Inside Mobile Freemium Gaming

Mobile St Cloud

Inside Freemium Gaming

Overview

- Quick Intro

- What is a Freemium game?

- History of Freemium Mobile Games

- Market Overview

- Core Fundamentals of Freemium

- Freemium Game Mechanics (Jimi Van Guilder)

- Making it Social

- Post Launch Strategies

- User Acquisition

- Monetization

- Analytics and Measurement

- Questions

Quick Intro

- Ringtones (MIDIRingtones)

- Mobile Videos Games (THQ Wireless)

- Recharge Studios

What is a Freemium Game?

Free = Freemium?

Not quite….


Freemium =

Free to download and play

+

Virtual Goods, In-App Purchases, Virtual Economy, Premium Currency,

Cash Transaction, Ad Revenues, Freemium Game Mechanics, Social

Interactivity, Etc……..


50% Business Intelligence

50% Game Design

History of Freemium Mobile Games

Mobile Games Social Games



2008 Apple Allows In-App Purchases



=

Freemium

+

• Mobile app revenue is expected to rise by another 81.5 percent in 2011 to hit $3.9 billion.

• A key driver of growth is the “freemium” business model

• As application stores become more and more crowded, studios are opting to release their content for free.

• Freemium purchases will count for around half of all North American app revenues by 2014, up from 24 percent in 2010. Freemium’s share will be even higher for games.

Source: IHS

Market Overview

Mobile Freemium Content = $10Billion+ Industry by 2014!

Yes, That a “B”

Source: IHS

Market Overview

Market Overview

Market Overview

Android iOS

Top 10 5 6

Top 25 9 15

Top 50 15 24

Top 100 21 36

Top 200 31 72

Top 400 37 131

Android vs. iOS Freemium Games in Top Grossing

Market Overview

iTunes Top Grossing 3/31/11

Market Overview

Market Overview

Estimated Monthly Revenues

CompanyEstimated Total Monthly

Revenues (March)

ngmoco $2,841,150

Capcom $2,780,700

Pocket Gems $2,740,400

Storm 8 $1,612,000

Addmired Inc $1,047,800

The Playforge $1,007,500

Team Lava $947,050

Zynga $886,600

A Thinking Ape $664,950

Gameview Studios $624,650

Pokerist $604,500

Haypi Co $604,500

Tiny Co $382,850

Bayview Labs $342,550

Playmesh $322,400

Shazam $282,100

Z2Live $282,100

Nimble Bits $282,100

NBA Digital $282,100

Dream Cortex $282,100

Core Fundamentals of Freemium

- Sources and Sinks

- The Compulsion Loop

- The Virtual Economy

Sources and Sinks


Definitions

Sink: Investment

Source: Value Creation

Examples:

Sink: Purchase Wheat Seeds to Grow Wheat

Source: Waiting 5 minutes to grow 10 Wheat

Source

Sink

The Compulsion Loop

Source

Sink


Sample Compulsion Loop

Celebrity

$

Ingame

money

Horses + skills

Farm services

Allow

Competitions(massive)

Visits

Services(many to many)

Lignage(one to one)

Activities

FriendsBoost

activities

Publications (journal, news)

Playersvotes,

visits, buy

$Catalog

$Inscription

Horse

customization

and training

Farm Stum

customization

MP

Solo

$Catalog

$Catalog

The Virtual Economy


Is not just the shop…..

The Virtual Economy


It involves every transaction in the game…

Top 10 Freemium MechanicsTaken from the

Recharge Studios Freemium Playbook

Jimi Van Guilder, Mobile Games Producer

1. Tutorials

• Retention

2. Leveling/Experience Points

• Retention

3. Daily Reward

• Retention

4. Decay

• Retention, Monetization

5. Reward Schedules

• Retention

6. Local Notifications

• Retention – do not abuse!

7. Disincentives

• Retention

8. Leaderboards

• Retention

9. Achievements

• Retention

10. Modifiers

• Monetization

Viral Game Mechanics


Interacting Real-time with friends!


Reinforced social sharing - Allowing your users to

results will not only drive awareness, it will drive

downloads!


Envy – Allow your users to brag!


Gifting – Reinforces user behavior and

drives the economy


Companion Gaming – Give reasons for

users to play with each other

Back to Business

Post Launch Strategies

- Beta Launch

- Dynamic Content

- Dynamic Game Balancing

- Tutorial Optimization

- The Evolving GDD


Beta Launch

- Launch in

- Test, Measure, Revise

- Build Ability to Balance on the Fly

- Plan for it!


Dynamic Content

- Introduce story lines, characters and levels

- New features need to be carefully introduced

- Carefully calculate level progression

- New content = more $ from the whales


Dynamic Game Balancing

- Small test, be careful to change to many

variables

- Let the data speak for itself, don’t

assume

- Focus first on rate of play

- Be careful of giving away too much


Tutorial Optimization

- Spend %50 of focus on making tutorial

more effective

- Tutorial can be long tail

- Effective education vs. fluid gameplay


The Evolving GDD

- Continual updates keep users engaged

- Game depth changes over time

- Stay focused to strategy and theme

- Changes in economy structure need

special attention


User Acquisition

- CPI (Cost Per Install)

- CPC, CPM (Banner Placements)

- Barter Installs

- Pre Launch Awareness

- Blogs, Social Media, Review Sites

- Apple/Google Feature

- Operator Feature

User AcquisitionPPI Display Search

Pricing CPICost per install

CPMCost per impression

CPCCost per click

Cost per click ~.05-.15 ~.05-.30 CPC

Cost per install ~.40-.75 CPI ~.75-1.25 ~.75-3.00 CPI

Targeting In device Mass audience Key words

Saturation Yes No No

Predictable Yes No No

User Acquisition

Its important to build sustainable and scalable

means of user acquisition

User Acquisition

Bursting can help drive down your cost of user acquisition

Estimated download volume needed for Top 100 ranking:

App Store Position Est. # Downloads Needed

Top 10 ~50k-150k

Top 25 ~30k-50k

Top 25-50 ~17k-30k

Top 50-100 ~10k-17k

Sub 100 Free 100s-depending on category popularity

Once in the Top 50, Volume of organic downloads will increase significantly.

Monetization

- In-App Purchase

- Subscription

- Ads

- Typical Banners

- Interactive Banners

- Video Pre/Post Roll

- Incentivized

- App Installs

- Alternative Offers (Lead Gen)

SalesSales will not only drive monetization, they will also

drive re-engagement.

Analytics and Measurement

Lifetime Value Analysis

And Everything Else….

- Tracking Engagement

- Consumption Patterns

- Funnel Tracking

- Understanding Pitfalls

- Conversion

- Tools

- Cohort Analysis

Cohort Analysis

asdsd

Questions?

Recharge In the News

Recharge Results

Dolphin Play

- First marketed Recharge product

- Launched on December 2010

- Roughly 1,300,000 installs

- Highest Achieved Top Ranking in Free Apps = 10

- Days in Top Overall Free Apps = 31

- Days in Top Overall Free Games = 36

- Days in Top Overall Free Simulation Games = 84

- 100,000 Daily Active Users

A Few Of Our Partners

Jenkat Games

Riptide Games™

SkyVu Pictures

TrioDesign Studio

InEarth

Hive Media

Purple Talk Veiled Games

About W3i

- 20 Years of app distribution and monetization expertise

- Install IQ: advanced technology, optimized on more than 500 million installs - 120 million in 2010

- Founded in 2000, W3i is majority-owned by the founders, and backed by Alta Communications

- Profitable for 36 consecutive quarters

- 70 employees, HQ in St. Cloud, Minnesota

Interested In a Partnership?

Contact Matt Tubergen

[email protected]

Phone: 612-803-8143

mailto:[email protected]

Inside Mobile Freemium Gaming

Technology