April 19, 2023 — Anzu.io, the world’s most advanced in-game advertising platform, and Nordcurrent, a renowned international publisher and developer of casual mobile games, have worked together to bring intrinsic in-game advertising to Cooking Fever, one of the most popular mobile simulation games.
Cooking Fever, an addictive time management game where players cook meals from around the world is Nordcurrent’s flagship title, with almost 400 million downloads and 15 million monthly active users since launching in 2014. The game developer worked with Anzu to integrate intrinsic in-game ad placements into the gameplay, allowing advertisers to serve banner ads to gaming audiences to complement rather than detract from the experience.
Although the in-game ad placements only launched in April 2022, Nordcurrent says it has already seen a huge impact from in-game ads, which now make up over 5% of its total revenue. Thanks to Anzu’s relationships with top-tier brands, Nordcurrent has seen campaigns from major brands appear within Cooking Fever.
Since implementing in-game advertising, Nordcurrent has also seen ARPDAU triple in the US, in-game ad revenue outside of the US more than double, and a 4x increase in eCPM from in-game ads.
Simonas Sturys, Head of Marketing at Nordcurrent, said: “The ads were easy to integrate and work well alongside our other monetization methods within Cooking Fever. After seeing a significant impact on revenue from the ads and receiving no negative feedback from players, we are excited to expand Anzu’s solution to more of our titles.”
Maor Wurembrand, Director of Supply Growth, Anzu, said: “It has been great to work with Nordcurrent on bringing intrinsic in-game advertising to Cooking Fever, a well-known and highly respected mobile title. We are seeing a promising trend across the industry, with game developers introducing in-game ads to established titles to benefit from an additional reliable and consistent revenue stream.”
After the success Nordcurrent has seen with the mobile version of Cooking Fever, they decided to integrate the ad placements into the PC version of their game. They have also worked with Anzu to update all their ad placements so that they now support video as well as display ads.
To find out whether in-game advertising could work for your games, get in touch with Anzu.
About Nordcurrent
Established in 2002 in Vilnius, Lithuania, Nordcurrent develops and publishes casual games for smartphones, tablets, and PC/Mac computers. The company is driven by a common mission to create world-class games, loved by millions of people. During the last 20 years, Nordcurrent has developed more than 50 games that have been downloaded over 500 million times across the world, with the biggest hit Cooking Fever – a time-management game where players can cook meals and desserts from all over the world. Other recent Nordcurrent games include interactive crime novels Murder in the Alps and Murdr by Choice, a time-management games - Airplane Chefs and Happy Clinic, styling game for fashion lovers - Pocket Styler.
About Anzu
Anzu is the most advanced in-game ad solution for mobile, PC, console, and gaming metaverse platforms. Anzu’s in-game ads put players first and help advertisers reach audiences programmatically in a non-disruptive and highly engaging way. A patented 3D ad tracking engine, the first to bring viewability measurement in-game with Oracle Moat, and partnerships with trusted AdTech vendors make Anzu the preferred in-game advertising partner for advertisers worldwide.
Anzu helps game developers monetize their titles with ad placements that complement the gameplay, resulting in reliable revenue streams. The sole officially licensed in-game ad provider for Xbox, the first ad platform to become Unity verified, and with a self-serve dashboard that provides complete control over ad placements, Anzu is the preferred in-game ad monetization partner for developers worldwide.
Backed by WPP, Sony Innovation Fund, NBCUniversal, HTC, Bitkraft, and other prominent investors, Anzu has raised $37M to make advertising in games better. Better for brands, better for game developers, and better for gamers. Learn more at https://www.anzu.io/.