Stats, Best Practices andCommon Mistakes for F2P Core Gamers

David P. ChiuVice President

Who Am I?• 5+ years at Intel in Gaming Developer Relations & Business Development,

Gaming Consumer Marketing and Campaign Strategy

• Former Senior Director of Business Development and Developer Relations at Kongregate heading BD worldwide for Kong web and mobile

• Worked with hundreds of developers on F2P games

• Currently Vice President of R2 Games USA

Reality Squared Games• R2Games is a leading international publisher of free-to-

play browser and mobile games for core gamers

• Games includes hits like Wartune, League of Angels, Blade Hunter, Dragon Pals and Monkey King Online.

• R2Games.com is a leading platform for F2P games serving 40M+ users in 8 different languages worldwide

• #1 publisher on Kongregate.com, Kabam.com and many other platforms

Reality Squared Games• One of the fastest growing online game companies• May 2010 – Reality Squared is founded• Sept 2011 – 1st exclusive game Crystal Saga launches in

NAR, USD$1M in 1st quarter• Aug 2012 – R2 publishes Wartune in NAR, breaking $1.5M in

its first quarter and $7M in its 2nd quarter

• 300+ employees with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Seoul and the San Francisco Bay Area

• CEO Jared Psigoda named 2014 Forbes China 30 Under 30

R2 Games Portfolio

• Asian F2P games have much higher ARPPUs versus Western F2P games• What can a Western developer learn from the Asian F2P games to improve their monetization?• Remember that F2P was born in Korea • And perfected in China (and quickly became the dominant biz model due to piracy)

Last talk at GC: Asian F2P vs Western F2P

• I can now tell you that the giant bubble on the top right is a Chinese MMO game called Wartune, published on Kongregate.com by R2Games

• 25+ months since Wartune launch and still going strong

• ARPPU has increased to $533 (11/6/2014)

• Why is Wartune so successful?

Graph From Last TalkR2Games

Source: Kongregate

Long Term Retention Matters

• The more someone plays a game, they more likely they are to convert from a player to a buyer. • Becomes a hobby and most committed fans can choose to spend• Real world example: You can watch baseball for free on TV but hardcore fans choose to spend money on tickets

Long Term Retention MattersWartune Lifetime % Buyers by Monthly Cohort

• The more someone plays a game, the more they spend• More time = More transactions

Long Term Retention MattersWartune Lifetime ARPPU by Monthly Cohort

• Therefore, user LTV increases with time

Long Term Retention MattersWartune ARPU or User LTV by Monthly Cohort

Majority of Spending Comes From Most Committed Players (Wartune)

Best Practices from Wartune andAsian F2P Design for Increasing Retention

• MMORPG with turn-based battles, city-building and isometric-perspective exploration

• Top grossing game in China before making it to the West

Wartune Quick Intro

• Solo and team PvE• Solo and team PvP• Asynch raids• Guild battles• World boss raids• Farming• Fishing• City Building• Weapon/Gear• Synthesizing & Upgrading• Astral Collecting and• Combining• Etc.

Pace the introduction of new features/gameplay modes to not overwhelm players with a long and intimidating tutorial.

Keep Players Busy!More things to do = more players staying

• Simple Daily Tasks to earn rewards

• Scheduled Limited Time Events

• Daily Quests

Keep Players Busy!More things to do = more players staying

• Daily play bonuses are good to get users coming back regularly

• But improve on the typical 5-7 day daily bonuses

• Wartune players get a stamp for every day of the month they play the game

• Rewards for playing 2 days up to 26 days

• Incentivizes longer term play

• Doesn’t “punish” players for missing a day

Keep Them Coming Back

Keep Players Busy!Mini games with additional free plays each day to earn rewards

• The foundations of a F2P game are a strong RPG elements and a sense of progress over time• Building up account, leveling up, adding/improves skills and stats, etc

• Deep RPG mechanics and multiplayer matter:• 25x ARPU for Multiplayer RPG vs Single Player non-RPG!

Data From Last GC TalkType % 50+ Plays % Buyers ARPPU ARPU

Multiplayer RPG 2.6% 0.75% $69 $0.51

Multiplayer Non-RPG 1.0% 0.45% $9 $0.05

Single-player RPG 1.8% 1.29% $12 $0.10

Single-Player Non-RPG 0.2% 0.53% $4 $0.02

• Motivate players to get to the next milestone• Leveling up unlocks features, content, rewards • Positive reinforcement for progressing

Aim for the Stars

• Character level provides a sense of progress• But also give players ways to measure their strength

à Wartune’s Battle Rating

Aim for the Stars

• And tap into their sense of competition• Leaderboards for everything

Aim for the Stars

• Lifetime, daily gain and weekly gain• So players can compete in many ways

Best Practices from Wartuneand Asian F2P Design for Increasing Monetization

Depth of Spend• The longer someone plays your game the more likely they are to buy and

the less price sensitive they become

• Give committed players the ability to spend at $1,000+ if they want

• Have lots of items that are appealing and useful to all players from beginners to elder players who have played for months or years

• Unlock new items to buy as players level up

• But must also create reasons to want the elder items

• Don’t create a situation where spending is capped by availability or utility.

• Location, location, location – make the store easy to find!

• Show balance of hard currency (Balens)

• Shortcut to buy more (Recharge button)

• Make it easy to find the what you want

o Meaningful categories and item descriptions

o No massive scroll bars

Make the Shopping and Buying Experience as Frictionless as Possible

• Bonuses % or/and items for larger hard currency

packages

• Clearly call out bonuses of larger packages!

• Make all packages visible in one page for easy

comparisons (no scroll bars)

• Hide large packages until after first purchase

Buy Currency Screen

• First time buyer/ Starter packages• Seed players with some paid/hard currency and guide “intro

purchase”• Deals/events to get people into the habit of spending regularly• Offer items that enhance the gameplay experience (not just

speedups)

Make the Shopping Experience Interesting

• Intro the right items at the right time • Lvl 1 players should not be shown the lvl 100+ holy sword

that’s on sale for $100)• Keep them coming back – keep store fresh by adding new items,

unlocking items as players level up and featuring seasonal and time-limited items/ sales

Create Sense of Urgency

Other DO’s and DON’T’s

Timing is Everything: Server Times• F2P: games-as-a-service with players all over the world in different time zones• Don’t let players wondering what time zone the game is in• Specify time zones or set a server time and have it be visible so there is no confusion leading players to miss events/sales• Minimizes confusion and player frustration

• Bar on top of all of R2’s games clearly lists:• The server time• The next event’s start time and a countdown to it

Timing is Everything: Server Time Zones• DON’T do separate servers if your CCUs are too low

• DO ensure the CCUs are high enough for competition, and merger servers if needed

• DO have at least 2 instances of an event if you do not split servers by time zone

• For event-centric games, consider separate servers by time zone

Wartune (English) servers

• DON’T forget to make adjustments for Daylight Saving Time changes

• Events drive up player engagement

• Schedule events during periods of highest CCU

• For core gamers, primetime is in evenings and weekends

Timing is Everything: PrimetimeMonkey King Online PCU by day

Keeping the Balance

• Have a robust matchmaking algorithm

• Prevent elder players and big spenders from slaughtering new players

• Offer protection time or shields after getting attack

Why is it Important to Understand F2P?

The Mobile Landscape

• F2P is the dominant business model- iOS Top 50 Grossing Charts has 1 paid game (Minecraft)- iOS Top 100 Grossing Charts has 2 paid games

• Players used to downloading free games now• Free games offer minimal barrier to entry and yield

much higher download rates

Mobile F2P vs Paid• Threes was an original puzzle game priced at $1.99

• 2048 was a copy of a clone of a clone of Threes and was free

• Threes found moderate success while 2048 became a

worldwide phenomenon

Creator of Threes:

Mobile F2P vs Paid

• Difficult for paid games to compete with free games

• And F2P is complex

• Takes time and live servicing a F2P game to really learn

• Particularly difficult if you are used to making paid games

instead of games-as-a-service

Mobiel User Acquisition is Expensive

• Need solid grasp of F2P to have high monetizing game• Need a lot of capital to do paid UA

App Store Features are Incredibly Powerful

• Minor feature: 10k to 100k+ installs• Medium feature: 100k-500k+ installs • Major feature: 500k to 2M+ installs

***For F2P games, not paid

Best App Store Features Are Hard to Get

# of Apps 1.96M

Approx. # of apps each week ~9k

# of Games 439k

Approx. # of games each week ~3k

Promo slots of new games 16

The Mobile Landscape

• Mobile distribution is very challenging

• Competition is fierce:

o 283k existing games and thousands

new games each week

• App store features are hard to get

• Viral hits are rare (Flappy Bird)

• User acquisition is expensive

• Can lower CPIs with big IP (also costly)

Self-Publish?Evaluate your game and team:

• What are your goals for the game and studio?• Does your team understand F2P?• Do I have the key talent to do a F2P game?• Do you have enough runway to learn F2P and iterate game in test markets?• Do you have enough capital for paid UA?

Is a Publisher Right For Me?• How can a publisher help me?

• Allow you to focus on the game while they handle:

• Marketing (screenshots, ads, videos, ASO, split tests, PR, etc)

• App store relations and featuring

• Analytics

• Customer Service and Community Management

• Functional QA Testing

• Localization and localization QA, etc.

• Royalty advances to help you finish the game (not all publishers do this)

• Or/and provide marketing guarantees (not all publishers do this)

• May help negotiate and secure IP for the game

Is a Publisher Right For Me?Evaluate the publisher:

• Are your goals and interests aligned?

• Are they putting some skin behind the game (advances, marketing,

resources for localization, QA, analytics, etc)?

• Potential for long term partnership (e.g. strategic investments)

• Do they understand F2P and have a track record of success?

• Do they have the right talent at the company?

• Does the publisher have 1st party and 3rd party games?

• Does your game fit into their audience and portfolio (casual vs core)?

CLICKER HEROES

The idle RPG that started the subgenre!

Apple’s 10 Greatest Clickers

HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED• First game to combine idle and RPG mechanics

• Originally developed by developer Playsaurus as a PC browser game and it took the internet by storm!

• Ported to Steam and became an instant hit!

GOING MOBILE• Playsaurus partners with R2 Games for mobile version and all future platforms

• The mobile journey begins!

GOING MOBILE: CHALLENGES• Clicker Heroes originally built as Flash game• Convert to AIR for mobile

• PROBLEM: Vector art performs poorly on mobile processors• SOLUTION: Use Dragonbones and covert to bitmaps

• PROBLEM: Few 3rd party SDKs support AIR (SDKs for attribution, analytics, push notif, etc) • SOLUTION: Create custom AIR native extensions (ANE) and plug-ins and let the

developer focus on actual game development

• PROBLEM: Many clones launched on mobile before Clicker Heroes mobile even started development

• SOLUTION: Improve the game experience and add new differentiating features

• PROBLEM: Many stolen copies on the app store and websites, especially in China• SOLUTION: R2 Legal team in China took down all IP-infringing copies

GOING MOBILE: NEW MOBILE FEATURES• FTUE• Cloud Saves• Rewarded video ads• Mobile UI

GOING MOBILE: NEW MOBILE FEATURES• Clans and clan-based battles against Immortals

GOING MOBILE: LOCALIZATION• Clicker Heroes originally only in English

• Added language support for:

• French• German• Spanish• Russia• Portuguese• Simplified Chinese• Traditional Chinese

SOME LOCALIZATION TIPS• Localization helps with app store featuring in non-English speaking countries

• Be aware of differences between- Traditional vs Simplified Chinese- Portugal vs Brazil Portuguese- Spain Spanish versus Latin America Spanish

• BEWARE of bad translations when outsourced to external vendors versus in-house, especially automated translations

• Be sure to do extensive Localization QA to make sure translated text fits into where they are supposed to

SOME LOCALIZATION TIPS• Examples of bad translations from another game:

- Heavy use of machine translation- Incorrect grammar and spelling- Lack of gender concordance- Inappropriate translations

SOME LOCALIZATION TIPS• It’s not just about translation/localization but also culturalization

- Jokes/puns, pop culture references, events/holidays, etc.- Adjust UI - Adjust Economy- Adjust difficulty

• Avoid subpar translations/localization. Work with localization experts that are:- Gamers that understand gaming lingo- Native speakers of the target language- Have played the game and translate in the context

• Fortunately, R2 has a localization team that handled all that

Featured by both Apple and Google App Stores

Clicker Heroes Global LaunchUS Apple App Store

US Google Play

Clicker Heroes Global Launch

Featured in 122 countries by the Apple App Store!

Russia France

Germany

UK Italy

Featured in 122 countries by the Apple App Store!

Clicker Heroes Global Launch

iOS Best of August iOS What We’re Playing

Press Coverage

Top #1 Adventure Game!

Top #1 RPG!

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (iOS)

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (iOS)

Top #3 Downloaded Game on US iPhones!

Top #10 Downloaded App on US iPhones!

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (iOS)Top #3 Downloaded Game on US iPhones

Top #104 Grossing Game on US iPhones

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (Google Play)

Top #4 Downloaded Game on Google Play (US)

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (Google Play)

Top Downloaded Game and App on Google Play!

Top #2 Downloaded RPG!

Top #34 Grossing RPG!

Clicker Heroes Global Launch (Google Play)

LEARNINGS• Clicker Heroes has pretty crazy high retention #s

• Mobile vs web 30-day LTV: 3x

• High retention games are ideal for ads

• Rewarded video ads are a better UX vs. interstitials

• Find a good ad mediation partner with a robust real-time dashboard

• Good localization helped get great app store features in other countries

D1: � 66.7%

D7: � 42.8%

D14: � 32.9%

Thank You

Questions?

david@r2games.com