If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part I and Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part II first!
Welcome to part three of our three part “Mochi Coins Best Practices” series! These are just some things we’ve noticed since we released the API and how addressing some of these things may increase sales in your games!
Please, feel free to leave comments and any other suggestions/links/articles that you think would benefit the community.
Marketing Your Game
Demos are Fine, Just Describe Your Game As Is
If your game is meant to be a demo, then list it as so. It’s true that it may receive a more negative response from the get go, but if the game experience is amazing it won’t matter (see: Windosill). Great games will more often than not get the attention they deserve and those who were willing to open their wallets will be doing so anyway.
There’s nothing worse than playing a game all the way to the end and finding yourself unknowingly forced to purchase an item to actually complete it. Granted, it’s a pretty shrewd business tactic that will get a few people to open up their wallets to pay the admission price, but it’s something that also puts a bad mark on your record as a game developer. People may then, in turn, not play your games in the future.
Windosill – Title Screen
Windosill – Reaching “Unlock” Level
Windosill – Automatically popping up Purchase Option
Video Demo of Items
A nice feature within the MochiCoins platform is the option to attach a video preview for any item in your store. Doing so will allow someone to make a much more informed decision on what they’re getting with their money (see: SAS: Zombie Assault 2). It’s the same reason companies attach screenshots to the back of their boxes—you want to see what you’re getting.
This is especially important for things that aren’t straight forward like “increase life from 5 to 10”. If your weapon is described to be one bad mamma jamma, then attach a video showing it. You’ll get many more “I want that” responses than not.
SAS: Zombie Assault 2 – Weapon with Demo Button
SAS: Zombie Assault 2 – YouTube video of Weapon in Action
Branding and 1,000 True Fans
If this is your first venture out into the space, then keep this tip in the back of your head as you move forward. If it’s not, make sure you take the time to evaluate where you are and what you can do to improve your standings.
A very important tactic to take is to make sure to market to your fans. If you’ve created many games that have been played, then you have also more than likely acquired a (hopefully) continuing growing fanbase. These are the people that you’ll eventually tailor your game creations towards. These are most likely the people that “discovered your indie talent” before it went mainstream, and are the people that appreciate your work as a developer. These are also the people that are most likely willing to wait through ads to play your game, pry open their wallet to give you money or even send you a card during the holidays.
Build that fanbase, keep them entertained and give them more reasons to invest their time (and money) in you. You’d be surprised what 1,000 True Fans can really do for you. Keep that number as a base, and plan accordingly.
Suggested Reading: 1,000 True Fans
The Future
Sponsorships on the Horizon
With your game popping up left and right on the internet, getting a lot of exposure and publicity is only natural. What do you do, however, when a sponsorship comes your way to purchase a site-locked version, but asks you to provide all purchasable items for free? The first inclination would be to jump on the money like ants on candy, but you should take some time to think about the options available and the things you can do to not only benefit yourself as a developer, but to respect your fans as well as the Flash development community.
- Ask Why Coins Aren’t Allowed – Question and find out why that particular publisher or portal doesn’t want to use your game if transactions are involved. See if there is a way around this or they can work out a deal to allow microtransactions to be used. The more people that ask “why?” may further strengthen the point that developers want microtransactions left in their game.
- Offer an Alternative to Unlocking Everything – The last thing you want to do is to alienate your fan base. If you’ve created a game that many people love and have purchased items in, you don’t want to provide the same experience somewhere else for free. Your fan base will realize that future releases of your games will eventually pop up on a portal and offer all items for free and stop purchasing items altogether. There are a few options you can try:
- Offer a Basic Version – Your game, unless it is strictly a demo, should be a complete experience in itself. See if you can ask the sponsor to take the standard version without the extra bells in whistles since, in theory, those items are strictly bells and whistles.
- Offer Alternative Items – Create items that you can give the sponsor for free and are locked to the version on their site only. For example, instead of providing the sponsor all 50 bonus levels and the water balloon cannon, you create a special “Sponsor Level Pack” and another weapon for the sponsor. This way your fans can play the version with the items they purchased and also try out these new items for free.
- Ask For More – Ultimately, the decision to accept a sponsorship, regardless of the terms, is completely up to you. If you’re going to go and create a version that makes all locked content free for that site, knowing both the positive and negative consequences, then go for it. If you do, you should ask for more in regards to the sponsorship. Not to sell any specific portal short, but it’s business and they’re trying to get the best deal possible for your great game. If you’re able to negotiate the terms, then you take some of the power back into your own hands and may be able to land a better deal for yourself.
Whatever you decide to do is up to you. I’m not here to suggest you to go one way or another. If a sponsorship deal looks best for you right now and it is in your best interest, then go for it. there’s no harm in asking and trying to see what options are available to you. We want to make this a viable profession for you guys and you can only do that by educating yourself more in the space and simply “trying it out”.
Keep Moving Forward
Once your game is completed and you’ve done the best that you can to implement MochiCoins alongside all the other elements of an enjoyable game, check its performance, do some analyzing and then move forward. The chance of creating one title to float you to the land of retirement is not very likely.
Take whatever information you get from your game, be it comments, impression count, transaction history or whatever, and use it to help lay the groundwork of your next game. As a developer in a fast moving space that is becoming more and more crowded everyday, you will have to keep creating games to stay ahead and in the eyesight of players.
Positive comments are great and let you know what you should keep doing, but the constructive ones are even more important. If a majority of players did not like your game or maybe a certain aspect of it, take it as note that there’s something about your game that needs some tweaking (or perhaps a complete overhaul). If you receive conflicting comments from different sites, you may then be able to figure out which audience to target your next game towards.
Don’t let any naysayers get you down. Learn from your experiences and carry on. It’s a craft and you only get better if you keep practicing.
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Read the rest of the series: ‘Mochi Coins Best Practices’
- Mochi Coins Best Practices: Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part III
- Mochi Coins Best Practices: Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part I
- Mochi Coins Best Practices: Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part II
I agree with most of what’s said. However, I must continue to zealously voice my opposition against the demo unlock approach to microtx. Most people don’t like playing demos, and most of the plays from viral adoption of your game will be lost to this approach. In effect, this method imposes a dualistic “pay or don’t play” ultimatum that damages the fun factor necessary for portals to see and add your game to their sites. The major portals’ players generally downrate and warn others about demo games, too, so demo games rarely see 100,000 plays on major portals before they are buried and forgotten.
Why is this important? If 90% of the players and gameplays you would get without a game demo are lost because of the demo, it takes 10 times the earnings per player to break even. Even then, although your eCPM is much better, you have very little visibility, and you’ve alienated your potential players. This goes against both the fundamental tenets of Flash games and the “1000 true fans” tactic which is extremely important with microtx.
On another note, I simply don’t see how the “ask for more” option should even be considered. In effect, you’re undermining a primary revenue source in favor of a portal whose primary (or sole) revenue source is so diluted that your lost revenue couldn’t be made up for by an increased licensing bid. Only in extreme circumstances, in which microtx accounts for a much smaller share of your total revenue and the licensing bid can cover all of this revenue, can this option be worthy of consideration, but in such a case, it may be better to simply not use microtx at all. Keep in mind that the larger your true fanbase is, the quicker and more likely they will find the unlocked version if you choose to accept this deal. If even only one of them finds it, you can be sure they all will find out somehow. Nothing good can happen after this.
Thanks for the comments! I appreciate you taking the time to voice your opinion.
I would have to agree that “demo” games are often met with negativity across most portals. This is not to say, however, these games should not be made or shouldn’t be monetized in this fashion. If a developer chooses to create a puzzle/adventure game like Windosill or Samorost and hopes to monetize, I believe the “demo to full” mtx option is the only valid one available. I understand that we are in the Flash space and this is the current mindset (i.e.: demo to full is ridiculous), but it doesn’t always have to be that way.
You may limit your exposure and virality with an option to create a game such as this one, but those expectations should also be leveled as described in a previous Mochi Coins Best Practices and you should know of them when jumping in. You wouldn’t beat an eyelash if the same game was released as a downloadable title and the same option to “demo to full” was available. Frankly, you’d probably expect it. Again, I understand that many people feel that “Flash = Free”, but we may have to move away from that as developers provide more in-depth content that deserve more money and increase the likelihood of making full-time game development a viable profession. Would you discount a developer for trying to monetize using “demo to full” if they created an MMO? What if it were built in Unity? What if there were a point-and-click adventure like Full Throttle/Grim Fandango/Day of the Tentacle in Flash? Would you pay for that full version? What if in Silverlight or Java?
I say this over and over again, but there is a difference between a Flash game and a game made in Flash. The mindset is automatically different. I would hope one day that that distinction becomes blurred with games you play online, regardlesswere if it’s done in Flash, Unity, Silverlight, etc.. Quality and value of a game should not be only based on the development environment used to create it.
You are not alienating fans if they’ve seen the work and leave after seeing it. That is upon the developer who releases the demo. That is why some of the better demos that exist don’t just give you the first two levels, but rather a taste of what the game has to offer–vertical slices of the potential that’s there. 1,000 True Fans are not only the ones who like your work, but are the ones that pay for it as well. If your demo was enough to make someone think, “Meh, not that great,” I’m not sure how they were going to be converted into a True Fan anyway. For example, I personally paid for Windosill after playing the demo because I thought it was incredible and wanted to finish it. Machinarium did the same thing, and that was $20. The demo drew me in further. This “demo to full” may alienate those who don’t want to pay at this very moment for that piece of work, but if your work is worthwhile, you haven’t fully lost them as a fan and thus the potential of converting them into a True Fan still exists.
I will admit that if the exposure of your game is less, than you limit the potential of showing your work to people who could become True Fans. Point taken.
Asking for more money is basically negotiating terms. I think it would be naive to think a portal would try to license a game at its full potential value every single time. Like everyone out there in the business, they’re trying to get a good deal. Don’t take any deal that comes your way as you should always weigh your options. If you’re offered $50 for a primary license, is it not in your power to negotiate a higher price? It’s true you can simply reject the bid, which is also “just business”, but an open line of communication could lead to more interesting things for the present and down the line.
Let’s be honest. Expectations of a “Flash Game” are not particularly high. People expect them to be free, bite sized experiences, that can be thrown away and easily replaced with the next one. It does not have to be this way though. If people take the time to market and develop games like the other video game industries, we may be able to change the mindset to benefit developers and publishers in the future. It will and is obviously going to be a tough uphill battle, but it’s not one whose outcome is already determined.
Actually, in cases like Windosill, the choice to use microtx at all has to be weighed against a traditional sponsorship. With a traditional sponsorship, there’s no hit to exposure rate, so if you’re building a brand, it is much better to secure a sponsorship with favorable terms than it is to try to monetize a small fraction of the target audience. You earn true fans this way, and when you decide to use microtx later, you earn more because of your fanbase. So in the end, is some money now with a microtx-financed demo worth the missed opportunity from a sponsorship and the money from the associated true fans?
An important distinction has to be made between the downloadable games market and the Flash games market. Downloadable games cater to a market comprised of players who are already willing and able to pay for their entertainment. Charging for the right to play a game in this market is already acceptable and expected. In contrast, Flash games cater to a market of players who expect to not have to pay to be entertained. In order to be successful in getting them to pay for content, you have to offer them the complete experience for free and offer extras that they have to pay for. Free to play MMOs have this same type of market, and they’ve had years to refine their marketing technique. Therefore, it is prudent to borrow what works well for them. If you do this, you will notice several characteristics of these games that directly contribute to their profitability:
They offer a complete game experience to players. A player can proceed through the game without ever paying a penny. The games are monetized solely through virtual content that isn’t necessary to proceed.
The game experience is designed to offer many hours of enjoyment, often a seemingly infinite number. Microtx profits are strongly affected by average hours played per player, and a game that offers 1000 hours of play — if you’ve gotten deeply involved with a F2P MMO, you’ve probably played at least one of them this long — will earn magnitudes greater revenue than a game offering 1 hour of gameplay, such as Windosill. Most Flash games are on the short end of this spectrum, which is probably why microtx revenues in Flash are so poor compared to F2P MMO revenue.
We already have the tools to implement these characteristics into Flash games, and we don’t need to force “Flash = free” out of the market’s mindset to use them. However, we do have to get out of the mindset of the short, disposable game if we are to
Even non-paying players contribute value to the game. Since a portion of your players won’t pay for your content, you should never pass up an opportunity for them to exploit their presence to create value for paying players. All MMOs do this by providing community appeal, and some do this in other ways too. Any way that you can get non-paying players to generate content is a royalty-free effort-free way to continue to add value to your game.
*Continuing from my previous post*
We already have the tools to implement these characteristics into Flash games, and we don’t need to force “Flash = free” out of the market’s mindset to use them. However, we do have to get out of the mindset of the short, disposable game if we are to exploit microtx to their full potential. Longer games have exponentially better marketability with microtx than short-scale games. Longer games also improve how many true fans you get, because you have more time to get players to love your game and love you for making it.
As a major purchaser of microtx currency in MMOs — I’ve spent over $600 so far — I’ve personally experienced these effects in action. The game I’ve spent the most money in is also by far my most frequently played game with almost 3000 hours logged. However, even though I’ve demonstrated that I’m willing and able to buy stuff with microtx currency, I’ve yet to find any interest in paying for demo versions of games, especially those that don’t offer much in terms of gameplay. Out of all microtx Flash games to date, only Remnants of Skystone has been compelling enough for me to consider paying money for, primarily because of how much gameplay is offered. If it was monetized more effectively, I would have already purchased several cash items.
The reason why I think that it’s usually not a good idea to accept any term asking for unlocked content that is microtx-financed elsewhere is simply because microtx should be the primary source of revenue for any game that uses it. Even if the portal was willing to pay 100% of their additional revenue as a premium for this term, it still wouldn’t cover the lost microtx revenue once your fanbase finds out they don’t have to pay anymore. There simply isn’t a meeting point where it becomes feasible to both parties because the portal’s ad revenue is too diluted to cover the money lost in your lost primary revenue stream.
If there is one thing to take from this, it is that microtx depends on moving away from bite-size disposable games. Developers who don’t move away from this philosophy can never effectively monetize microtx, and should stick to traditional sponsorships and ad revenue. Developers who already make games with long play times — such games including the Mardek series, Elements TCG, and Starfighter: Disputed Galaxy — have an advantage because they have a natural tendency to produce games that are more favorable to this new revenue stream.
You make very sound points that back up your opinion on the space and I respect your opinions. I actually agree with you on many of those points, such as non-paying players contributing value to the game as well as furthering the distinction between the downloadable market and Flash online space.
You bring up an interesting point about microtx. More specifically, pointing out that if your game uses it, it should be the primary source of income for a game. Though I can’t wholeheartedly agree with you, I see your point. Though there will be games that use this tactic, I find no problem in games that use microtx as another way of generating revenue that supplements the ad revenue, sponsorships, etc.
The future of microtx does indeed depend on moving away from bite-size disposable games, as does the legitimacy of the online space. I’m not saying we need to do away with bite-sized fun, because sometimes that’s all that we’re looking for, but more players must step up to the plate of making full blown games of “AAA” quality. The risks will be very high and most of the early folks may see losses from their efforts, but these pioneers will also resonate the most down the line.
In the end, these are all tips and tricks that may prove useful for you (not directly Tathar, but the collective “you”). We’re still quite early on in the entire spectrum of microtx, but it’s moving forward. You are seeing less animosity towards microtx games (rarer is the case of “I will vote 0 because it has microtx”), and this can only get better over time. Choose your revenue streams wisely and make sure they fit into your game as opposed to stapling everything you can together and hope something works–it usually doesn’t.
The discussion in the comments is worth the price of the article itself! :) Thank you.
I should clarify what I mean about microtx being the primary revenue stream. While this probably isn’t being achieved often from the current set of microtx games, it is something that should be aimed for by any developer who wants to use microtx. Microtx is a much stronger revenue stream to exploit than ad revenue or diluted second-hand ad revenue (as in sponsorships and licenses) so if you’re not making most of your money from it, something’s wrong.
Still, there are developers who aren’t using microtx for this purpose, which I attribute to alternative goals they set for their games. If a developer is using microtx as a means to collect donations, it isn’t meant as a primary revenue stream and therefore falls outside the scope of my comments. Only if the developer is interested in making the most money from the resources available does my comment apply, but it is a common goal among developers seeking to use microtx and therefore usually applies.
It’s interesting that you mentioned AAA quality since I haven’t used that term since I first became involved with the Flash game industry. Still, it’s absolutely imperative that microtx games be engineered for longer average hours of play time per player, because that metric has an exponential relationship to microtx revenue. The relationship between two otherwise equal games, with one offer 1 hour of play and the other offering 10, is that the latter game will have microtx revenues more than 10 times the former.
I am a strong supporter of the one-two punch between multiplayer and microtx. I would bet money on the success of a multiplayer microtx game that was well designed and engineered to take advantage of the benefits that multiplayer grants to the options a developer has with microtx, and I would love to be involved as a microtx consultant for any developer who was interested in pursuing that path.
I would take issue with two of your points, Tathar. First that MTs are a much stronger revenue stream than others, in particular sponsorship. The two are much closer than you suggest if as is often the case the sponsorship comes with some degree of exclusivity.
For example Gemcraft when released had some upgrades that were locked. Rather than paying to access them you had to go to Armor Games to play the game there, using a link provided in-game. The most recent version even provided a mechanism for transferring your saved game so you don’t have to restart. If the developer were paid e.g. per 1000 plays on AG they would get less per user than they would from those using MTs, but there would be far more players, so it evens up.
Even simpler consider like Sonny 2 which was widely anticipated before it came out, exclusively on AG (again) for a month. Again you have to weigh the value of many more players, maybe millions, to a sponsor vs. the thousands that might pay a few $ to unlock your game. I would say it’s not as clear cut that if you’re not using MTs, “something’s wrong”.
(as an aside I’ve noticed the complaints from site owners that MTs will deprive them of revenue by driving players away from their sites. Then why do they take games like Gemcraft which with a key upgrade only available on AG ? – the game cannot be played fully on other sites, so is a far more effective traffic leech than any MT game).
My other point is I don’t think MT games need to be any longer. They need to be good mainly, and this often means longer but it doesn’t have to. Windosill is a good example of this. As long as the game is long enough to insert some sort of transaction, so it has a free bit and a paid bit. A longer game will have more opportunities to ask for money, but might take more time to make. And there’s a probably a limit above which users will react negatively to paying for a Flash game, when AAA boxed PC games cost from $20. So it may be better to make a few short ones than a single large scale game if you want to maximise your revenue.
Sponsorships and microtx are not mutually exclusive. You can engage in Gemcraft’s strategy while including microtx just fine. Offer some sponsor exclusive content and make the rest microtx.
While you are missing out on the opportunity for the sponsor exclusives to directly earn you money from players, you get increased visibility thanks to the benefits a sponsor presents to how much attention you get virally. You also negate the effect that a third party microtx system can have on the sponsor’s player retention this way since not even players paying for microtx can buy their way out of going to the sponsor site for the exclusive content.
Microtx depends on average total play time per player so much that it absolutely must not be overlooked. Players are willing to pay when they see enough value in a game to warrant paying. A simple time-waster that players get bored of after 5 minutes will not satisfy this need. However, if a game offers 80 hours of enjoyment, then it is providing the same value as most console games (if not more) and most players who are able will pay accordingly. Increased play time also offers the opportunity for multiple payment (as long as the developer takes advantage of it) which allows each successive hour of gameplay (marginal rate) to add a greater amount of revenue than the hour before it. Since microtx also allows variable price points for a game, the granularity allows players to pay exactly how much money that they believe is worth the value that they are getting. In comparison, according to economic theory, a single price point will cause some consumers to not find enough value in the product to warrant paying, even if they would pay a reduced price, and simultaneously cause other consumers to pay less than they would have if the price point was greater. Because microtx operates on variable price points, provided that multiple items are offered for sale, it is the exception to this rule, and therefore if you increase the value (as a function of money) that players find in your game, then microtx will allow you to receive more money accordingly. These factors (as well as others in specific cases) contribute to the exponential relationship between gameplay hours and microtx revenues.