How to create a truly popular museum application on the example of "Weapons of Heroes." Victory Day is dedicated
Hello everyone and everyone with the holiday! Today there was a reason to write about the project that we did last year for the “Tula Museum of Weapons”. This project took place only thanks to the efforts of a large number of individuals and organizations. Therefore, I want to talk about him as a community project.
The result was the game " Weapons of Heroes " and, as you probably already understood, it is dedicated to weapons.
')
I would even say specifically rare instances of the famous weapons exhibited in Tula.
Let's start from the end. The current state of the project is quite well shown in this clip, although it is already a bit outdated in numbers.
We are followers of lean startup and the scientific method of knowing the world as a whole. Therefore, the project moved in stages, at each of which hypotheses were put up for testing and an infrastructure was created to collect the maximum amount of feedback.
Stage 1. From marketing to the first playable version. Experience son of mistakes difficult
In the summer of 2016, we were tasked with promoting the museum of weapons and its collection both in Russia and in the world. The museum is very interesting, but I personally visited it for the first time, when we started the development. The more interesting it was to bring it to people.
For 10 years we have done several dozens of projects about museums and each one was special, because museums are very different and the most important thing to understand at the start is why people go to it REALLY. From a marketing point of view, these projects are always a big challenge.
Afterpainful doubts and hesitations of theoretical testing of hypotheses on the focus group, it was decided that you need to do a weapon simulator in the setting of the museum. Such an application corresponded to the direction of Edutainment, which we liked ourselves and in which experience was gained.
At the same time, it was noted that the entertainment segment already contains a significant number of applications for weapons, which critics regularly reminded us further on. Our goal was to get an audience that plays games and is interested in weapons, but not to make a clone of known applications. Let me remind you that our ultimate goal is to bring people to the museum and culture.
The application has 3 levels of bringing people to the museum:
1. Shoot an interesting weapon
2. Assemble disassemble it
3. Learn interesting facts and stories about these weapons.
What were the advantages at the start:
- The strength of the project, of course, was access to one of the leading weapon museums. Thanks to this, we were able to show in the application exclusives like the Catherine Carabiner 2 or the first Maxim machine gun
- The team had a great experience of interactive visualization of anything on Unity3d in the amount of 200+ projects and several of them won international competitions
- We have seen that the genre as a whole is popular and there is a potential target audience with an order of 1-10 million people
Minuses:
- Among such a large number of existing projects it is very difficult to stand out and do something outstanding and eye-catching.
- Lack of really popular museum applications in nature among broad masses of people with an audience of 1 million +. This greatly cooled the ardor of all the people with whom we began to discuss cooperation at that time.
- Not too successful experience with gamification of museums in the world as a whole. We went to specialized museum events of the last 5 years, read a bunch of articles and even a couple of monographs of famous authors in an attempt to find really successful projects. Let's face it - they are vanishingly small. In our opinion, the main reason is that the project must be attended by professionals both from the side of the museum and from the side of the game developer. Some games show their time and culture much better than many initially educational applications.
- Hard deadline and budget. The first phase was carried out in the framework of the state. contract with the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. There was very little time for testing hypotheses.
- There was no advertising budget in the project
The internal goal was set to reach 1 million users in the first year. Seeing the current situation in the segment of museum applications, it was clear that the existing approaches, this goal, to put it mildly, is not achievable. But, as usual, I tell clients about their doubts: “After developing the Olympic Games visualization system in 6 years 24x7 mode, nothing seems to embarrass or surprise us at all.” Each of us has such a project, after which he discovered in himself abilities.
To work the pros and cons did not cover the project with a copper basin, the following action plan was adopted.
1. Choose 10 weapons from the museum, which are iconic for most people and will really draw attention to the museum application.
2. Make a prototype within a month with the maximum quality of one weapon (PPSh-41) and the most basic functionality
3. Publish it on Google Play Belarus and Kazakhstan and check the Central Asian reaction to analytics and reviews.
4. In parallel to do the rest of the weapon and functionality. Do not forget that we were under a state contract.
5. After the first iteration of testing the hypothesis, it is released every 2 weeks and check everything that comes within the team and from users.
6. To make the application directly to the international market, otherwise the necessary amount of traffic will not be reached
Stage 2. Cones of the first playable version or how programmers built the plane
The first release with a hard-cut base functionality showed that our bet on the quality of 3D content was correct. The people had a delight.
The following months we passed the stages of the state contract, were released almost every 2 weeks, made changes in the feedback of users.
We fulfilled the state contract on time, but the wishes of the users turned out to be more than the scope of the project. We decided to bring the matter to the end and see what the probability of producing this project will be. At the same time, the fateful decision was made to develop the application only on Google Play, bring it up to 1 million + users and only then go to the following platforms and talk with big uncles who might be useful to the project.
Stage 3. The first release that inspired us or the operation "Happy New Year"
In late December, before the new year, the first big release happened, which gave really a lot of traffic. We went to 3-5 installations per day and still are somewhere at this level.
Here it is the video of the 1st release. It was made in 20 languages. I had to write automation for unity3d production. 20 videos and 500+ screenshots are not only a marketing task, but also a technical one.
In the New Year holidays at the peak, the application had up to 18 thousand installations per day. On the one hand, it made us happy. Not even that. THIS IS US MEMOTIVE ! But on the other hand, the MKRF server did not have time to transfer all this amount of traffic to foreign users.
We had a good experience with Selectel by that moment, and the entire distribution of internal downloads was transferred to their cdn. Everything was not always smooth with them, to be honest. But with their cost of services and Akamai partner, you can work and tasks are solved as needed.
At the same time, the program for beta testers was opened and it came under 2 thousand people. Apparently it turned out to submit a project with something more than just a game about weapons.
Volunteers began to come to the project. With their help, we translated the application into 10 languages, clarified some parts of the weapon and caught the non-obvious errors. And of course, significantly improved the convenience of the interface.
Stage 4. Special release. Since February 23, men!
The next release happened on February 23rd. We have added almost all the small user likes, and everyone was very pleased. Thanks to colleagues from Google for feature applications in the thematic collection! At this point, the application has passed about 20 different A / B tests on Google play. He changed the icon, which gave a 2-fold greater conversion than the very first.
The description, short text and screenshots have changed. At this moment we had a feeling of a real understanding of the audience and its real desires. But still, we continue to do testing on a regular basis and were able to squeeze 10-20 percent of conversion in some countries at the expense of bodybuilding with beta users.
Stage 5. Release May 9. Victory Day is a joy with tears in his eyes
The next big release was scheduled for May 9th. He had to make a game into the game. Up to this point, the application was of course a simulator and successfully lived in the Simulation games category, but the return of users was not as great as we would like. A large user survey was conducted, in which almost 11 thousand people participated. As a result of the survey, several areas were chosen, which as a result would give a playable application and would go to the museum theme.
To drastically change the already popular application is always exciting and even scary. Therefore, we strongly began to test in advance all the new features and mechanics on the beta group. To our great joy, all that was done was taken with a bang.
On May 4th there was a release, there was a feature on Google Play on May 9th and we launched a 10 day quest for our players.
As a result of the increase in the game component, the average time of people in the game increased by 3 times and the number of people who fully discovered all the museum facts and reached the full stories increased 5 times.
Summary
1. The task of popularizing the Tula Museum of Weapons is completed and exceeded. It turned out to make a live application for the mass user.
2. Now the game has 862 thousand installations in 4 months and 9 days. In June, if force majeure does not happen, it will be released in a million by half a year ahead of the plan. After that, the next phase of the project will begin.
3. We actively began to write other museums, incl. foreign employees of which are our users. So the appearance of new interesting patterns in the game is possible.
Thanks to everyone who supported us on Victory Day!
The result was the game " Weapons of Heroes " and, as you probably already understood, it is dedicated to weapons.
')
I would even say specifically rare instances of the famous weapons exhibited in Tula.
Let's start from the end. The current state of the project is quite well shown in this clip, although it is already a bit outdated in numbers.
We are followers of lean startup and the scientific method of knowing the world as a whole. Therefore, the project moved in stages, at each of which hypotheses were put up for testing and an infrastructure was created to collect the maximum amount of feedback.
Stage 1. From marketing to the first playable version. Experience son of mistakes difficult
In the summer of 2016, we were tasked with promoting the museum of weapons and its collection both in Russia and in the world. The museum is very interesting, but I personally visited it for the first time, when we started the development. The more interesting it was to bring it to people.
For 10 years we have done several dozens of projects about museums and each one was special, because museums are very different and the most important thing to understand at the start is why people go to it REALLY. From a marketing point of view, these projects are always a big challenge.
After
At the same time, it was noted that the entertainment segment already contains a significant number of applications for weapons, which critics regularly reminded us further on. Our goal was to get an audience that plays games and is interested in weapons, but not to make a clone of known applications. Let me remind you that our ultimate goal is to bring people to the museum and culture.
Our hypothesis sounded like this: "People who play games about weapons will be interested in our game, with interactive interaction with the weapon in it they will want to know more about it and go to the museum part of the game."
The application has 3 levels of bringing people to the museum:
1. Shoot an interesting weapon
2. Assemble disassemble it
3. Learn interesting facts and stories about these weapons.
What were the advantages at the start:
- The strength of the project, of course, was access to one of the leading weapon museums. Thanks to this, we were able to show in the application exclusives like the Catherine Carabiner 2 or the first Maxim machine gun
- The team had a great experience of interactive visualization of anything on Unity3d in the amount of 200+ projects and several of them won international competitions
- We have seen that the genre as a whole is popular and there is a potential target audience with an order of 1-10 million people
Minuses:
- Among such a large number of existing projects it is very difficult to stand out and do something outstanding and eye-catching.
- Lack of really popular museum applications in nature among broad masses of people with an audience of 1 million +. This greatly cooled the ardor of all the people with whom we began to discuss cooperation at that time.
- Not too successful experience with gamification of museums in the world as a whole. We went to specialized museum events of the last 5 years, read a bunch of articles and even a couple of monographs of famous authors in an attempt to find really successful projects. Let's face it - they are vanishingly small. In our opinion, the main reason is that the project must be attended by professionals both from the side of the museum and from the side of the game developer. Some games show their time and culture much better than many initially educational applications.
- Hard deadline and budget. The first phase was carried out in the framework of the state. contract with the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. There was very little time for testing hypotheses.
- There was no advertising budget in the project
The internal goal was set to reach 1 million users in the first year. Seeing the current situation in the segment of museum applications, it was clear that the existing approaches, this goal, to put it mildly, is not achievable. But, as usual, I tell clients about their doubts: “After developing the Olympic Games visualization system in 6 years 24x7 mode, nothing seems to embarrass or surprise us at all.” Each of us has such a project, after which he discovered in himself abilities.
To work the pros and cons did not cover the project with a copper basin, the following action plan was adopted.
1. Choose 10 weapons from the museum, which are iconic for most people and will really draw attention to the museum application.
2. Make a prototype within a month with the maximum quality of one weapon (PPSh-41) and the most basic functionality
3. Publish it on Google Play Belarus and Kazakhstan and check the Central Asian reaction to analytics and reviews.
4. In parallel to do the rest of the weapon and functionality. Do not forget that we were under a state contract.
5. After the first iteration of testing the hypothesis, it is released every 2 weeks and check everything that comes within the team and from users.
6. To make the application directly to the international market, otherwise the necessary amount of traffic will not be reached
Stage 2. Cones of the first playable version or how programmers built the plane
The first release with a hard-cut base functionality showed that our bet on the quality of 3D content was correct. The people had a delight.
All that could be hung with statistics. Native Google Play Store, Google Analytics and Unity analytics
The following months we passed the stages of the state contract, were released almost every 2 weeks, made changes in the feedback of users.
We fulfilled the state contract on time, but the wishes of the users turned out to be more than the scope of the project. We decided to bring the matter to the end and see what the probability of producing this project will be. At the same time, the fateful decision was made to develop the application only on Google Play, bring it up to 1 million + users and only then go to the following platforms and talk with big uncles who might be useful to the project.
Stage 3. The first release that inspired us or the operation "Happy New Year"
In late December, before the new year, the first big release happened, which gave really a lot of traffic. We went to 3-5 installations per day and still are somewhere at this level.
Here it is the video of the 1st release. It was made in 20 languages. I had to write automation for unity3d production. 20 videos and 500+ screenshots are not only a marketing task, but also a technical one.
In the New Year holidays at the peak, the application had up to 18 thousand installations per day. On the one hand, it made us happy. Not even that. THIS IS US MEMOTIVE ! But on the other hand, the MKRF server did not have time to transfer all this amount of traffic to foreign users.
We had a good experience with Selectel by that moment, and the entire distribution of internal downloads was transferred to their cdn. Everything was not always smooth with them, to be honest. But with their cost of services and Akamai partner, you can work and tasks are solved as needed.
At the same time, the program for beta testers was opened and it came under 2 thousand people. Apparently it turned out to submit a project with something more than just a game about weapons.
Volunteers began to come to the project. With their help, we translated the application into 10 languages, clarified some parts of the weapon and caught the non-obvious errors. And of course, significantly improved the convenience of the interface.
Stage 4. Special release. Since February 23, men!
The next release happened on February 23rd. We have added almost all the small user likes, and everyone was very pleased. Thanks to colleagues from Google for feature applications in the thematic collection! At this point, the application has passed about 20 different A / B tests on Google play. He changed the icon, which gave a 2-fold greater conversion than the very first.
The description, short text and screenshots have changed. At this moment we had a feeling of a real understanding of the audience and its real desires. But still, we continue to do testing on a regular basis and were able to squeeze 10-20 percent of conversion in some countries at the expense of bodybuilding with beta users.
Stage 5. Release May 9. Victory Day is a joy with tears in his eyes
The next big release was scheduled for May 9th. He had to make a game into the game. Up to this point, the application was of course a simulator and successfully lived in the Simulation games category, but the return of users was not as great as we would like. A large user survey was conducted, in which almost 11 thousand people participated. As a result of the survey, several areas were chosen, which as a result would give a playable application and would go to the museum theme.
Since the project was not paid by anyone, it became a kind of hobby of our team. We did it in our free time and everyone tried everything in it that was interesting to him. On it, we understood in practice why Google encourages similar projects of its developers.
To drastically change the already popular application is always exciting and even scary. Therefore, we strongly began to test in advance all the new features and mechanics on the beta group. To our great joy, all that was done was taken with a bang.
On May 4th there was a release, there was a feature on Google Play on May 9th and we launched a 10 day quest for our players.
As a result of the increase in the game component, the average time of people in the game increased by 3 times and the number of people who fully discovered all the museum facts and reached the full stories increased 5 times.
Summary
1. The task of popularizing the Tula Museum of Weapons is completed and exceeded. It turned out to make a live application for the mass user.
2. Now the game has 862 thousand installations in 4 months and 9 days. In June, if force majeure does not happen, it will be released in a million by half a year ahead of the plan. After that, the next phase of the project will begin.
3. We actively began to write other museums, incl. foreign employees of which are our users. So the appearance of new interesting patterns in the game is possible.
Thanks to everyone who supported us on Victory Day!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/328268/
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