GDC 2016 summary by singta (tae park)
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This document summarizes key points from several presentations at the GDC 2016 conference on topics related to free-to-play game design and monetization. Some of the main ideas discussed include the importance of guild/clan systems for retention, targeting high spending "whales" and social influencers, addressing toxicity in game communities, and optimizing in-app purchases and rewards systems.
GDC 2016 summary by singta (tae park)
- 1. GDC 2016 3/14-18 Summary by Singta Inc.
- 2. F2P 101 : Microtalks - 1 (GSN, Orange Monkey Games, Making Fun, Facebook) 1. Retention - (Data) Guilds/clans have strong, positive effects on older user retention. The stronger the guild/clan system is, the longer and more frequent your older users will stay in the game. - Retention strategy never sleeps! Target users with reminders, events, pushes and perks when users are not playing the game! - Does your game have a leaderboards and title mechanics where users can check how far they have come in comparison to other players? Such systems will provide users with more reasons to come back. (Entitlement) - Control the narratives of your game, especially for your loyal/paying users. You need a system to send private messages to users to control their emotion toward your game. Make them feel appreciated with personal messages from the dev. - A little humor in the game goes a long way when attracting new users. Remember, your game is an entertainment after all. It should be fun and humorous! 2. Monetization - Three necessary conditions for successful monetization : Fanatical player, long-term retention, and motivation. - (Data) Payers are the most engaged users in terms of playing time (>5hr a day). They are insane about the game! - So you must be able to support and reward these fanatical/insane users: both payers and >5hr/day users. (>5hr/day users have huge potential to become payers!)
- 3. F2P 101 : Microtalks - 2 (GSN, Orange Monkey Games, Making Fun, Facebook) - (Data) First players to respond to the promotions and events account for >10% of your revenue. Build a system where you can pinpoint these users and target them for more aggressive promotions! They WILL respond! - Top 5 motivation for paying users : a. Accelerate the progress – Being able to grow faster compared to others (you need a leaderboard so paying users can actually witness the progress!) b. Tweak game difficulty – Easy mode wins! c. Competitive advantage – This is sensitive as your game can be labeled as “pay-2-win”. d. Unlock new contents – Skin, map, seasonal etc. e. Self-expression & gifting 3. Launching a F2P - You don’t have to have a great/perfect game. You just need a good game! - Have a very generous economy! (Retention >> Monetization) - Use Google’s A/B Testing before launch. It’s an awesome tool. - Do NOT release on Friday. - For featuring request (both Google & Apple), set a release date +4 weeks out! Send featuring team with pdfs and marketing presentations for big updates. - Compete on Quality! Not on metrics.
- 4. Social Whales – Understanding and Leveraging a New Kind of Player (Ninja Metrics) - Users influence and impact each other within the game. Some users have greater influence and impact on other players’ monetization and retention. These are your so-called social whales. - Players with high social value can influence others to actually spend money in your game! In other words, if these high social value users quit your game suddenly, the influenced users around them will suddenly spend less! - First job is to locate these social whales. Naturally, guilds/clans are great place to find them. Guild/clan leaders of high ranking guilds/clans are likely to be your social whales. Also, find active users in your game community. - Also, you need to create a system in your that so players must depend on each other to excel in the game progress, especially in the later stage of the game. Users will have to influence each other, creating social values! - Community-oriented promotions are found to be much more effective in terms of engagement and monetization compared to individual-based promotion. (ie. Do something as a guild together, and get rewarded as a community!) - Group identity is a powerful tool even in gaming society. Use it to your advantage. - “Bring a friend and get rewarded!” – While this strategy seems old and outdated, it’s still working for social users because their goal is to influence others around them. - Build a game system that encourages and supports the relationship between players. And treat social whales well by making them look cool publicly. - RevMob = best social ad channel with highest social value (1.61).
- 5. Influencers : The Opportunity and Responsibility (Blizzard) - ‘Influencer Relations’ is now a thing in gaming industry, and it’s just as important as customer relations. - So what is “influencers”? 1. Content Creators : Youtubers, streamers, bloggers, game reviewers etc. 2. Event Talents : Cosplayers, pro-players, event hosts etc. 3. Community Leaders : Big guild admins, unofficial community manager, offline meetup organizers 4. Franchise Advocates : Reddit moderator, Twitter celebrities etc. - What are they influencing? Awareness of the game, attitude of the community toward the brand, understanding and behavior of the game metrics. - How to work with influencers? 1. Know regulations, government rules, disclosures etc. 2. Set strategy : Goals, resources, channels, player segments etc. 3. Develop guiding principles (internal guidelines) : ex. Accessible, authentic, relatable, humble etc. - You must prepare for break-ups from the beginning. 1. What if the influencer wants to move on to another game? 2. What if the influencer begins losing influence? 3. What if the influence suddenly… quits? - User generated content is 50% more trusted by internet users than traditional media. The opportunity is great! - Frequent and transparent communication is imperative! - Successful brands invest in relationship. It’s the new currency! (Relationship Economy)
- 6. Conquering Community Toxicity (Daybreak) - First, admit that toxic behaviors can poison a well grown community. - Definition of Toxic Behavior : Any behavior driven by frustration, dissatisfaction, and irrational thinking which result in significant negativity. - Most of the times, it’s the behavior that’s toxic, not the player. Address the behavior, not the player. - Toxicity can hurt your game’s performance, especially user retention and engagement! Unless it’s addressed, the community will starting losing trust in the dev, eventually leaving the community and the game entirely. - Typical types of Community Toxicity: Exaggeration, entitlement, focus on investment, “I told you so!”, absolutes, “It’s so simple…” - React SWIFTLY! Mobility is key to remitting toxicity. - Recognize talents among the community and make enemies your allies. Your community is full of content creators that you can use to your advantage. - Admit that your community know your product better than you do. This is so true! - Have “Community Roundtable” where the community and the dev team can discuss about the game. Use the information gathered from these roundtable as the main source of upcoming updates and builds. - Empathize with your community, and be ready to accept help from your community. Many are willing to provide help and support.
- 7. Cage Match : Reddit vs. Forums (Daybreak, Trion Worlds, En Masse, Metaverse) - Both Reddit and Forums are often run together for different purpose. Forum as official community, and Reddit as fun and organic user community. - There is no definite winner in this debate. Try both and see which works best for your game and your community. - Outsourced forums are not recommended unless you can control the forum provider like your own staff. Forums require tremendous amount of constant adjustment and attention to be decent. - For mobile games, forums are not recommended because user lifecycle is usually much shorter compared to PC/online games. Also, most of the mobile devs do not have enough resources to dedicate to forums. Reddit Forums Strength Authentic Less in-house work Free & trendy Completely community driven Easy to identify influencers Conversations are not permanent Can be used for UA purpose (tons of users on Reddit) Broad range of features Ease of tracking community metrics Easy to control message High retention and re-acquisition CS issues can be directly linked to user database Feels more secure for users Weakness Lack of features Difficult to parse Very little control over message Provides little metrics on user behavior CS issues are difficult to handle (fake names, trolls) It's easy to miss vital issues Requires much more rigorous in-house work Requires dedicated internal support Demands long-term commitment (You've put too much resources already!)
- 8. Mobile Game Designer Notebook (Joju Games, GSN, Playmatics, Backflip Studios) 1. Element of Surprise / Rewards - Element of surprise : Use it to make your users feel rewarded. They will surely come back for more surprise! - Does your game have ‘virtual slot machine’ mechanics? It’s pretty much a requirement to make $$$. - Each user session is an opportunity for gift. Do not let your user log out without making them feel rewarded! If they feel rewarded, they will look forward to the next session. - Shower your users with awesome rewards. Retention >>>>>> Monetization. - “Super Rare” items/characters : This is what drives user engagement and behavior. Are you providing a clear guideline/path on how users can obtain these “super rare” things? 2. Control - Tap, swipe, press & hold, auto-maneuver , two-finger etc. These are optimal for mobile. Anything more complicated then this will hinder with optimal game experience. - Camera and view : dynamic, automatic, and up-close! (Contest of Champion, Gods Among Us, Mortal Combat) 3. Content Design - 1/3 Familiarity, 1/3 Improvements, 1/3 Innovation -> Recipe for successful contents - What surprises and delights you today will bore you tomorrow.
- 9. How to Price IAPs (Facebook) - Premium currency must translate into every virtual goods in your game. (Premium currency = all-access ticket!) - Three golden price points : $5, $20, and $100 (Purchase clusters are shown around these price points) - Add more value with higher price tag! Everyone knows it, but many are conservative on doing this. - For IAP testing, you will need to run your game live for at least 21 days for enough data. - Do not offer cheap price point (~$1). This generally lowers the value of your goods. You’ll simply lose revenue. - “Sale!” and “Buy Now!” promotions totally work! On average, sales boost purchases and revenues by 20%. - Most purchases take place on Day 1 in user lifecycle. This is why you need to have superior early game quality!!! - 50% of purchases are made before Day 19, and the rest happens after Day 19. So you must also plan for a long run as well. (Do you have enough attraction and content available for users after Day 19?) - Pay-wall : You must know where the pay-wall is in your game! This is a huge opportunity for purchases! - Layout of your cash shop matters! Brick/tile layout performs 20% better compared to top-to-bottom list layout. - Timing is everything. Save popups for well-timed signals. Do not spam! Casino Games Casual Games Action Games ARPPU $37 $8 $12 Avg Transaction $23.68 $5.16 $8.64 Transaction per User 1.61 1.6 1.48
- 10. New Ways to Monetize (Amazon) - Premium apps, IAP, Ads etc… We know about these already. But there’s more ways to monetize! - Amazon Coins, Merch, & Underground 1. Amazon Coins : Virtual coins that offer extra discounts and incentives in games 2. Amazon Merch : On-demand merchandise service with no out-of-pocket cost 3. Amazon Underground : Free apps and no IAPs - Backflip Studio Case Study + Amazon Coins : “Give 20% Back” events -> huge drive-up in sales and revenue + Going “Underground” require some adjustment from IAP build. You just can’t offer everything for free or else that game will not be fun anymore. You still need to find a way to make the game challenging. + >7000 sales on Dragonvale t-shirts (Testing “Merch” is pretty much risk free.) + Before launching merch, perform user surveys on which character they would like to see on the merchandise. Surveyors will be very likely to buy these merch once it’s out.
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