Now these points of data make a beautiful line.
I still believe in the social game space, and in the players. If anyone needs more great games, it's the huge Facebook audience that so rarely gets them. They've only just begun to see how games can be a meaningful part of your life.
I still believe in the power of metrics as an information source. Metrics are the most direct and honest communication from your players. Even more, I believe in free-to-play games. They force us to get us out of our own heads as developers and design for players rather than for ourselves.
But when it comes to social/mobile game "best practices" and especially friction-based monetization, I believe there's a better way. Players stick with your game because they made an emotional connection. They pay money for your game because that emotional connection is meaningful to them.
There are emotional consequences to basing a game's monetization around steadily increasing friction. Just because players are willing to spend money for something doesn't mean they want to, they like to, or that you haven't just eroded whatever good will they had toward you and your game.
We have models that show huge success, like League of Legends, The Lord of the Rings Online, World of Tanks, and Free Realms. Players will pay to save time, to have unique and visually appealing items, or to customize their experience. They'll pay for fun, they'll pay for coolness, they'll pay for status, and they'll pay for more content in the game.
We don't have to beat them over the head with bricks just so they'll pay us to stop beating them.
Social and social/mobile companies are trapped. Faced with an aggressive marketplace and skyrocketing costs, jobs and even whole companies are at stake. It's hard to justify turning your back on a proven model. To do that, you have to take risks. You have to look beyond data and understand its emotional context. You have to be in the game for the long haul and not for whatever increases tomorrow's profit. You have to see players as your allies instead of test subjects.
 You have to stop thinking like GLaDOS and start thinking more like Stephen Jay Gould.
Our endgame isn't a player who's burned out after paying the maximum we can get out of him for three months. Our endgame is a happy, consistent player who sees the game improving, the community growing, and positive ways for him to spend his money with us over the years. Our endgame is a player who feels like the game community is his home.
Our endgame isn't just about whales. Our endgame is to better the play experience for the whole funnel.
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
My PET scan in September was all clear. As of now, I'm in remission. I see a specialist once a month to have a scope stuck down my throat so he can see if the cancer's back. I'll have ongoing PET scans and checkups for five years, and after that I'll be called "cured." When I feel a tickle in the back of my throat, like I have the past few weeks, I have trouble sleeping.
I still find myself looking at statistics from time to time. Many say there's a 90 percent cure rate for this specific type of cancer. It's a fairly new area of research, though, and there's a small set of evidence that it may have a much higher than expected rate of metastasis to the lungs. Lung metastasis is tricky business, even if you can have radiation a second time.
But this isn't about survival statistics, and the median isn't the message. This, like life and like metrics, is about evolution. It's about change. It's about picking new behaviors based on the results of previous behaviors.
It's about how an understanding of the endgame can change the way you play.
|
Printer-Friendly Version
That said, the graph illustrates it pretty well: a very high spending player, present in small quantities.
Great article and wonderful comments.
That's one of the core flaws of using metrics to drive all design decisions rather than as an information source. How can you innovate when decisions have to be backed by data showing success? That's especially true for innovation in monetization.
Strength to you, Laralyn.
These changes would almost certainly generate more revenue for the company."
Nice thoughtful article, but it seems that there was an unhealthy fixation with the ARPU metric in the example that you describe. The ARPU metric is easy to boost by introducing paywalls and aggressively flushing out non-payers though using such tactics does not generate more revenue for the company over time. A focus on LTV would have provided a better guide to generate real value.
I wish you the best in your recovery Laralyn.
Metrics is something that every designer should embrace. Our design's are part of a feedback loop that is adjusted based on player behavior. We optimize for fun, engagement, and eventually monetization. We did this before there were spreadsheets of data when we would bring players in to test the game and transform their feedback into design updates.
On metrics, monetization, and design maybe one litmus test we can use is if we are comfortable being "whales" in our own game. Would I spend money on the game i'm making? Would I be comfortable exposing my design to another player and feel confident that they would not come to the realization that they were being exploited, that my design causes pain and lo-and-behold I also happen to sell the pain relief!
We have to start treating our players like we want to be treated. I think the dark side of metrics is that it quantifies user behavior to a point where we stop seeing the person behind the game. They've become numbers on a spreadsheet and I think this is what leads to dangerous and exploitative design. Because when you dehumanize someone it becomes easier to abuse them. Our current method of tracking user behavior does not allow us to empathize with our players.
When my daughter was born, the statistics weren't in our favor. "6 months" is what the doctors told us, because that's what his statistics had told him. But, we did everything in our power to fight, and fight and fight. Because the median is not the message.
Doctors and surgeries and nurses... Hope and struggle, year, after year. And after a while, I began to tire. After one of those surgeries, my daughter had a really rough recovery in the hospital. And, I remember bringing her back home and helping her get ready for bed. Maybe it was the bright pink canopy on her adorable 4-poster bed, or maybe it was the exhaustion. Whatever it was, as I was sitting there, my brain just sort of rebooted.
My thoughts became simple. I'm grateful! My daughter was alive. She had made it through another one! And when I tucked her in the next night, it happened again. And, that became my routine, night after night, for almost 10 years.
But, years later, when I went in to tuck my kids in, the kids said, 'Dad, we're too old to be tucked in'. And, as I closed the door, I couldn't help but smile. A quiet calm came over me and chills ran up and down my arms. I was happy. Despite everything, I had a good life.
This year, my daughter turns 18! She defied the statistics and continues to do so, every single day. And, as for me, well, I do things differently now. I make different kinds of products (e.g., Gratitude Habit). As Laralyn said, understanding the endgame changed the way I play and work.
Data-driven social network games, designed by quants new to the industry (under pressure to deliver bookings), fail to engage and immerse audiences. Many social/casual games developers forgot that games have to be fun and that game design is an art. That mistake is the very reason I started making my first social/casual game. Let's give the facebook and casual audiences some immersive and nail-biting games! There are tons of "veteran casual gamers" who are ready for the quality experiences. So let's remove the bricks, pestering and grievances, and rather focus on sustainable creative experiences; letting the numbers fall where they may.
"Our endgame is a happy, consistent player who sees the game improving, the community growing, and positive ways for him to spend his money with us over the years."
I know we're talking primarily about social games here, but isn't expecting that people will actually want to play your game for several years more than a little ambitious? Not every game can be WoW, and probably shouldn't try to be.
- Metrics are the basis for all decisions.
- Monetization is based on friction.
- Metrics and monetization are tuned to optimize the output of whales.
All three are dead wrong in my experience. And I hope that most of those who have built successful social and other F2P games would agree.
The success of the 'business' end of a game studio is based on monetization. No money, no payroll, no workers = no games. So monetization is obviously a necessary evil.
Monetization is based on having a LTV (Average Life Time Value of a player) that exceeds costs of running the game (development, servers, content creation, and customer acquisition). So you either need a massive revenue per user, or a lot of users. Preferably both!
The biggest factor in calculating LTV is retention. The longer a person plays for, the more money you will make on average. It generally costs a lot more to acquire and engage a new player than to just keep the ones you already have. So take good care of the eyeballs you have been blessed with, especially on platforms like FB and iOS where they can be obtained for free.
A game is a series of interesting choices (can't remember who said that first, apologies).
Providing of interesting choices with options to buy items of value will drive monetization. IMHO a shinier hat or 'cool' visual item is not value. Or at least not enough and only to that very very small % in the bottom of your funnel. Tools that help a little for a long time. Items that you worked hard to build over time. Limited time content. New content with a heathy heap of creativity and fun. Well balanced quests. This money. Stuff that I feel good about after I pay for it. Stuff I can't wait for more to be released of. That is value. Those are interesting choices in deciding which to pursue and build.
It isn't about juicing whales, it is about converting more players to payers. We have many whales in our games and we provide them with ample opportunity to shovel in as much cash as they damn well please. Sure this is important and pays well. But not nearly as well as the long tail of median payers. People who pay $10-$30 a month. Month after month after month. These are the players, behaviours and metrics to focus on. In our main Facebook title, we have converted more than 30% of our current DAU (about 100,000 a day) to payers. By providing value. Great content and a strong community. For years now. We have no endgame.
The 'friction' is the game. The challenges, the quests, the endless clicking. The balance of retention and monetization is key. Especially in a long term game where people engagements ebb and flow. Let them always feel like they are winning with their mad clicking skills, at the same time as only being 'a few more clicks' away from the next win. Providing a frictionless 'click here to win it all' is not full of awesome sauce. Provide interesting challenges with valuable rewards. But never forget a way to pay around them if you really want something but don't have time, skill, or patience. Even the purported 'kings' of evil in social games I would argue know this. There are many millions who have played their games for years having never payed a dime. A few, tens of thousands even, that have paid an absurd and embarrassing amount, but what buys their CEO a new private jet is the millions and millions who pay a reasonable amount.
Anyway... Metrics are king, but their point is to help you build a more engaging game people find value in and want to support. It seems like you were using these powerful tools for evil. Those poor whales.
Apologies. I seem to of written an article of my own here... Guess it is because I care. So do you, so as a fellow passionate game designers, thanks for sharing. But, respectfully, I challenge what you are saying and offer reams of data and sexy spread sheets with fancy colourful charts to back me up.
"But never forget a way to pay around them if you really want something but don't have time, skill, or patience."
Time and patience are basically saying the same thing in this context - that the game involves long periods of time, and presumably not enjoyable time, because I doubt anyone has ever claimed not to have the patience to do something they enjoyed doing.
Look at the recent backlash against Real Racing 3 for an example. The monetisation strategy, which is fairly common in freemium games, is based almost entirely around completely unnecessary periods of waiting. Contrary to your comment, this friction is most definitely NOT the game; the game is about racing cars and by all accounts it's pretty good. But from RR2, which wasn't freemium, they added a number of delays (when repairing a car, when having a new car delivered, etc) which exist for the sole purpose of also being able to add a purchase to skip them. That's really the only reason for them to be there. That's why there have been console racing games for decades and no one ever thought to include these things.
The distinction can be subtle. One might suggest, for instance, that Tetris (based on my above assertion) is a constant grind because you're performing the same task. But this is not true, because the circumstances change with each play, and thus require a different choice and level of execution with each move. This is very different from, say, mindlessly harvesting crops which would certainly be grinding and is not particularly interesting. Nor is waiting for a timer to tick away.
Your last comment is right though - in 2013 no one is likely to be arguing against the idea that the F2P model works, and you could probably go as far as to say it's proving to be the best way to deliver gaming to the most people possible. But you could also say the same thing about McDonald's and Coke when it comes to food and beverages, but no one feels the need to argue they represent the ideals of cuisine.
Waiting 46 turns for your Sid's pyramids to be built was also a grind/friction. But you choose where and when. You had to have them first or the rest of the game was really difficult. civ was the same principle but before the days of F2P. If it was built today, I would definitely use my Zynga Bucks to speed that pyramid up so that I could move on to the next, would be good value in helping me win a game that I put 40 ours in to at a go.
Off topic or not, these uninterpreted metrics data systems seem to be a similar model for the majority of economic (or medical as you described) decisions made these days. Short term gains that neglect long term loses, that rely on impossible exponential growth. I wish this could only be compared to the world of games, and not general world decisions as a whole.
I wish you the best Laralyn. Thank you.
PS The Answer is yes.