships, and publishing. Yodo1 Licensing, one pillar of Yodo1, creates lasting IP partnerships between mobile games and media brands to achieve awe-inspiring growth. We help developers and IP holders identify and implement thrilling crossover strategies that build customer loyalty, bring in new players, and stand out in an increasingly competitive market. To learn more, visit yodo1.com.
