If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Mochi Coins Best Practices – Part I first!

Welcome to part two 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.

Optimizing Your Sales

Location x3

How will anyone purchase anything from your store if you don’t make it easily accessible? Like that old real estate mantra goes, it’s about location (x3). If you have a store button on the Main Menu of your game, then a user will know before they start the game that it can at least be accessed there. If there are any moments where individual items can be purchased throughout the game, the respective store item box should appear. For example, showing locked levels on the Level Select screen, clicking on a locked level should bring up a dialogue to unlock those levels.

Make sure the store is accessible as much as possible, but only in the most logical of places. Having the store show itself after every single unrelated mouse click will drive someone into frustration before driving to buy anything. Think of it like the ads side of things. If you bombard a player with ads every chance you get, the sooner you can expect they’ll never return.

Example: The original Street Fighter II: Championship Edition Coins implementation never brought up a MochiCoins item/purchase box until after the player had lost two rounds and had progressed to a certain point on the “Continue Countdown” screen.

Original Title Screen

If you had casually come across this game (or were terribly good at Street Fighter), you would have never seen that there were items to purchase within the game. After making a quick change, it is now obvious to all players that a Store is available and Coins can be spent here.

Updated Title Screen with Login Widget and Store Button

Many Items to Purchase

As long as the items are relevant, you should provide as many items to buy as possible. If you only have one 600 MochiCoins item to buy in your game, someone going on a spending spree can only spend 600 MochiCoins in your game. As a simple rule of thumb, try to have at least $10 worth of items to purchase. If someone is willing to pay for your game, then there’s a good chance that they’ll buy more than once.

Of course, in the end, use your best judgment. Flooding your own store with items that add little to no value can also have a negative impact on things.

Example: Go take a look at Little Farm. There are many items available for purchase, and it’s done in a way where the game doesn’t require you to purchase them all. You pick the items that best fit what you want out of the game, tailoring the experience to your liking. Just as a tip, make sure to pick up the “Water Pump” and “Warehouse”. I found those to be the most useful for me.

Little Farm

Combo Pack For Massive Savings

Providing a combo pack of different items can help those make the jump into buying something. It shows great value and shows a considerable amount of dedication from the developer’s side. It can be interpreted as the developer wishing to generate revenue, but also willing to provide a better price for the player because they appreciate their attention.

Also, it lowers the barrier for making purchases on multiple items as the price point is presumable lower. You may include two great items and one sub-par one, but the price is still cheaper than buying the two great items separately. There’s no golden rule for pricing standards, but that’s a good place to start.

Days2Die – The Other Side

Give Something Away

Though it’s fair to assume that someone playing your MochiCoins game may have heard of the system before, one shouldn’t assume that they have funded their wallet (or have MochiCoins in their wallet).

By giving something away, free skins for your avatar or maybe a new weapon, you are enticing a player to just try out the system. If they see how easy it is to buy an item and have it appear suddenly in the game, the easier it will be to entice them with other items your game offers. There have been multiple occasions where I found myself willing to give a developer money for their game, but doing so was overly complicated and ended up with me in line to buy a sandwich instead.

Guardian Rock

Track What People Are Buying

Within the MochiCoins dashboard you are able to track which items in your store are selling well and which ones are selling poorly. Use this data and compare it to whatever else you track about the game (i.e. portals that host this game, demographic of those playing, how each particular item interacts/affects gameplay, etc.).

Don’t Be Too Cheap / You Are Worth Every Penny, Friend.

I know that this is a completely new realm out there and people in this economic climate are weary of opening their wallets, but you need to make sure you charge accordingly. The hardest part is prying that wallet open. Once you have a player ready to give you money, they’re probably more than willing to pay you appropriately for the item unlock. Sure, we all love a good deal, but we’re also much more tuned to avoid bad ones. Charging 200 points for your Ultimate Combo Pack sure is enticing, but I’m pretty sure 800 points for the same Ultimate Combo Pack is also price justified and will allow for that massive powerup… in value!

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