From Evony to Run! Goddess: How Top Games Inc. Builds Worlds That Last

In a mobile gaming ecosystem saturated with aggressive monetization and skin-deep gameplay loops, Top Games Inc. stands out not by shouting louder, but by listening better. Since its founding, the studio behind Evony: The King's Return has prioritized player experience as both philosophy and strategy—an approach that may seem quaint, until you see the data.

Top Games, Inc. Game Feature image

"Games should be designed from the player’s perspective, not just the designer’s," says CEO David Guo, whose background in network security and software gives him a systems-thinking approach to game development. That mantra echoes throughout the company: from UI design to community management, every department is built around fast feedback loops and an unapologetically data-driven culture.

It’s not just rhetoric. Internal decisions are heavily guided by player analytics, with data science used to pinpoint friction points, retention patterns, and community sentiment. In an industry where live ops are often reactive, Top Games treats player behavior as design feedback. The result? Stability, scalability, and surprise: a near-decade-old game with growing revenue.

Metrics That Matter

According to Sensor Tower, in 2024, Evony pulled in more than $299.7 million in net revenue globally in the most recent year, alongside 36.3 million downloads. The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada emerged as its top-performing markets. These aren’t just good numbers for an indie developer; they’re market-defying.

This trajectory speaks to more than marketing muscle. Evony has become a case study in sustained lifecycle design, balancing city-building, real-time PvP, and historical fantasy. The game draws from seven major civilizations and lets players recruit generals like George Washington and Yi Sun-sin. The result is a game that feels equally comfortable in app store rankings and cultural mashup forums.

Indie by Design, Not by Scale

Though Top Games Inc. started as an indie studio, it has matured into something more interesting: a nimble mid-sized publisher that still acts like an underdog. The team’s flat hierarchy allows for a development culture where ideas flow upward as much as downward. VP Benjamin Gifford puts it bluntly: "Perfection is a trap. We aim for excellence through iteration."

The company’s internal structure reinforces this mindset. Developers are never more than three levels away from the CEO David Guo. Leaders are expected to manage teams with at least seven direct reports, minimizing middle-management drag and preserving creative momentum. It’s an unorthodox org chart that reflects the company’s unorthodox success.

Building Toward the Next Horizon

What comes next? Top Games is already investing in more socially driven mechanics, 3D rendering pipelines, and machine learning applications for in-game personalization. With AR and VR on the horizon and a mobile-first audience growing more sophisticated, the studio is betting on deeper immersion and shared experience.

One of its newest projects, Run! Goddess, signals that ambition. The doomsday survival-themed mobile game is independently developed by Top Games and features anime-style visuals blended with runner-style action gameplay. Players take on the role of a mysterious female commander known as the Dawn Bringer, leading a Valkyrie Squad through a crumbling world. It’s a fusion of strategic progression and real-time control that’s already turning heads.

Early reviews have been positive: “It’s a fun little game, it has nice voice acting, music. The game is exactly the way it is in the ads and then some. No unnecessary in-game forced ads. Even though it's grindy, it's not a pay to win.”

Yet, despite its eye on the future, Top Games remains rooted in a core belief: user experience isn’t a phase—it’s the product. In a landscape littered with disposable titles and cloned mechanics, Evony, Run! Goddess, and their creators offer something increasingly rare: consistency, community, and a quiet kind of ambition that just keeps working.