1 / 21

4 Years, 300 Games: What We’ve Learned About Free-2-Play Casual Connect Europe 2013

4 Years, 300 Games: What We’ve Learned About Free-2-Play Casual Connect Europe 2013 Emily Greer, Co-Founder & COO. $$$$$$$. Brief History of Kongregate. Launched in 2007 as developer-friendly, open platform for free web games Only source of revenue was advertising

chad
Download Presentation

4 Years, 300 Games: What We’ve Learned About Free-2-Play Casual Connect Europe 2013

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. 4 Years, 300 Games: What We’ve Learned About Free-2-Play Casual Connect Europe 2013 Emily Greer, Co-Founder & COO $$$$$$$

  2. Brief History of Kongregate Launched in 2007 as developer-friendly, open platform for free web games • Only source of revenue was advertising • Almost all games single-player & Flash • Level & achievement system attracted core, male audience

  3. The New New Thing We’d heard about something called “microtransactions” that were a huge source of revenue for web games in Asia Not many games had tried them in the US, but virtual worlds like Second Life, Gaia Online, Habbo & IMVU were doing well with them

  4. What Were We Thinking? • Transactions will mostly be <$1, therefore • Payment processing costs are a big deal • Incenting larger purchases will be valuable • Stored credit cards and existing balances will be a powerful way to reduce friction • Players will be buying cosmetic items, gifts, power-ups & content • Multiplayer/social elements are crucial • US/English speaking much more valuable than any other market

  5. Let’s build a platform! • Because of the transactions costs & friction we should build a site-wide currency for our developers to use • There’s no point to creating a currency if there aren’t games to use it

  6. The Blind Leading the Blind • Funded 6 games, focusing on synchronous multiplayer & unique gameplay • Monetization elements tacked on, shied away from pay-to-win elements: • Cosmetic Items (Dinowaurs & Remnants of Skystone) • VIP subscriptions with more content (Skystone, Battalion) • Some power-ups & currency (Zening, Skystone, Battalion)

  7. Launch to Failure Our currency “kreds” launched in November 2008 “Premium” games launched gradually over the next 6-9 months with decent ratings but minimal sales

  8. Open Sesame First FB Game 1st Asian MMO 1st MMO

  9. 4 Years, 300 Games

  10. “Transactions will be really small, <$1”

  11. What Were We Thinking? Revisited • Transactions were going to be really small, <$1 mostly, therefore  LOL! • Payment processing costs will be a big deal  Only on mobile • Incenting larger purchases will be valuable  Still very true. Testing has shown that bonusing larger purchases raises revenue by 14%, increases buyers who spend $100+ by 25%

  12. You Always Need More Storage • Stored credit cards and existing balances will be a powerful way to reduce friction  Also very true LTV on non-stored credit card buyers: $66, 3.6 trx LTV on stored credit card buyers: $195, 7.8 trx In general the higher the friction of the payment type, the lower the value of the buyer:

  13. “Players will buy cosmetic items, gifts, power-ups & content” Almost all sales (95%?) are for items that affect gameplay • ~70% purchases are for permanent items and upgrades, about 30% go to consumables like energy • Cosmetic items have minimal sales, but cool-looking items sell better than more ordinary ones • Gifting behavior is quite light with our 85% male audience • Content sells somewhat in single-player games, but sells best mixed with a package that includes skill points or another power-up.

  14. “Multiplayer/social elements are crucial” Yes! But it still doesn’t look like we expected it to. In the early games we funded we focused on synchronous multiplayer, both PvP and co-op PVE. That was a mistake.

  15. ARPU & ARPPU

  16. “Multiplayer/social elements are crucial” What about PVP vs PVE? Both! Guilds make everything better – all top games have them. Guild wars & guild leaderboards are very powerful.

  17. Multiplayer is very important, but it’s not the most crucial element. Turns out the single most important aspect of a game is strong RPG/character progression.

  18. So what genres work best? Some of the best sub-genres: Some of the weakest sub-genres:

  19. “US/English speaking much more valuable than any other market” Broadly true – 65% of our revenue comes from English-speaking countries. Individual smaller markets outperform the US, however, especially Northern & Western Europe

  20. Keep Going, Keep Learning We struggled for nearly a year (two including development) before we saw any success. Your first game isn’t likely to do well either. Free-2-play is hard, and many important elements are counterintuitive. But once the elements come together the improvement is exponential

  21. Die Ende • To learn more/find links to other talks visit developers.kongregate.com • Topics include: • retention • big spenders • item pricing • promotion management • more • For web games contact us at apps@kongregate.com • If you’re interested in mobile publishing it’s mobile@kongregate.com • Follow me on Twitter: EmilyG

More Related