Top Reasons Why Your Mobile Game Will (Likely) Fail | Chris Olson, Ethan Einhorn
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Delivered at Casual Connect USA 2016. The mobile market is tough. Early entrants are entrenched, UA costs are exploding. How will your game fare in a red ocean of competition? Two veterans share their thoughts and suggestions on what to consider as you go to market.
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Top Reasons Why Your Mobile Game Will (Likely) Fail | Chris Olson, Ethan Einhorn
- 1. Top Reasons Your Mobile Game Will (Likely) Fail (and What to Do About It) Chris Olson/Ethan Einhorn Ex-COO, SEGA Networks/Director of Marketing, Sidekick VR
- 3. We assume a “good” game is being made. It is fun with enough production values to attract and sustain an audience.
- 4. For the purposes of this talk, “failure” equates to not being able to monetize robustly enough to justify significant UA spend.
- 5. Most of these items pertain to F2P, though certainly there is some application for any game.
- 6. State of the Market YOU
- 7. 23% of your players will abandon after one use. Cost-per-install rates can be as high as $10-$12. (Gamasutra article)
- 8. 85% of smartphone users’ time is spent in apps, but only 4- 5 apps. * Forrester Research
- 9. Stagnation has hit. Many Top Hits have been there for years. Hits fall into only four genres Casino: 28 Builder: 25 Match 3/Puzzle: 19 CCG/RPG :12 Other: 16 (based on 07/08/16 App Store Top Grossing Chart)
- 10. The 3 Most Common Mistakes
- 11. Not Listening to Players No Updates No Soft Launch Cheer SilenceLoseWin Boo
- 12. 1. No Soft Launch or Player Testing
- 13. Who is the game made for? Test Assumptions •Can be done easily via FB purchased ads. •Easy to do cheap user/focus testing. •Test your UI, too!
- 15. Test UA • Test marketing creative early. • Find Initial cohorts for launch.
- 16. Test UA You can’t afford not to test! Source: Chartboost
- 17. 2. No Updates
- 18. Content is expensive • Avoid the treadmill – you will never get ahead of it. • Don’t risk getting caught in fixes and content, with no time for new features. • Budget enough to enable ongoing support. Launch is just the beginning (especially for F2P).
- 19. 3. Not Listening to Your Players
- 20. Trust community feedback and player analytics, not just your gut. • Do not assume that your audience wants the same gaming experience that you do. • Do not treat players solely as data points. • Be empathetic.
- 22. The 3 Most Common Problems
- 23. 1. Retention is in the Gutter
- 24. •If you can’t solve this, you are doomed. •You can only expect to increase in percentages, not orders of magnitude.
- 27. Featuring is meaning less and less • Apple recently changed featuring cadence. • It’s good to look at new OS features, see what you can integrate in a meaningful way. • Mega Brands help, but…
- 29. Consider other avenues to make money • Ads • Opt-in (show the value). • Annuity-based buying – and now subscriptions.
- 30. Try VR Development • Great if your heart is really in premium gaming. • Mobile VR will be the most common way for consumers to experience the new medium for the foreseeable future. • True enthusiast market, with customers who are active fans of the category.
- 31. Always look on the Bright Side Reasons for hope: • HUGE addressable audience. • Top Grossing charts are not impossible to crack. • Fallout Shelter • Pokemon GO • Innovative/unknown creators can hit the jackpot. • Flappy Bird • Crossy Road
- 32. Case Study 1 – Sonic Dash Sonic Dash worked. • 200M+ downloads. • Great example of Gameplay matching Brand Pillars. • Profitable – based on Ads. • Provided network for cross- promotion. Cons • Could have monetized better out of the gate. • New characters are most popular = limited content scope.
- 33. Case Study 2 – Rise of Knights Attempt to culturalize highly successful title from Japan. Killed in soft launch. • Numbers weren’t backing out. Attempt to leverage assets of Spiral Knights. • Still effectively a new IP from a mobile-scale perspective.
- 34. Recap 1. The addressable audience is massive, but they are expensive and difficult to reach. 2. Be willing to kill projects that don’t work in soft launch. 3. Deeply understand your audience and their needs. Don’t assume that they want to play the same kind of game that you do.
- 35. Big Takeaway If you haven’t already started in mobile F2P, you should probably start somewhere else.
- 36. Thanks! Find Ethan: • therealgamingunicorn@gmail.com • @ethan_einhorn • www.gamingunicorn.com Find Chris: • xispolson@gmail.com
Notas do Editor
- “Fun” is obviously a subjective word/zone in which to operate as is “enough” – basically we just mean it meets a certain quality bar to be considered competitive in the market.
- It should be noted that it may be completely sufficient for a small team to find success by producing and releasing a title that resonates with a relatively small audience. If this is you – congrats! However, many of these lessons may still apply.
- Smartphone user data Game chart data
- The eMarketer chart doesn’t seem applicable to games (ecommerce, travel and utility apps). I found another graph from 2016 that should do the trick. Source: http://info.localytics.com/blog/23-of-users-abandon-an-app-after-one-use The $10-12 CPI being quoted in the article seems kind of anecdotal. If you look at Chartboost, they quote much lower rates: https://www.chartboost.com/insights/ Though that seems low, based on us buying stuff in the past. I tweaked the verbiage a bit… Potential other data points: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/How-Many-Apps-Do-Smartphone-Owners-Use/1013309 Whales aren’t just spenders: The top 7 % of [smartphone] owners account[ed] for nearly half of all download activity in a given month. (ComScore)
- A lot of time is being spent in apps, but there are only so many a person will use day in, day out.
- There are a ton of apps released each day/week, each one competing for eyeballs/mindshare. The early movers have a solid toehold in the charts, making it challenging to crack into the charts. Stagnation, entrenched players and few competitive genres leads to very high switching costs. If you are competing in any of the big three categories, you are climbing an uphill battle trying to get costumers who have invested time, money and social into one game over time to move to your title. This is the case even when building a sequel, as we saw with the rough transition of KC1 to KC2 (KC2 didn't start making more money globally for more than a year, since the VIPs wouldn't shift over.
- Market growth is slowing and the app store is very crowded and competitive. However, smart phones aren’t going anywhere soon and they are utilized a ton. So there’s still strong opportunities, if you can identify and and navigate the problem spots.
- Understanding and testing your assumptions about your game with your target player is crucial. Unreleased games (several) Saw KPIs weren’t quite where we wanted them to be. Some gave more time to and saw improvements. Others never turned the corner and were axed Good recent overview on soft launch here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-06-28-what-every-mobile-game-developer-needs-to-know-about-soft-launching
- Super Monkey Ball Bounce Saw that certain levels were way too hard. Designers able to fix before went wider with distribution. Led to better completion rate of levels, but game still tanked (for other reasons) Sonic Dash 2 Spent time in soft launch, allowing for refinement of FTUE and led to better monetization out of the gate. Dash 1 still makes more money due to install base and ads, but Dash 2 monetizes better Test game – are players playing it as you intend? Test FTUE Run some test events to measure/predict possible increase of KPIs from events UI Identify what’s most important for your player to learn, ensure UI/UX accommodates that. Don’t assume the player has the same breadth of knowledge you do! Include designers in the test planning – what are the top things a player should understand in the first session? Test that. Many tests revealed that the players got confused in areas we didn’t expect. Though some common practices are rising to the fore, don’t assume your audience will adhere/know them. Largely genre dependent, so if you are trying to hybridize, you should definitely test that players “get it.” Nearly one-in-three smartphone owners frequently use their phone for navigation or turn-by-turn driving directions; one-in-ten use it frequently for public transit information. 67% of smartphone owners use their phone at least occasionally for turn-by-turn navigation while driving, with 31% saying that they do this “frequently.” 25% use their phone at least occasionally to get public transit information, with 10% doing this “frequently.” 11% use their phone at least occasionally to reserve a taxi or car service. Just 4% do so frequently, and 72% of smartphone owners never use their phone for this purpose. (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/chapter-two-usage-and-attitudes-toward-smartphones/) Point? That you shouldn’t assume everyone uses phone in same way/as much as you…
- Include designers in the test planning – what are the top things a player should understand in the first session? Test that. Many tests revealed that the players got confused in areas we didn’t expect. Though some common practices are rising to the fore, don’t assume your audience will adhere/know them. Largely genre dependent, so if you are trying to hybridize, you should definitely test that players “get it.” Example: Kingdom Conquest 2 We launched without being able to simplify (or culturalize) the UI. Result: Though we cracked the Top 20 in downloads (via a burst campaign) we were not able to get many folks past the D3 retention mark.
- Even if you don’t plan to spend UA, you should reserve some money to experiment. Testing icons Testing marketing Testing name Small spends in soft launch can help optimize your player base (along with testing assumptions about them).
- Small spends in soft launch can help optimize your player base (along with testing assumptions about them). Much discussion about where. Canada more expensive than US now (thanks to soft launching). Other popular alternatives are increasingly pricey – South Africa, New Zealand, Australia Using Chartboost, can compare relative CPIs and, depending on your needs, can find cheaper places to test spend. Most cheaper sources will only be good for evaluating retention, engagement. Monetization KPIs will likely vary drastically (though problems can still be spotted with enough volume). Ireland tends to be a decent proxy for the West. Volume buys will likely be problematic, so if need scale to test servers, etc, supplement with automation. Also realize that if you have server components, make sure to provision resource for far flung places. You can’t afford not to test! Delta DNA will do an audit of your game for $5-10K. They’ll try to upsell you on some of their services, but the report can help identify problem areas early…
- Ways around this – include a robust way for players to interact Social (chat, co-op) Competitive (PvP) Add difficulty levels for repeat use of content
- Example: KC2 – found action gameplay the most compelling and didn’t care as much for base building, which flew in the face of what resonated with players.
- Sidebar – Some features that can increase retention (character creation) often are a source of FTUE drop-off, but result in better longterm retention. Key is to look for balance and optimize as much as possible. Fixes: Find a cohort of players who are retaining better, get more and test other ways to increase those metrics Examine the funnel and address most egregious drops first FTUE optimization also key Key is to be measuring and testing tweaks/fixes 40/20/10 Possible causes of poor D1 Technical Poor UA sourcing If you are paying a service, make sure to check you are getting the quality you are paying for CPI vs eCPM FTUE Is your first session awesome? Possible causes of poor D3 – D7 Examine FTUE steps What are you doing to encourage return play? Push notifications (make sure to A/B test messaging) PvP Collection Daily reward Social/viral Chat, community building Events Map rewards schedule against desired D1, D2, D3, etc behavior
- Crazy Taxi: City Rush – had D7 retention issues out of the gate. We identified a challenge with the turning/cornering mechanic, addressed it, which helped. Also added some competitive features Though faced a bit of a treadmill with addition of items and levels, but offset with upgrades/sinks into cars, rotating missions, themed content and promotions. Sidebar – Some features that can increase retention (character creation) often are a source of FTUE drop-off, but result in better longterm retention. Key is to look for balance and optimize as much as possible. Fixes: Find a cohort of players who are retaining better, get more and test other ways to increase those metrics Examine the funnel and address most egregious drops first FTUE optimization also key Key is to be measuring and testing tweaks/fixes 40/20/10 rule of thumb/generalization Possible causes of poor D1 Technical Poor UA sourcing If you are paying a service, make sure to check you are getting the quality you are paying for CPI vs eCPM FTUE Is your first session awesome? Possible causes of poor D3 – D7 Examine FTUE steps What are you doing to encourage return play? Push notifications (make sure to A/B test messaging) PvP Collection Daily reward Social/viral Chat, community building Events Map rewards schedule against desired D1, D2, D3, etc behavior
- Apple seems to have drifted from its Thursday feature window. Unclear what effect this will have in the long term. If you are lucky/skillful enough to get featuring, you can expect a one week bump, but if you have no other channels (social, viral, UA), game will crash. Android featuring has less of an impact, generally. Consider using burst campaigns to extend featuring lift (help hold chart position). Note that the quality of these campaigns is not great, so KPIs will likely take a hit as a result. Take a look at what’s new in OS – can you integrate it in a meaningful way? May help to secure featuring and/or differentiate your game! Know that bigger companies have small armies tasks with Apple/Google/Amazon relations. Tailor your expectations accordingly. How to combat Focus on your player base. Community super important. Find the players that love your game and provide means for them to shout your game’s praises. PR = PUBLIC Relations. Press has little impact. Few smartphone gamers read news on games. That said, press hits can help shore up 1st party support. So do tie-ups with IP, special events, etc So does exclusivity Events, if you have the budget, can help promote, but not high ROI. 3. Ensure there are other ways to get the word out – viral, social (UA, too). EXAMPLES Sonic Dash – benefitted. Sonic Dash Boom hasn’t fared as well. Heroki – got major love from Apple. Was not commercially successful (but still awesome!)
- SEGA catalog benefitted from Sonic Dash installs. Likewise, catalog helped Sonic Dash. Cross-promtion works both ways. BUT – should try to ensure genre/theme match. Saw little use in cross-promotion of Sonic from House of the Dead, for example. So perhaps might make sense to tie-up with a publisher to benefit from this…
- Subscription model – similar to annuity/VIP, so look at those implementations.
- @ SEGA -- had to hire whole new teams to address this: product management, analytics, UA, etc Also moved producers onto teams (which is different than the typical role of a publishing producer) Marketing also meets more frequently with dev team as title progresses
- There are a ton of resources available about common IAP monetization techniques/practices, so won’t go into those, but you should consider other ways: Data has shown that most players don’t mind ads when implemented well. Show the value to the player. Annuity has demonstrated value and gives player a reason to return (increased retention). Subscription model – similar to annuity/VIP, so look at those implementations. Bonus of 85/15 rev share after a year, which can lead to significant upside for the right game. Events – regular cadence + seasonal stuff can help maximize revenue.
- Dash launched as a premium game. Was flipped to free as a weekend test/promotion. Response was overwhelming and never looked/went back.
- KPIs were poor and team had challenges addressing. Got caught up in some technical hurdles Game was “over engineered,” meaning too many systems had to come online in order to evaluate the game Retention was poor Use of Spiral Knights assets was actually a liability Older PC art didn’t scale super well to retina display With Spiral Knights name came certain expectations about the game Not a ton of overlap with PC fans of game and game Knight art didn’t allow for huge variety in visuals, lessening the urge to collect more Tried to utilize similar systems to Chain Chronicle, which was a huge hit in Japan. Would have had similar challenges with content in creation of new worlds, knights, etc CC hit a trend of “micro-stories,” which didn’t really happen here.
- Respect your player, too!
- Big reveal: If you haven’t already started in mobile, go somewhere else (VR? PC?)