Early in 2025, Ludia repurchased its publishing rights and returned to independent operation for their titles: Dragons: Rise of Berk, Jurassic World: The Game, and Jurassic World Alive.
Following this transition, the company sought to quickly scale their portfolio and revamp user acquisition. Timing was essential, with both major IPs, How to Train Your Dragon and Jurassic World, set for theatrical releases in the coming months. Ludia partnered with Upptic to streamline growth avenues, develop creative strategy, and maximize performance at such a key moment.
Turning Legacy Game Data Into Insight
Upon onboarding, Upptic found that Ludia’s extensive portfolio and long-running titles had created a complex data landscape. The reporting of UA, creative, and analytics had been splintered which made it difficult to get a true meaning of ROAS and overall profitability.
The joint challenge: rebuild Ludia’s marketing infrastructure and ensure full data accuracy, all within a tight window leading up to two major film launches: the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” release in June 2025, and “Jurassic World Rebirth” in July 2025.
“Upptic, with the flexibility of their platform, has greatly accelerated reclaiming our performance marketing measurement.”
– Jean-Christophe Rodrigue, Sr. Director of Analytics, Ludia
Rebuild the System + Clean Data = Smarter UA
Upptic collaborated with Ludia on rewiring the entire growth marketing infrastructure, heavily utilizing Upptic’s growth platform. The platform assisted in rebuilding event accuracy and restoring data integrity across UA and analytics. Once the core systems were re-established, Upptic’s teams relaunched campaigns, expanded into new channels, and implemented retargeting to re-engage high-value audiences, all in time for the movie release windows.
The result was a unified, transparent growth engine. Every team, from creative to user acquisition to executive leadership, gained clear visibility to make high-level decisions that drove further growth. Ludia now operates with accurate data, confident creative iteration, smart UA investment, and sustainable profitability.
The Impact of a Unified Growth Engine
“The team – supported by Upptic UA, marketing creative, and growth analytics – achieved phenomenal 235% year over year growth for Dragons: Rise of Berk since resuming self-publishing…over a decade after the game released!” – François Daoud, CMO, Ludia
That unified growth engine turned high-pressure movie windows into breakout moments across the portfolio for all three games. Clean data, sharper creative, and agile budget moves meant Ludia could ride the wave of organic hype instead of chasing it. Here’s what that impact looks like, by the numbers.
Growth By the Numbers
Across All Titles
- All Three Titles Featured by Apple: Spotlighted across multiple regions during movie release periods.
- Movie Release Momentum: Both Dragons: Rise of Berk (June) and Jurassic World Alive (July) exceeded ROAS targets during their film release months.
- Apple Game of the Day: Jurassic World: The Game featured in July alongside the theatrical launch.
Dragons: Rise of Berk (DROB)
- 50M+ downloads | 1.58M reviews | Live since 2014
- 235% Year-over-Year Growth: Record revenue since resuming self-publishing.
- ROAS Targets Exceeded: During the June How to Train Your Dragon release window.
Jurassic World Alive (JWA)
- 10M+ downloads | 600+ UA assets created
- ROAS Targets Exceeded: During July’s Jurassic World release period.
- UA Investment Tripled: In Month One, doubled again in Month Two, exceeding ROAS targets throughout.
Jurassic World™: The Game (JWTG)
- 100M+ downloads | 1.9M reviews | Live since 2015 | 200+ UA assets created
- 2.5x ROAS Over Target: During the July Jurassic World movie release month and well into additional subsequent months.
- 4 New Channels Launched: Immediately post-release to maximize reach.
From One Success Story to a Repeatable System
What began as a time-sensitive engagement around key movie release windows has evolved into an ongoing partnership across Ludia’s broader portfolio. Together, the teams have turned one breakthrough moment into a shared growth framework, aligning UA, creative, and analytics, testing it across multiple titles, and refining it into a playbook Ludia can reuse for future launches and long-term growth.
Key Takeaways
- Data integrity = confidence. One verified source of truth restored trust and accelerated decision-making, knowing which creatives / campaigns to optimize.
- Creative collaboration. Unified creative teams now meet monthly to share trends, test insights, and evolve campaigns together.
- Executive visibility. Custom dashboards gave leadership control of portfolio performance.
- Operational flexibility. Budgets could shift instantly across titles and channels for maximum efficiency.
- Repeatable model. Framework now serves as a blueprint for other studios transitioning from publishers to independence.
“Overall, couldn’t be happier… We are maintaining scale with crazy payback windows!” – François Daoud, CMO, Ludia