Lecture "Monetization promotions: how to double the income of your game" - a brief summary

Hello Habrovchane! Yesterday, I had the pleasure of diluting my boring weekdays with a trip to the lecture “Monetization actions: how to double the income of my game”. He led it viacheslavnu (Vyacheslav Utochkin), who worked as a producer on the Armata Project at Mail.ru Group and a number of other projects. Briefly squeeze a lecture under the cut.

Since this lecture was part of a full-fledged training course, which is taught at VSBI, the material in my opinion was somewhat theorized. This resulted in a classification by goals, types and other parameters. There were interesting ideas as well as rather banal ones. For me, as an indie developer, it was very useful to get the opinion of a market professional even about trivial things, but, of course, I also wanted to learn something new.

I do not pretend to the completeness of the material, but simply describe what seemed useful to me. The lecture cited examples not only for mobile, but also for browser and social games, so some promotions were not very useful to me. All promotions are presented by division according to their purpose.

Increasing the number of paying users (ppu)
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"Wheel of luck"


Analog in Flip Jump

Vyacheslav strongly recommended this action as one of the most effective. The essence of the action is in the implementation of the "wheel of luck" and giving the player the opportunity to spin it, winning prizes. Alternatively, you can twist for coins or stones. At the same time, the recommendations were rather tricky: to divide users into three categories (constantly paying, paying, but without payments for the last 30 days, non-paying) and for each category to set their own odds of bonuses and prizes. The point is to make the most tasty bonus for non-paying users, for example, a threefold increase in the amount from the first payment, and for regularly paying users the maximum bonus, an increase only by 20%. The logic is clear, really, why give big bonuses to those who regularly pay? And on the other hand, those who do not pay need to somehow push on the first payment with a bold bonus.

When selling such shares, it is necessary to limit the payment period, for example, 4-5 days, since if you allow the bonus to be used after a month, the user may experience a wah of excitement and impulse purchase.

In addition, there are recommendations to build the wheel into the mechanics of the game, and not just to start it at the start. Record from the launch of the action - x3 average daily income.

"Bonus for the first deposit". The action is simple and clear, but many indifferent to do it. I repent, too, I will now. The meaning of the action is to shake the user to make the first payment.

Return users to the game

Newsletters with special offers. This promotion is more relevant for browser and social games. Its meaning is to send messages to the player, such as "You were chosen as the most favorite player, so you need a purchase bonus of 10 stones." In mobile games, such mailings are difficult to implement if pop-up messages are disabled.

User retention

"Subscription". An interesting action, but in the opinion of not very good to the player. The point is that the player buys a subscription for 1000 stones for two weeks. The cost of the stones is much cheaper, but there is one BUT: the user can take no more than 50 stones a day. This forces the user to log in every day and collect his bonus.

"Loyalty program". You buy a VIP account and you are given a number of bonuses. A striking example of "World of tanks", where a paid account gives extra experience and a large list of other goodies.

Shares on in-game currency spending

Briefly:

- discounts
- bundles (batch sale of various resources, items and other things)
- gifts for spending in the store
- chests

Chests. Chest in Clash Royal

I would like to dwell on the chests in more detail. A chest is essentially a kind of “cat in a bag” - you buy a chest, and then open it and see what is inside. 98% of chests should contain items cheaper than the cost of a chest, and the remaining 2% should contain super cool items. The main thing is to keep the balance, in the amount of the total value of all the goods in the chests should be less than the value of all the chests. It's like in roulette - the red / black tie is 50 to 50, but the casino wins are secured by zero. So the chest should always leave the publisher in the black.

Vyacheslav noted that with the short-term introduction of chests into the game, the daily revenue can increase up to 5 times.

Principles of working with stocks

Briefly list the principles:

• Shares should contribute to the introduction of real money into the game, and the spending of virtual currency in the store. You can not give the user to accumulate a large amount of in-game currency
• User must know about the promotion.
• Arrange promotions for the holidays (not only for general types of the New Year, but also for specific ones for each game. For example, for WOT it is Tanker's Day)
• Take care of the company's reputation. Do not be greedy and hold shares honestly. </ li
  
  In general, the lecture was quite interesting and unequivocally useful, especially since it was free. I definitely recommend attending viacheslavnu lectures to all indie developers in the future. Special thanks to Vyacheslav.