Space Ape's Live Ops Stack: Engineering Mobile Games for Live Ops from Day 1

Watch the full presentation links.spaceapegames.com/liveops

Watch the full presentation
links.spaceapegames.com/liveops

LIVE OPS MANAGER,
ANDREW MUNDEN

Introduction

Who am I?
2011
2013
2014

Who am I?2015

Live Ops 101

What is Live Ops?
A Bit More Detailed...
Design, create, and execute events and promotions to maximize
revenue and player happiness; while minimizing fatigue and
content burn.
● Incredibly Agile
● Scrappy
● Adaptive
Broad Definition
Do what needs to be done for a live game to be successful.

Live Ops Workflow
Framework
Database
Design
Validation
Ape Work
Game
Community

Live Ops Design
● Frameworks
● Estimated
Value
● Design

Value
Frameworks
Framework
● Provide Consistency
● Broad Balancing
● Feeds Into Others
Tools
Item T
Dimensions of Value
● Number of Angles
● Length of Sides
● Symmetry
Modifiers
Number of Angles = 80%
Length of Sides = 20%
Symmetry = 50%
$1.00
$1.50
$1.00 * (80%+20%+50%)
a=b=c

EV and Design
sum()

Events vs. Monetisation
Type Event Monetisation
Item / Currency Sink High None
Item / Currency Tap Low High
Generates Gross Bookings Low - High High
Engagement High Low
Fatigue Low - High Low - High
● Not Mutually Exclusive
● Complimentary Monetisation & Events are Best
● Both Share Strong Similarities with Each Other
● Spending Fatigue != Playing Fatigue; but is still very real!

Cadence

Space Ape Live Ops
Highly Technical
Live Operations
Planning Board

F
Live Ops Cadence
I II III IV
E $
E
$
F
E $ F E
$ F
E - Engagement $ - Gross Bookings F - Player Fatigue
Event Rating System Month
I
II
III
IV
IV
IVIV
I
I I III
III II
IV
Adapts and changes dependent on:
● Content Pipeline
● Event & Sales Data
● Player Feedback
● New Features

Content

What is content?
Game elements that can be
consumed by players.
Examples:
● Characters / Robots
● Consumable Boosts / Potions
● Dialogues / Cutscenes
● Campaign Levels

What is content?
Consistently
Hitting 70%+
Event
Participation

Content Drives Revenue

Content Drives Revenue
Force of Nature
Malice Event Wyrm's Gambit
Birna Event
Ascended Alandra
Scorched Earth

Gacha
Rival Kingdoms Transformers
Rarities Yes (Now) Yes
Duplicate
Handling
Yes Yes+
More = Better No Yes
A Brand No Yes

So, about the bots?

LIVE OPS: LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
Event Release Bundles
Premium
Crystal
Pool
Free
Crystal
Pool
New Bot
Bot Crystal Sale
4 Weeks
3 Weeks
2-3 Weeks

Questions?

HEAD OF ANALYTICS,
FRED EASEY

A brief history of targeting
Nov 2016

V1. The Stone Age: Shop only
• IAPs only displayed
on shop page
• Bulk discount
offered for higher
spend

• Multiple price points offered, player
will usually see a price they are
happy to buy
• Bulk-buy discount encourages
players to purchase higher value
IAPs
• Players average transaction size
tends to stay around the same
level for subsequent transactions
• Shop is tucked away in the HUD,
players need to actively search for
it to find it

Interesting side-point: the
bulk-buy discount for casino
games is insane, more like
1000% EV vs 130% EV for
non-casino games for top
SKU
They have much less of a
content burn issue from
giving more away, as
players tend to scale their
bets to their balance

V2. The Iron Age:Time limited bundles
Time-limited bundle of
in-game items offered,
with much higher EV*
than regular shop
*EV = estimated value: value of bundle
contents compared to normal shop

V2. The Iron Age: Time limited bundles
Revenue (All Users)
DailyRevenue($)
Live Event + Themed event bundle
generated the highest daily revenues

● Supercell
recently added
time-limited
bundles to
Clash Royale
● Very good UI
sign-posting
● Triggers on
new arenas +
special events

10th Grossing
Top Grossing
Bundles
Launched

• Limited time to purchase + high EV +
high quality art = more players buy
than normal shop
• Bundle toast “pops” during session, so
all players will see it
• One danger is players are trained to
wait for sales and stop buying from the
normal shop
• Can lead to content burn issues if
bundles are too generous
• Relationship between bundle EV and
conversion is not linear
• Works best when combined with a live
event

V3. The Steam Age: Timeline bundles
• Player sees a rotating
group of bundles
• Prices are targeted
based on the player’s
historical spend

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Non-spender
($0.00)
20 starter
launch
autobot
20 builder
autobot
20 premium
character
autobot
10 builder
autobot
10 premium
character
autobot 20 battle
10 small
alloy_energon 5 battle
low-spender
($4.99-$9.99)
20
premium
character
autobot 100 battle
20 med
alloy_energon
20 builder
autobot
10 premium
character
autobot 20 battle 5 battle
mid-spender
($19.99+)
100
builder
autobot
100
premium
character
autobot 100 battle
40 large
alloy_energon
40 premium
character
autobot 20 battle
10 builder
autobot
20 premium
character
autobot
10 premium
character
autobot
high-spender-1
($39.99+)
100
premium
character
autobot
40 massive
spark 100 battle
40 premium
character
autobot 100 builder
20 premium
character
autobot
100 massive
alloy_energon
40 massive
fuel_cells
high-spender-2
($200+ last 7D)
100
premium
character
autobot
40 massive
spark 100 battle
100 builder
autobot
100 massive
alloy_energon
100 large
fuel_cells

• Much better at upselling than single price-point bundles
• No product team curation required after initial setup
• The games we launched with timeline bundles generate more
than 2x the LTV of the previous game that did not have
timeline bundles
• Work well in conjunction with time-limited bundles - the
revenue will often stack rather than cannibalizing
• Same dangers as single price bundles - danger of content
burn and cannibalizes shop sales

• When we analyzed the data,
we saw that mean previous
spend is a better predictor
than max spend, for
predicting next spend amount
lifetime_spend
max_prev_tiers
mode_prev_tiers
median_prev_tiers
mean+prev+tiers
previous_tiers
tiers_price
lifetime_spend
max_prev_tiers
mode_prev_tiers
median_prev_tiers
mean+prev+tiers
previous_tiers
tiers_price
- 0.2
0
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0.2
- 0.4
- 0.6
- 0.8
- 1

Coming next: The Rocket Age
M-L targeted bundles
Timeline bundles targeted
via machine learning to
maximize player LTV
$10
Resource
Bundle
$20
Character
Bundle
$5
Builder
Bundle
$100
Character
Bundle
$40
Battle
Bundle
$10
Battle
Bundle
$100
Character
Bundle
$40
Battle
Bundle
$10
Battle
Bundle
Many different types of bundles
created by product team
(+re-purpose existing ones).
Covers all permutations of price
+ type + EV

• Each bundle is scored based on the chance of the player purchasing it
• The approach we are working on is separate models for price and type
• Price based on previous bundle conversion (nearest-neighbours model)
• Type based on what types sell well given specific player conditions (eg the
resource bundle is more likely to be purchased by players running low on
resources)
• All bundles are assigned a % chance of purchase. We then multiply by bundle
price to give an estimated return for each bundle and serve the one with highest
return
• A random element will be included to stop the system from stagnating on specific
bundles
Coming next: The Rocket Age
M-L targeted bundles

PRODUCT MANAGER,
MITCHELL SMALLMAN

Rival Kingdoms:
Trials, Tools, and Tricks in Live Ops

A Little Context
● Slide with RK launch stats

… but Rival Kingdoms had a problem.
● UA costs for RK were very high,
super dark fantasy plus core RTS
made it very expensive to market
● This is where many would consider
the game in serious trouble, but our
ARPPUs were so high it seemed like
there was plenty of life left

More Trains… or more Track?
? ?

The Track In Front Of The Train
● Changed our sales strategy to
event currencies (boosters)
that provide ease of acquiring
new exclusive content during
an event
● Diamonds moved as a sink in
frequently updated gacha
chests, while staying a core
loop currency

Controlled Currencies
● Introduced “Mithril” in late
2015, Crafting in 2016
● Currency are capped or
distributed only in events
● Raise cap, sell more, change
the balance, create new
demand
● The key: Tied directly to
events and live ops

Recipe of of a
Successful Elder Game Event

A Choice of Spend and Activity
● Should be fun if you spend
$0, $5 or $100
● Should be fun if your alliance
has a wide make up of
different players with different
behaviours
● Should feel achievable to all

Social Connection & Competition
● Requires some co-ordination
(this is fun)
● Keep in mind, heavy social
can exhaust players, it’s
harder to turn down your
friends than a game
developer

Our Tools

Live Event Config
● Allows us to change the
goals, rewards and
timings for an entire event
● If we use no new rewards
or art, we could create a
complete event in a
matter of minutes
See video for live demo:
https://youtu.be/Ct-885u1pAE?t=10m10s

Live Bundle Tool
● Using standardized SKUs,
able to create bundles on
the fly
● The answer to the “what if
you have a weak event?”
problem

Reward Systems
● We’ve also built tools for
frequent long term events
● In general, if we do
something frequently, we
try to put it live

Streaming Art
● Fresh Art = More
Excitement = Better
revenue
● If we need to pivot an
event and offer a new
item, we can stream in the
art instead of baking into
content

The Space Ape VIP Program

Not Just Whales
● VIP includes streamers,
large Kingdom leaders
as well as large
spenders
● Increased communication
with devs is the primary
benefit, not huge in game
rewards, works both ways

Data Analysis:
Day To Day

Measure Twice, Cut Once
● See how much each
currency has changed after
event
● Key segments: progression
and spend tier
● What is the distance
between segments?

Measure Twice, Cut Once
● As your game gets
less DAU, averages
become less useful
● Frequently look at
smaller segments
and distribution

Space Ape's Live Ops Stack: Engineering Mobile Games for Live Ops from Day 1

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