Ludo King
Ludo King is an Indian free-to-play mobile game application developed by Gametion Technologies Pvt Ltd, a game studio based in Navi Mumbai, India. Gametion is owned by Vikash Jaiswal. The game is developed on the Unity game engine and is available on Android, iOS, Kindle, Windows Phone, and Microsoft Windows platforms. The game is a modernization of the board
game Ludo, which is based on the ancient Indian game of Pachisi.
Ludo King was released on February 20, 2016, on the Apple App Store, and since then it has consistently ranked No. 1 in the Top Free Games section of both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. It is the first Indian gaming app to cross 1 billion downloads. In 2021, Ludo King was being played in 30 countries and was available in 15 languages.
Gameplay
The objective of the game is to move 4 tokens from the starting point around the board to the center of the board, also known as home. The first person to do this wins the game.
Ludo King has four modes: vs Computer, Local Mode (i.e., pass and play), Online Multiplayer (play with other players around the world), and Private Multiplayer (play with friends in private rooms). In the vs Computer mode, the player can play offline against the computer AI; in Local Mode, multiple players can play together offline; in Online Multiplayer, users can play
with other players online but have no choice over who their players are; and in Private Multiplayer, a user can play with multiple players online and can choose the other players. Here, the players can choose to play with their Facebook friends in the online mode, and can play with up to 6 players in the local multiplayer mode.
Development of Ludo King
Before Ludo King, Gametion primarily focused on developing browser games for desktop users. In 2013, the company shifted focus to mobile gaming. It published several games, including Snakes and Ladders and Baby’s Big Adventure, but these were all average. The company rose to prominence with the release of Ludo King.
In September 2019, Ludo King rolled out an update which included a series of new themes such as Nature, Egyptian, Disco, Cake, Candy, and Pinball, etc.
Ludo King added 7 Up Down, a sub-game within the game, in addition to the Snakes & Ladders in-game.
In August 2020, Ludo King added the Voice Chat feature and a feature to send E-Greetings.
Ludo King is available in 15 languages – English, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Bahasa Indonesia, German, Spanish, Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, French, Arabic, Marathi and Italian.
Ludo King introduced a new mode called Rush Ludo, which is a faster version of the game.
In January 2021, Ludo King launched a 6 player online multiplayer mode and Quick Mode. Ludo King also has released a five and six-player online feature.
Ludo King used the third-party mLab platform for hosting. However, after mL ab was acquired by MongoDB Inc, the game moved to MongoDB Atlas, the global cloud database service.
Ludo King also utilizes Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Flentas Technologies, an AWS Partner Network Partner, to “build an internal multiplayer backend system to manage its increasing user traffic more efficiently and in a cost-effective manner.”
Google Launched Google Play Points Program in India and Ludo King is one of the partnering game apps for the program.
Google launched Google Play Games beta on PC in India which will let users play Ludo King on PC.
Ludo King was released on Netflix games, a part of Netflix’s mobile gaming lineup, with all the available features without in-app purchases.
Demographics
According to POKKT, a mobile video advertising platform in India, Ludo King is one of the most popular games in India. The game has a DAU (Daily Active Users) of 10 million and 70 million monthly users.Since May 2017, Ludo King has topped the Google Play download charts. By September 2017, the game had been downloaded 120 million
times, about 70% of which, i.e. around 100 million, are in India, followed by Indonesia, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil.
Gametion’s top markets include India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, and the USA.
Ludo King crossed 500 million downloads by December 2020.
According to the India Times website, “[Ludo King] attracted a new demographic of players (45 years and older) that had been relatively lower in India and turned gaming into mainstream entertainment and a social media alternative.” This is primarily because Ludo King is available in local languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, etc., thus attempting to target a large local audience.
Ludo King crossed 1 billion downloads in 2024, becoming one of the top played board games in the world.
Reception
Since Ludo King‘s launch on February 20, 2016, by May 2017, the game had been downloaded 50 million times on Android phones. The game is played “mostly by 18-35-year-olds but also retirees. And on average, a player spends 15-16 minutes a day on the game.” In 2016, Ludo King recorded four million installs and went up to 57 million in 2017, crossing 118 million in 2018.
Ludo King was the first Indian gaming application to pass 100 million downloads.
In April 2018, in lieu of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Ludo King was noted as being one of the fair apps among the top 5 apps on Google Play in India that did not seek excessive permissions on devices.
According to Vishal Gondal, founder of GOQii, Ludo King is one of the very few successful Indian games that is completely original and not “reskinned.”
Ludo King has gained significant popularity owing to its “local multiplayer aspect,” which allows up to six individuals to engage in gameplay on a single device, with each player possessing their own dice. Notably, the game has managed to reach and resonate with lower socio-economic strata, who had previously shown little interest in digital gaming.
Casual and hyper-casual games, like Ludo King, are “light on the gamer’s system and have simple mechanics. They can be learnt through a short tutorial, or none, even by beginners. Also, quick progress gives a rapid sense of achievement, encouraging the gamer to jump from level to level.”
By January 2020, Ludo King has been downloaded 300 million
times, with 6 million daily active users and 75 million playing a month.Users spend about 45 minutes on average playing Ludo King.
Ludo King saw a 50-75% boost in audience during India’s COVID-19 Lockdown, reaching the Top 5 Downloaded Apps in India between 25 March and 10 April 2020, with 9.5 million downloads. Ludo King‘s daily download figures changed from 150,000 in early February to over 450,000 in India by April 13, 2020. It saw a 142% jump in downloads between February and April 2020. In April alone, the game garnered 26 million downloads.
According to an AppsFlyer report, Ludo King saw a 100% surge in gaming during the Lockdown. The daily average time spent on the game increased from 32 minutes to 49 minutes. News18 reported that Ludo King had a “five-fold increase in traffic during the lockdown. It has more than 330 million downloads, with about 50 million daily active users.” In May 2020, it was the sixth most downloaded game worldwide and its revenue was about $922,000 worldwide. In the beginning of May 2020, Ludo King had 251 million daily active users; the number averaged 40 to 45 million by June 2020. Gametion had to increase the server base from 8 to 200 servers to keep up with demand.