Free games need to be vigilant to avoid getting into the seven myths

Developing free games is a love-hate business.

When I created Flippfly with my brother Dara, it took a long time to develop the price strategy for the first project, the "Education class" app called "Monkey Drum".

On the one hand, this is a unique application (combined with the music program and the 3D role), has a great value in the product, theoretically can be effectively distinguished from other iOS entertainment applications. On the other hand, we are a company with no reputation. And most of the "entertainment" applications we're targeting are free apps.

So we finally decided to use the free mode and execute the virtual currency system in the game, allowing players to make money by playing an instrument, or using real money for virtual money.

We hope to gain more users by creating applications and demonstrating our ability to create the highest quality products. Today we have also succeeded in achieving these two goals: our applications so far have achieved more than 80,000 users and have received a rating of 4.5 stars. This proves that users really like this app.

We also want to use the application to make a huge profit to support our next app and the game's future updates. But if you look at the title of this article, you will know that we have suffered setbacks in this respect.

It can be said that the conversion rate of the game is poor, despite a considerable amount of downloads and a good rating, but the average income per paid user is surprisingly low, in the game after the release of a few months our total income is less than 500 dollars.

Monkeydrumgameplay (from Gamasutra)

Now looking back on the past, we can find that we have made a lot of mistakes. And we can find similar bugs in other small, independent developers. So I would like to share with you the lessons I learned from these mistakes.

If you want to create a lucrative free game, you should avoid falling into the following 7 big myths.

1. Failure to present a good reason to pay the game to the user

For "Monkey Drum" Our idea is: "If the effective conversion rate is 1% to 3%, perhaps we can achieve this goal by pleasing the user." "But when we think about effective free game design more and more, we feel that this approach is not feasible." You want users to like your apps, but at the same time you have to provide what they want. Of course there will be a small number of good players who will pay for supporting or appreciating your work, but in fact, if you can't provide what the player really wants, your game conversion rate may fall to the lowest point.

As in "Monkey Drum", we offer some additional instruments and role customization tools, and we also offer virtual money for players to exchange for these things, which is an interesting way not to be as annoying as the "brush task". But in the end, many players have lost their impulse to consume, because they think the basic product contains props that are already very interesting enough for them to enjoy the fun of the game for several hours.

Some free game settings are ingenious, such as creating so-called "pay magnets"--allowing players to spend more on "upgrades" (Game State Note: PopCap's "Zuma Blitz" is a classic example). There are also some effective methods, such as not only to provide game motivation, but also to provide a variety of props to meet the player's vanity, extra content and so on.

No matter what your strategy is, be sure to keep a balance between the fun of the game and what the player wants to see. If the player thinks they have experienced a full game experience, or can get props through the game, they will not be willing to pay for the game.

2. Ignoring the "whale" element

In the final analysis, free game profitability is a very simple formula. Your earnings will be equal to the lifetime value (LTV: The fees paid by a paying user to play the whole game) multiplied by the conversion rate (the player's consumption within the application) multiplied by the overall download amount.

Is：

Yield =LTVX conversion rate x Download amount

Smart developers will realise that the lifetime value of a user determines their maximum spending. If the spending cap is 1 dollars (perhaps this is the "full version" of the fee you requested), you need to get a greater conversion rate, and with such low LTV, you can only pray for the game to get a higher viral spread, or your cost of acquiring users will go far beyond the investment margin.

In fact, the profit of free games depends largely on the "whale users"-those who are willing to put a high cost on their applications. No matter how good your application is, there must be some users who download apps but never play with them. Of those who are willing to play apps, some of them just play one application at a time. And many of those who try to use and spend money on it are willing to spend only once.

You are most concerned about the users who have left the application. If you continue to provide some motivation for users to pay for your application, it will drive some users to play your game as part of their daily life, thus effectively improve the LTV of the game and help you get higher benefits.

For "Monkey Drum", we just ignore that. To be honest, we don't really like the definition of "whale user," especially when our apps are primarily geared towards children, and of course we've heard that some children have invested hundreds of of dollars in virtual money. We set up a consumable prop in the application, the banana, which allows the player to feed his role. But in order not to let the players feel that we are too evil, we decided to provide a simpler way for players to get enough money and find more bananas (we even deliberately weaken the application of internal purchase elements to reassure parents), so eventually our players really like the whole game process, But they don't spend money to open these props.

3. Failed to guide user to pay

Monkeydrumstore (from Gamasutra)

Let's go back to the conversion rate again. We often forget the fact that it is easy for users to overlook things that you take for granted. For example, if the only way to consume in an application is by pressing the "store" button on the menu (but not in the main game cycle), many players will always skip the button and press "game" directly.

That's why games like "Triple Town" have chosen to set virtual props directly in the tutorial-they want all players to be aware of the existence of this feature and want them to know how (and why) to use it.

Not to mention the companies that have achieved great success in free games, they always use a variety of analysis (game Bang Note: such as Google Analytics or flurry) to clarify how many users enter the store, and based on the data for appropriate game tuning. For example, button placement and color setting in a menu will greatly affect user behavior.

I know these things are trivial for developers who value game playing. But I'm not letting you give up playing. Because if you're making a free game and you don't know how to lead users to spend, it's hard to make a big profit out of the game.

4. Truncated the game's posterior

This is also about the lifetime value and conversion rate of the problem. Most paid users do not pay for the first two games. And you also need to keep in mind that among all paid users, the most valuable is those who are willing to return to the game repeatedly and spend money.

If you set a fixed content for your application (such as a 30-level puzzle game), you let go of most of the valuable users and disrupt the development of LTV. There are exceptions, of course. But when we look at the best-selling free game list, most games come with an updated game mechanism and the best internal purchase setting that allows players to experience more new mechanisms over time by buying virtual money.

5. Create an ordinary game

This is crucial. Just as in the early days of the packaging of retail goods, people always try to avoid creating any ordinary products, so they are always willing to make a lot of effort in packaging. This is also true in the paid applications market (but the users here are more savvy, not only to judge the value of the product based on the outer packaging, but also to view the evaluations given by other users).

Ordinary free games are unlikely to bring any benefits to developers. Of course there are exceptions-because quality judgments are subjective and difficult to measure really. But you definitely need to create a user-like app. If few users like your app, no one will want to talk about it, which will lead to fewer people willing to pay for it. The best thing about free apps is that you can create an app that targets niche markets, and that application must have its own unique charm, while ensuring that this unique charm can attract the attention of users for a long time. This is the first thing you need to think about and the hardest part to do.

6. Failure to effectively test and iterate

We have to realize that free games are more likely to miss more opportunities than paid games. Based on a paid application, you can earn as much revenue as the user downloads (even if the user has never opened the application). And based on the free application, you not only need to use the concept and application store description to attract users ' attention, you also need to be as much as possible before the user to please them. Then you need to give them a good reason to buy apps, guide them on how to spend it, and push them to spend it over and over again. If there is a problem in the whole process, you will find it difficult to profit from it.

It's not enough to test the game, you need to test the whole cycle. Companies that are successful in free games are always able to test the game before it is released, and release it as a starting point for the product's life, using a variety of analytics and business experiences to refine its core parameters before making sure the product is viable.

Although we did iterative testing while developing the Monkey Drum, we could have done better, to tell the truth. That is, when we find that most users cannot find a store, we can solve the problem by changing the UI. Unfortunately, this is not the biggest cause of Monkey Drum's failure. Let's take a look at the next point.

7. Failed to understand user

When we identified the use of free mode, we thought that young users would enjoy the free drum mode and interact intimately with the characters, which would attract more users to use music creation tools such as sequencer. We envision the benefit of attracting users to use music to create tools that both children and adults will buy additional instruments to create more excellent music.

But when the game was released, we realized that the biggest users of the game were children, and their favorite activity was the drums, so there was no incentive to buy other instruments.

As I mentioned before, we don't want to be too evil. When the application was first released we explicitly mentioned the application internal purchase pattern in the application description. But in fact, the education music application users are always less than the average game users, especially those with children's favorite aesthetic elements of the application will have more limited users, and even difficult to promote the application of internal purchase development.

While these users really like our apps, it's hard for us to lead them into the store, which means that the impact of downloads and LTV ratios on the game's earnings doesn't make sense. So now we think it's a bad business model.

Turn the tide.

After months of UI refinement, the addition of a role-customization system, and the recommendation of Apple and comments from some websites, the Monkey Drum's earnings remain bleak. So we began to think: why not issue a upfront payment and discard the advanced version of the application's internal purchase mechanism? We will make it easier for users to apply the internal currency and remove the option of buying extra money. At the same time we will still set the game as an educational category, because this is the most embodiment of the game's charm.

Obviously this "advanced" version has achieved good results, it has been recommended by Apple (for four weeks) for new and noteworthy game categories, which are better than the previous recommendations, and can help us effectively highlight other iOS applications and gain greater benefits.

Although this is not a great success, it is 20 times times more profitable than the previous free version. We believe that this is an effective approach because the application itself is very attractive, and we can later push users from the free version to the advanced version, and if the user is tired of the internal purchase of the application, we will help them turn to the advanced version. This is basically a simplified/complete version of the model, but with some innovative content.

If you plan to launch a free game with paid upgrades, I would suggest that you also issue a separate paid version. Because if your application has a high ranking and is very interesting, users will be happy to pay 2.99 dollars in advance.

But if you launch a free version of the game, you need to pay attention to the entire implementation process, any link in addition to errors, your users will not be able to pay for your game. If you measure it comprehensively, you will find that it is a question of statistics.

As in our example, it took about 2 weeks to create a separate "advanced version"-a time worth spending. It also allows us to get through the Apple editorial team's review (based on the N&n feature), thus helping us to more effectively penetrate the world's application stores.

Summary

After reading the above, you may be driven by certain elements to change direction rather than planning your next free game. In fact, so do we.

We don't like to run games around "whale" users; we don't like only 3% of users will experience the game completely, and 97% of users will only notice the game when we "set it Up".

We also do not like to ignore the game itself and devote a lot of time to analyze and adjust the user flow. In particular, we don't want paid users to constantly complain about spending more and more cash in endless micro-transactions, but it's always hard to be satisfied. We also want to create a memorable and unique gaming experience, but the internal game is always going to get in the way of our goal.

These reasons largely affect the shift in our main focus (from mobile platforms to other platforms). We are really proud of Monkey Drum. We've been holding on to moral barriers and attracted more than 80,000 users, and even though most of these users are 5-7-year-olds, we've never complained about the internal buying model we've set up before. We do not believe that free games are "evil". But when we really look at the results of the profits generated by free games, we ultimately decide to turn our attention to creating other, more brilliant games.

So we turned to the PC platform, where we were able to find a more powerful community of players who were more willing to spend ahead of time than to buy a variety of props in the game. The first game we're going to release on the PC platform, "Race the Sun," is priced at about 10 dollars and has an early purchase discount like my world. We will be the first to launch free samples based on lessons learned in free games and later to launch a paid version.

I think this is the wisest decision we have made so far.