"Free to PAY" - the results of the experiment
To begin with, a link to the first part of the article: "" Free to PAY "is an experiment to honestly monetize the game . " It has a detailed description of the whole undertaking, voting for "work - it will not work" and a bunch of comments.
I will briefly retell the point: a small mobile game with a finite gameplay, there’s nothing to sell inside, I don’t want to embed banner ads, as well as a standard “fritupley-kit”. But at least somehow repel costs, of course, I want to. Question: how to monetize? A tentative answer: to make the most good, completely free game, and only after passing to offer the player to pay for the received emotions and consumed content. No sooner said than done.
A little more than a month has passed since the launch of the game and we can already safely draw conclusions. For details, welcome under the cat, but for now here is a picture for you that most accurately conveys my emotions from the results of the experiment:
')
Okay, more to the point - there was a cross between “You earn something, but obviously less than if you tightened the screws more tightly” and “No, it will be a failure and earnings tending to 0”. Not that this was a surprise, but I wanted to believe in the best, because even in the voting, the item “Everything will turn out” was not in the last place:
Well, now the main thing is numbers. Launched the game on iOS and Android March 12, 2015. (i.e. month and 1 week have passed):
iOS :
Android :
I will make a reservation that I broke the experiment's purity a bit: initially everything was free and achievable in the game without buying additional currency, but I could not stand it and filled in an update in which premium levels were sold for coins, and for all 3 premium levels of coins issued in As a reward, it should not be enough. But, apparently, it did not really affect the payments - here is the schedule of installations and payments on iOS with the date of update marked:
1) High marks
Thought : we make a quality game with soft monetization; get good reviews; it helps to get to the tops and in general has a positive effect on conversions in both installations and payments.
Reality : estimates - space, reviews - a fairy tale! On iOS - 4.9, on Android - 4.8:
2) Word of mouth
Thought : the main thing for us is to grab more players, and there the quantity will turn into quality even with low ARPU. But you can count on real word of mouth only with soft monetization, since advising a friend a game that is not sharpened for the exhaustion of money, should be more comfortable than the next game of the pay-to-win genre
Reality : on the one hand, some kind of viral growth is not observed, on the other hand, various resources can be written about the game for free, and players periodically receive reviews like “told all friends”, “I saw from a friend and decided that the game should be on my phone ”etc.
3) Players will pay if you tell them about the value of the game.
Thought : many simply do not think that books, movies and games do not arise from the air, that this is work and it should be paid for. But this does not mean that people are deliberately determined not to pay for all this - you just need to push them in the right direction, sow the right thought in their heads, at the right time to tell why the game is free, but still worth paying for it
Reality : No, that’s not how it works. Even if the player realizes that he should pay for the game, he is still not ready to pay after the fact for what he has already received for free. At the end of the game, I propose to buy game currency, but from it there is no longer any pros, if you have passed the game. Need to sell something really valuable, even if it is served in the sauce “did you like the game? “Support us with a ruble.”
4) Anchor
Thought : there is such a psychological device with a price (one of the names of which is “anchor”), when the seller shows the customer first an expensive product, and then about the same, but cheaper. At the same time, something in the head of the buyer clicks and the purchase of the option “cheaper” is perceived as a very profitable deal. The trick is that, most likely, we would also consider this price high and would not buy anything at all if we did not have in front of the eyes of another, more expensive option. And what if you first offer the player to pay a lot, and then, if he does not agree, to offer a smaller amount?
Reality : It is important not to overdo it, because, relatively speaking, it is not accepted to pay more than a few bucks for mobile games, and by asking for more, you can achieve the opposite result by setting the initially loyal player against himself. Now the game is offered to pay 219 rubles. ($ 3.99) with the subsequent offer to pay less. As a result, for example, on iOS there are only 7 payments for $ 3.99, but 47 for $ 1.99 (the minimum possible payment) is an order of magnitude more, although the difference is not very big. It’s hard to say whether this technique works or the players just pay the minimum possible amount, I don’t have such fine statistics.
In general, I am a little disappointed and I will continue to approach monetization more harshly, but no one can reproach me with the words “you didn’t even try, greedy bastard!” =)
There is a lot more that I would like to talk about, but the article turned out to be rather messy, and so if something else is interesting, ask in the comments, I will answer with pleasure.
PS To make it clearer that we are generally trying to monetize, let me insert the game trailer:
UPD: 4 more months have passed - we managed to beat off the costs due to video advertising. Read more here: megamozg.ru/company/anvilgames/blog/18710
I will briefly retell the point: a small mobile game with a finite gameplay, there’s nothing to sell inside, I don’t want to embed banner ads, as well as a standard “fritupley-kit”. But at least somehow repel costs, of course, I want to. Question: how to monetize? A tentative answer: to make the most good, completely free game, and only after passing to offer the player to pay for the received emotions and consumed content. No sooner said than done.
A little more than a month has passed since the launch of the game and we can already safely draw conclusions. For details, welcome under the cat, but for now here is a picture for you that most accurately conveys my emotions from the results of the experiment:
')
Okay, more to the point - there was a cross between “You earn something, but obviously less than if you tightened the screws more tightly” and “No, it will be a failure and earnings tending to 0”. Not that this was a surprise, but I wanted to believe in the best, because even in the voting, the item “Everything will turn out” was not in the last place:
Well, now the main thing is numbers. Launched the game on iOS and Android March 12, 2015. (i.e. month and 1 week have passed):
iOS :
- 30,000 installations
- $ 126 (gross, before deducting 30%)
- ARPU: $ 0.0042 (average earnings per player)
- The percentage of people paying: 0.2%
- Average bill: $ 2.14 (there were 59 payments in total)
Android :
- 100,000 installations
- $ 176 (gross, before deducting 30%)
- ARPU: $ 0.0018 (average earnings per player)
- Paying percentage: 0.07%
- Average bill: $ 2.61 (for a total of 69 payments)
I will make a reservation that I broke the experiment's purity a bit: initially everything was free and achievable in the game without buying additional currency, but I could not stand it and filled in an update in which premium levels were sold for coins, and for all 3 premium levels of coins issued in As a reward, it should not be enough. But, apparently, it did not really affect the payments - here is the schedule of installations and payments on iOS with the date of update marked:
What happened, what did not work:
1) High marks
Thought : we make a quality game with soft monetization; get good reviews; it helps to get to the tops and in general has a positive effect on conversions in both installations and payments.
Reality : estimates - space, reviews - a fairy tale! On iOS - 4.9, on Android - 4.8:
2) Word of mouth
Thought : the main thing for us is to grab more players, and there the quantity will turn into quality even with low ARPU. But you can count on real word of mouth only with soft monetization, since advising a friend a game that is not sharpened for the exhaustion of money, should be more comfortable than the next game of the pay-to-win genre
Reality : on the one hand, some kind of viral growth is not observed, on the other hand, various resources can be written about the game for free, and players periodically receive reviews like “told all friends”, “I saw from a friend and decided that the game should be on my phone ”etc.
3) Players will pay if you tell them about the value of the game.
Thought : many simply do not think that books, movies and games do not arise from the air, that this is work and it should be paid for. But this does not mean that people are deliberately determined not to pay for all this - you just need to push them in the right direction, sow the right thought in their heads, at the right time to tell why the game is free, but still worth paying for it
Reality : No, that’s not how it works. Even if the player realizes that he should pay for the game, he is still not ready to pay after the fact for what he has already received for free. At the end of the game, I propose to buy game currency, but from it there is no longer any pros, if you have passed the game. Need to sell something really valuable, even if it is served in the sauce “did you like the game? “Support us with a ruble.”
4) Anchor
Thought : there is such a psychological device with a price (one of the names of which is “anchor”), when the seller shows the customer first an expensive product, and then about the same, but cheaper. At the same time, something in the head of the buyer clicks and the purchase of the option “cheaper” is perceived as a very profitable deal. The trick is that, most likely, we would also consider this price high and would not buy anything at all if we did not have in front of the eyes of another, more expensive option. And what if you first offer the player to pay a lot, and then, if he does not agree, to offer a smaller amount?
Reality : It is important not to overdo it, because, relatively speaking, it is not accepted to pay more than a few bucks for mobile games, and by asking for more, you can achieve the opposite result by setting the initially loyal player against himself. Now the game is offered to pay 219 rubles. ($ 3.99) with the subsequent offer to pay less. As a result, for example, on iOS there are only 7 payments for $ 3.99, but 47 for $ 1.99 (the minimum possible payment) is an order of magnitude more, although the difference is not very big. It’s hard to say whether this technique works or the players just pay the minimum possible amount, I don’t have such fine statistics.
In general, I am a little disappointed and I will continue to approach monetization more harshly, but no one can reproach me with the words “you didn’t even try, greedy bastard!” =)
What's in the plans for the next update:
- Add content, including premium levels
- Tighten the nuts on the balance and monetization
- Add inapp on $ 1 and offer to pay $ 2 instead of $ 4
- Add a couple of life-simplifying products to the store
- Add the ability to watch video ads with reward for watching (after each level)
- Improve the ability to “share” riddles
There is a lot more that I would like to talk about, but the article turned out to be rather messy, and so if something else is interesting, ask in the comments, I will answer with pleasure.
PS To make it clearer that we are generally trying to monetize, let me insert the game trailer:
UPD: 4 more months have passed - we managed to beat off the costs due to video advertising. Read more here: megamozg.ru/company/anvilgames/blog/18710
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289754/
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