Pixonic's Monetization Article
Sept 13, 2017 20:37:53 GMT -5
kaakaahead, Pulse Hadron, and 9 more like this
Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 20:37:53 GMT -5
One of my clanmates found this online about Pixonic's plan on getting money. It's all in Russian so I google translated it. If you want to see the entire article, the link is below.
dtf.ru/8076-nikogda-ne-obmanyvayte-igrokov-top-menedzher-pixonic-o-monetizacii-i-akciyah
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"Never Deceive Players": Pixonic's top manager on monetization and promotions"
Pixonic's operational director Igor Klyukin spoke at the White Nights 2017 conference with a lecture on in-game promotions and off-line events. He shared his experience of monetizing a mobile game and talked about common mistakes in this area. We deciphered the speech.
For several years now I have been head of Pixonic. Now it is a team of more than 150 specialists. Our offices are in Moscow, Belgorod and Berlin, and the company is among the three fastest growing in the CIS according to App Annie. This, including, the merit of the project, which we are conducting, is War Robots.
This is an online six-player shooter with six huge combat robots. The game was released in April 2016, and since then it has been downloaded more than 37 million times. Daily around the world War Robots are launched by almost 1.5 million players. The project is quite popular in Asia (in Japan and Korea). We also want to enter the Chinese market, but there are certain difficulties with this.
Why do people pay in games? Because the developers have managed to create some additional value, for which the audience wants to give money. Some people say: "We will earn money from users, we will squeeze out the last money from them, we will exchange the reputation of the game for them". This is a wrong approach, it leads to a bunch of mistakes. It's right to create value and cooperate on mutually beneficial terms. An example of such cooperation was the starter-packs, from which we began to introduce offers into the game.
What is a starter pack? We offer the player content with a huge discount of 75% and game currency - "hard". To get it, the player needed to run the application within a month and collect the currency as a bonus. That is, the user receives a discount on the necessary things, and we - the conversion to the first payment and retention of the first month. And it happened.
This inspired us, and we moved on. Added offers in the game. In the first case, we offered basic content with a huge discount (the price was about a dollar as a result). In the second - premium content, which is harder to earn in the game. It's always robots and guns. And we gave him a discount of 30%, but he still cost 15-30 dollars.
The results were not long in coming: the players were unhappy. Some complained about the uselessness of the basic content, and the second - at the high cost of premium. We made conclusions, but looked at the metrics. It did not turn out so bad. There was an increase in income in the first few days, a peak, and then a decline.
We got one-time-offer: the player either uses the stock, and then he does not need it anymore, or decides that he does not need him at all, and after a few days nothing changes. In this case, a discount of 90% worked well for conversion - in a few days the number of additional conversions in new payments equaled the monthly. But there was not much money.
Offers often offer unnecessary content, and this is a game issue. First of all, it is necessary to deal with its quality and the demand for content. For example, if there are robots in the off-shoots that nobody needs, game designers may think that it is necessary to make a discount more, or more often "shove" the players in the face of the banner. This is a wrong approach.
First of all, you need to make a quality game, create value for the user.
There is a second option - the product is useful, it's a cool robot, but it is offered to the wrong player. As I said before, there was a negative feedback. We found out that dissatisfied players were from different segments of the audience. So in the future, after seeing what and at what levels are buying, we plan to make targeted offers. A fourth-level player will offer a starter-pack, the eighth - a robot with a discount. At level 12, the paying user will show the bonus robot (if he wants to buy it, let him get a discount).
We avoided some typical mistakes. Among them - the problem of the balance of content. This is when offered, for example, a robot that kills everyone. Having received this, the payer will only be delighted - he became a god. But other players - no. Moreover, if the robot is available only for money, users will be unhappy.
In War Robots, this is solved as follows: first, the content is more or less balanced, and secondly, it can be earned in the game without monetary investment. It can be more difficult, the player will spend a lot of time, but seeing powerful robots from the opponent, he does not say: "Oh, it's donater."
If you hold a stock, then there is a danger of "hiring" players on them. Then, in the absence of discounts, people simply will not pay. We did not create certain observable patterns, and did not offer the game currency directly at a discount. We made a lot of content so that the user was not sure if there would be a discount on the robot he wants.
In-game events are more interesting. Here are the graphs: the lower one - these are the surges during the offs, the upper one - during the events.
Event is usually seasonal, and all players are involved in it. This is an atmospheric, fun activity, and you can take part in it not only with money.
We made trunks under the events. When the players open them - the roulette is started, rotates, showing all possible prizes. The user guesses: "What will happen to me, is it really a robot?" But no - the arrow moves to the next sector, and the player receives a cannon. Also good, but not so cool. The player understands that you can win a robot, he almost did it - and will try again.
The chest creates intrigue and atmosphere, and roulette - emotions. Chests can be bought for in-game currency and it's important to give it to everyone. In the subsequent events, we even started giving the starting currency. We also give it out just for playing activity, but to get a lot of chests at once, we'll have to pay.
Less obvious solution is the prize log. Imagine you are running a roulette, waiting for a prize. But here there was a nuisance: you called, the battery was exhausted, the application closed. What's next? You come into the game, and there is no chest. But the award remained in the log of prizes.
Moreover, the players began to show off or complain about their logs of prizes in social networks. When we realized this, we moved the top prizes up in the list. In the following events added something else.
These are global notifications: "The player has won such and such a prize". When users are out of combat, in the game lobby, they occasionally pop up such information. It involves in the process.
Our next modification is the progress bar. Each time the chest is opened, the user fills the scale. When it is full, the player is guaranteed to receive a "super-chest" with a "super prize" - because the player still has a chance of not winning anything, even if he is investing money. You can not rely on chance - it can do both good and bad. It is desirable to leave a positive part, and negative - to try to smooth.
For the same purpose, we introduced chests of different value and reward. In cheap chests, ordinary and sometimes rare items, you can buy them for a small number of event coins. Expensive chests with a corresponding award for a large number of event coins - for those who are used to paying money. All this is aimed at correcting the consequences of the randomization.
The chart shows: in Halloween was a good splash, and in the New Year it is even more.
Errors
We made mistakes with what I told. For example, in roulette, discontent of players caused display of awards. Despite the different probability of their loss, a rare "super prize" on the roulette was almost every second. In the next versions of the game they were displayed less often. There was still a negative, but much less
When it comes to money, players start to get a little paranoid.
With their notifications, we gave players a reason to think that they are being deceived. I personally saw in social networks "exposing video" - the player disconnected the Internet, and notices of the winners continued to go. Other users in the comments explained to him how this works. In fact, the server sends a winning list to the client in the last five minutes. Then the client delivers this list within five minutes.
The same goes for the progress bar. We made one bug: visually the scale was filled, but the player still needs to open the chests. The last pixel is filled - but there is no reward. We found and corrected the error, but the residue remained.
We have such a mechanics in the game in another place, and there the first filling of the progress bar is also bonus: that is, first the scale fills up faster, and then at a normal pace. But the players considered this a fraud. Why did the negative go here, because in another place - the same system? I believe that in the first case the matter did not directly concern money, but it was the other way around. Therefore, wherever it comes to real money, you need to be doubly tidy.
By the New Year we forgot to add to the location of snow and Christmas trees, and the players noticed this. In Halloween night skybox and robotic ghosts were made, who played the scenes right during the battle. This created an atmosphere and pleased the users.
* Involve everyone. Events are part of the game, free-to-play projects are initially created in order for everyone to participate in events. Do not allow bugs and do not forget: everything should be fun.
Make scripts for different types of players. For those who simply play, give the opportunity to play and earn prizes. Let people be able to spend money, and you - to make money. When you create a game - look at the quality and emotions.
* Never deceive players and do not even let them reason to believe that they are dishonest. The user is not the enemy who needs to take money, but a person cooperating with you on mutually beneficial terms.
* In any case, there will be a negative feedback, because it's about money. You must be ready for this. Look for options and opportunities to make the game better.
dtf.ru/8076-nikogda-ne-obmanyvayte-igrokov-top-menedzher-pixonic-o-monetizacii-i-akciyah
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Never Deceive Players": Pixonic's top manager on monetization and promotions"
Pixonic's operational director Igor Klyukin spoke at the White Nights 2017 conference with a lecture on in-game promotions and off-line events. He shared his experience of monetizing a mobile game and talked about common mistakes in this area. We deciphered the speech.
For several years now I have been head of Pixonic. Now it is a team of more than 150 specialists. Our offices are in Moscow, Belgorod and Berlin, and the company is among the three fastest growing in the CIS according to App Annie. This, including, the merit of the project, which we are conducting, is War Robots.
This is an online six-player shooter with six huge combat robots. The game was released in April 2016, and since then it has been downloaded more than 37 million times. Daily around the world War Robots are launched by almost 1.5 million players. The project is quite popular in Asia (in Japan and Korea). We also want to enter the Chinese market, but there are certain difficulties with this.
Why do people pay in games? Because the developers have managed to create some additional value, for which the audience wants to give money. Some people say: "We will earn money from users, we will squeeze out the last money from them, we will exchange the reputation of the game for them". This is a wrong approach, it leads to a bunch of mistakes. It's right to create value and cooperate on mutually beneficial terms. An example of such cooperation was the starter-packs, from which we began to introduce offers into the game.
What is a starter pack? We offer the player content with a huge discount of 75% and game currency - "hard". To get it, the player needed to run the application within a month and collect the currency as a bonus. That is, the user receives a discount on the necessary things, and we - the conversion to the first payment and retention of the first month. And it happened.
This inspired us, and we moved on. Added offers in the game. In the first case, we offered basic content with a huge discount (the price was about a dollar as a result). In the second - premium content, which is harder to earn in the game. It's always robots and guns. And we gave him a discount of 30%, but he still cost 15-30 dollars.
The results were not long in coming: the players were unhappy. Some complained about the uselessness of the basic content, and the second - at the high cost of premium. We made conclusions, but looked at the metrics. It did not turn out so bad. There was an increase in income in the first few days, a peak, and then a decline.
We got one-time-offer: the player either uses the stock, and then he does not need it anymore, or decides that he does not need him at all, and after a few days nothing changes. In this case, a discount of 90% worked well for conversion - in a few days the number of additional conversions in new payments equaled the monthly. But there was not much money.
Offers often offer unnecessary content, and this is a game issue. First of all, it is necessary to deal with its quality and the demand for content. For example, if there are robots in the off-shoots that nobody needs, game designers may think that it is necessary to make a discount more, or more often "shove" the players in the face of the banner. This is a wrong approach.
First of all, you need to make a quality game, create value for the user.
There is a second option - the product is useful, it's a cool robot, but it is offered to the wrong player. As I said before, there was a negative feedback. We found out that dissatisfied players were from different segments of the audience. So in the future, after seeing what and at what levels are buying, we plan to make targeted offers. A fourth-level player will offer a starter-pack, the eighth - a robot with a discount. At level 12, the paying user will show the bonus robot (if he wants to buy it, let him get a discount).
We avoided some typical mistakes. Among them - the problem of the balance of content. This is when offered, for example, a robot that kills everyone. Having received this, the payer will only be delighted - he became a god. But other players - no. Moreover, if the robot is available only for money, users will be unhappy.
In War Robots, this is solved as follows: first, the content is more or less balanced, and secondly, it can be earned in the game without monetary investment. It can be more difficult, the player will spend a lot of time, but seeing powerful robots from the opponent, he does not say: "Oh, it's donater."
If you hold a stock, then there is a danger of "hiring" players on them. Then, in the absence of discounts, people simply will not pay. We did not create certain observable patterns, and did not offer the game currency directly at a discount. We made a lot of content so that the user was not sure if there would be a discount on the robot he wants.
In-game events are more interesting. Here are the graphs: the lower one - these are the surges during the offs, the upper one - during the events.
Event is usually seasonal, and all players are involved in it. This is an atmospheric, fun activity, and you can take part in it not only with money.
We made trunks under the events. When the players open them - the roulette is started, rotates, showing all possible prizes. The user guesses: "What will happen to me, is it really a robot?" But no - the arrow moves to the next sector, and the player receives a cannon. Also good, but not so cool. The player understands that you can win a robot, he almost did it - and will try again.
The chest creates intrigue and atmosphere, and roulette - emotions. Chests can be bought for in-game currency and it's important to give it to everyone. In the subsequent events, we even started giving the starting currency. We also give it out just for playing activity, but to get a lot of chests at once, we'll have to pay.
Less obvious solution is the prize log. Imagine you are running a roulette, waiting for a prize. But here there was a nuisance: you called, the battery was exhausted, the application closed. What's next? You come into the game, and there is no chest. But the award remained in the log of prizes.
Moreover, the players began to show off or complain about their logs of prizes in social networks. When we realized this, we moved the top prizes up in the list. In the following events added something else.
These are global notifications: "The player has won such and such a prize". When users are out of combat, in the game lobby, they occasionally pop up such information. It involves in the process.
Our next modification is the progress bar. Each time the chest is opened, the user fills the scale. When it is full, the player is guaranteed to receive a "super-chest" with a "super prize" - because the player still has a chance of not winning anything, even if he is investing money. You can not rely on chance - it can do both good and bad. It is desirable to leave a positive part, and negative - to try to smooth.
For the same purpose, we introduced chests of different value and reward. In cheap chests, ordinary and sometimes rare items, you can buy them for a small number of event coins. Expensive chests with a corresponding award for a large number of event coins - for those who are used to paying money. All this is aimed at correcting the consequences of the randomization.
The chart shows: in Halloween was a good splash, and in the New Year it is even more.
Errors
We made mistakes with what I told. For example, in roulette, discontent of players caused display of awards. Despite the different probability of their loss, a rare "super prize" on the roulette was almost every second. In the next versions of the game they were displayed less often. There was still a negative, but much less
When it comes to money, players start to get a little paranoid.
With their notifications, we gave players a reason to think that they are being deceived. I personally saw in social networks "exposing video" - the player disconnected the Internet, and notices of the winners continued to go. Other users in the comments explained to him how this works. In fact, the server sends a winning list to the client in the last five minutes. Then the client delivers this list within five minutes.
The same goes for the progress bar. We made one bug: visually the scale was filled, but the player still needs to open the chests. The last pixel is filled - but there is no reward. We found and corrected the error, but the residue remained.
We have such a mechanics in the game in another place, and there the first filling of the progress bar is also bonus: that is, first the scale fills up faster, and then at a normal pace. But the players considered this a fraud. Why did the negative go here, because in another place - the same system? I believe that in the first case the matter did not directly concern money, but it was the other way around. Therefore, wherever it comes to real money, you need to be doubly tidy.
By the New Year we forgot to add to the location of snow and Christmas trees, and the players noticed this. In Halloween night skybox and robotic ghosts were made, who played the scenes right during the battle. This created an atmosphere and pleased the users.
* Involve everyone. Events are part of the game, free-to-play projects are initially created in order for everyone to participate in events. Do not allow bugs and do not forget: everything should be fun.
Make scripts for different types of players. For those who simply play, give the opportunity to play and earn prizes. Let people be able to spend money, and you - to make money. When you create a game - look at the quality and emotions.
* Never deceive players and do not even let them reason to believe that they are dishonest. The user is not the enemy who needs to take money, but a person cooperating with you on mutually beneficial terms.
* In any case, there will be a negative feedback, because it's about money. You must be ready for this. Look for options and opportunities to make the game better.
