How To Evolve Players Into Fans
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Published May 12, 2015 We’ve analyzed the top mobile games to see what best practices make them stand out from the crowd. Several trends emerging now will amplify those best practices, and games will have more opportunity than ever to excel. In the future, the top games will have fully realized fan bases that will drive their user acquisition and engagement engines. That fan base will include players but also content creators, advocates and potential new customers — this will open up a wider range of monetization options. Come see how top mobile games drive more engagement and revenue and learn how to you can do this with your own game.
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How To Evolve Players Into Fans
- 1. HOW TO EVOLVE PLAYERS INTO FANS MoDev LA – Amazon Developer Day Peter Heinrich Developer Evangelist, Games PeterDotGames heinrich@amazon.com peterheinrich
- 2. APPS ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE? How Do We Get More Android Devs iOS devs Amazon Fire OS 41% 48% 60% Source: Developer Economics Q3 2014 © VisionMobile, All Rights Reserved %DevelopersabovePovertyLine
- 3. Game Loop The Fun: Action, Reward, Level Ratings, Session Length, Sessions FIRST: A MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT Game Loop, Monetization Loop, User Acquisition
- 4. Monetization Loop Game Loop The Revenue: Premium, IAP, Ads… ARPU FIRST: A MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT Game Loop, Monetization Loop, User Acquisition
- 5. User Acquisition Monetization Loop Game Loop The Customers: Advertising kFactor DAU MAU FIRST: A MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT Game Loop, Monetization Loop, User Acquisition
- 6. Game Loop User Acquisition Monetization Loop JUST THE START However, This MVP Is Let’s Talk about Building a Fan Base
- 7. FOOSBALL I Love Popular Worldwide, BUT -Who’s Your Favorite Player? -Do You Have a Jersey? A Hat? -Do You Watch on TV or Radio? It’s a Pastime for Players, Not Fans
- 8. A FAN BASE Compare to a Sport with More Fun for the Players, PLUS Diverse Revenue Opportunities • Merchandise • Broadcasting • More Content Lower Costs • User Acquisition • Content Creation
- 9. OPPORTUNITY IN ESPORTS ALONE eSports
- 10. EARLY ADOPTERS A Fan Base Requires Influential Show the Fun Start the Conversation Influencers User Acquisition Monetization Loop Game Loop
- 11. ADVOCATES Influence in Peer Groups
- 12. PROFESSIONALS Case Study: Twitch Broadcaster 263k viewers 10MM min watched 65.9 min per unique
- 13. Example of Streaming during Development BUILDING ADVOCATES
- 14. Followers buy the t-shirt and get the game for free Example of Streaming during Development BUILDING ADVOCATES
- 15. BE ON THE DEVICES THAT FANS USE Reduce Adoption Blockers Variety of Hardware • YES: Phone, Tablet, Set-Top, Desktop • Maybe: Wearables, Voice-Only, VR Use Responsive Game Design
- 16. ENGAGE INFLUENCERS TO BUILD MAINSTREAMInfluence: The Ability to Cause or Contribute to a Change in Opinion or Behavior Influencers Mainstream Willingness to Adopt #ofPeople
- 17. ADVOCATES DRIVE RETENTION Active Listening and Interacting Source: Apptentive data from 3000+ apps, March 2015
- 18. CONTENT CREATORS A Fan Base Includes Greater Variety Longer-Lasting Content Creation Influencers User Acquisition Monetization Loop Game Loop
- 19. ENTERTAINERS “This Guy Is Fun to Watch” YouTube broadcasters by most subscribed
- 20. ENTERTAINERS “This Guy Is Fun to Watch” Twitch broadcasters by most followers 100M Unique 16B min watched per month 106 minutes per day per user Live streaming
- 21. EDUCATION “What Is This Game?” / “Is It Worth Getting?” / “How Do I Get Better at It?”
- 22. ENDLESS CONTENT If You Enable It, Fans Will Extend the In-Game Experience Minecraft Trivia Crack
- 23. ALTERNATIVE REVENUE A Fan Base Enables Physical Goods Experiences outside the Game Alternative Revenue Content Creation Influencers User Acquisition Monetization Loop Game Loop
- 24. PRODUCTS Physical Goods and Toys
- 25. ENGAGEMENT OUTSIDE YOUR GAME Revenue Via Crowd Funding Ads on Supplemental Content
- 26. FILM AND TV Based on Game Content
- 27. PLAYERS TO FANS Evolving Techniques You Can Use to Build a Fan Base User Acquisition Content Creation Influencers Monetization Loop Game Loop Alternative Revenue
- 28. Content Creation Influencers Monetization Loop Game Loop Alternative Revenue SUPPORT INFLUENCERS Get off to a Strong Start • Relate to Their Audience • Be on the Devices They Use • Remove Viral blockers • Have Responsive Game Design • Provide Value • Make Content for Them • Promote Their Efforts • Provide Freebies for Their Fans • Early Players are VIPs User Acquisition
- 29. User Acquisition Content Creation Influencers Monetization Loop Game Loop Alternative Revenue ENCOURAGE CONTENT CREATION Keep It Rolling • Encourage In-Game Improvement • Feedback Channels • New Content • Content Curation • Celebrate the Community's Creations • Contests, Recognition • Find Ways for the Community to Gain Value
- 30. User Acquisition Content Creation Influencers Monetization Loop Game Loop Alternative Revenue CREATE OPPORTUNITY OUTSIDE THE GAME Diversify • Offer Physical Goods • Lower UA Costs • Increase Revenue • Build Channels for Audience • Use as New Player Funnel or New Monetization Stream • Help Fans Grow Their Business
- 32. HOW TO EVOLVE PLAYERS INTO FANS MoDev LA – Amazon Developer Day Peter Heinrich Developer Evangelist, Games PeterDotGames heinrich@amazon.com peterheinrich
Hinweis der Redaktion
- First, let me describe part of our motivation for this talk, for the whole dev day (and this is something Dave Isbitski mentioned at the beginning): We're Amazon, we're in the business of selling, physical goods, of course, but also digital content, and we think a lot about how to make developers successful in general. Our success is based on how well you do—how many downloads, sales conversions, positive ratings, etc. Dave Isbitski, in his introduction, mentioned one metric we use to measure that success: the percentage of apps below the "app poverty line." Vision Mobile released a report that shows that, depending on platform, only 41-60% of apps make more than $500/month. That's the app poverty line—$500/month. We spend a lot of time talking with developers, trying to reverse engineer the features and tactics that affect that number, and it turns out… https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/post/Tx20ZAFDC9M0C7L/Vision-Mobile:-Higher-Percentage-of-Amazon-Fire-Developers-above-App-Poverty-Lin ----- Meeting Notes (2/24/15 16:36) ----- Check if data is used too much; Replace graphs/simplify
- You can learn a lot by looking first at the minimum viable product. (By this, of course, I mean the simplest product and supporting sales required to operate a business.) Traditionally, the minimum viable product is based on three major components. Part 1 is a game loop. It’s the collection of game play mechanics that make the game fun. It's often measured by how long people play, how often they come back, and of course by how they straight-up rate the game.
- You also need a way to make revenue, or otherwise capture value. Maybe this means driving traffic to some other core business. For example (doesn't have to be a game): A dentist app tracks your visits; it’s value is to encourage you to have regular check-ups and get you back in the office. Other apps charge for the download, or sell in-app items, show ads… This direct revenue is measured with ARPU.
- Finally, you need to attract customers (especially new customers). One way to do this is to buy advertising. Another is to have existing customers spread the word, maybe invite their friends. This is lower cost and is more targeted, and you often hear it described in terms of virality—how viral is your app. In the end, most people look at daily or monthly active users as a measure of user acquisition.
- So all these together, make the minimum viable product—but that's just the start. I mentioned that we spend a lot of time talking to developers, and if you and I were to sit down and discuss your app today, Our conversation would probably gravitate to these three areas. Each one is high-impact, and also very tactical. But the truth is, the MVP is nothing new, and most app and game developers already know they need to hit these three basics. The problem is, most stop there. The top apps, however, build on this. They keep going. They realize that building a fan base is next level
- I love foosball. I’m a diehard “player” and will accept any challenge. Singles, doubles, it doesn't matter. BUT, foosball is not a good model for a blockbuster game. Sure, I have fun. I make time for it, I have friends that play with me. That’s all fine (and required) to make it a popular pastime for players, but without a FAN base, it’s never going to go mainstream.
- Now consider this other pastime—I think it's even loosely based on Foosball. Look at the amount of fun in this picture! Look at the amount of revenue in this picture! The fans here outnumber the players 1000 to 1, and that's just in the stadium. The business opportunities have expanded as well. Think about all the monetization that's happening here: the hot dog vendor the jersey maker the commentators—they've all built entire businesses around the game So if you can take your game from the players to a broader fan base, it converts it from being Foosball to being Football
- Does that really translate to games? Well, let's take a minute to check out this data from NewZoo. This is focused on eSports—broadcast events showing video gameplay—and you can see the current audience (occasional + frequent viewers) is already more than 200 MM people. So just this one component of fandom—that's watching others play video games—is huge. It generated $194 MM last year, And NewZoo is projecting that revenue to reach almost ½ a billion $ by 2017. So how do we move from a game for players to a game for fans? --END— Paul's VO: Mobile gaming is exciting today and it’s exciting in the future. Today, there are a lot of apps making good money on all the platforms. This chart shows the % of apps that are over the app poverty line. That is, they earn more than $500 / mo. Pretty amazing. But, moving forward, it’s not good enough. This leaves 40 and sometimes even 50% of apps BELOW the poverty line (depending on platform). At Amazon, we are customer obsessed. We want our customers that are buying games to have a great experience and we want our developer customers to enjoy a great return on investment. So, It’s important to us that we find ways to help more of those great apps find their way above the poverty line. Normally, I try to help do this by talking about best practices for apps – monetization, game design, ui design, user acquisition, etc. But, this is the “future of gaming” track so it makes sense to think ahead about what, beyond a high quality and fun game is going to move the needle and help more games become great businesses. To that end, we’ll be talking today about what I’m seeing games on the leading edge do to surge ahead.
- Well the first component is made up of Influencers. These are the people who get in early, they try it out, they show other people the fun, they kind of spread the word about what's happening. These folks experiment with your game, explore it, and are key to introducing it to the mainstream, since they describe what the game is all about.
- Influencers come in different shapes and sizes, but the best, most-desirable are actually advocates for you. These are people who just love your brand, love to talk about it, and love to share it with other people. Take Mini, for example. When you drive a Mini, you're waving to other Mini drivers, you talk about Mini to your friends, If anyone asks, you're quick to describe how fun they are to drive, the people are so cool, of course you should go get a Mini. This isn't by accident. Mini has done a really good job of fostering this advocacy. Mini has famously had long waiting lists, so Kerri Martin, Guardian of Brand Soul for MINI USA, and her team Actually came up with a program called Make Waiting Fun. It was a way to turn their waiting customers into enthusiastic brand ambassadors. It was a combination online/offline experience, and included swag to keep customers excited, like a Mini-Parking Only Stencil for the garage, or An "Unauthorized" Owner’s Manual that tells them “all the little secrets of a MINI.” They gave waiting customers a production number so they could track the progress of their MINI. They even came up with a private label of gear and accessories called MINI MotoringGear, featuring garments like a chamois jacket with sleeves that zip off, so “you can shine your MINI at a moment’s notice.” http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/top-7-tips-launching-new Picture taken by Paul Cutsinger
- Another kind of influencer is the professional, like a broadcaster, journalist, or league player who makes a living playing games or commenting on them. Reynad27, for example, is a prominent Twitch.tv broadcaster who makes money from subscriptions to his channel, as well as tournaments and sponsorships. His following is amazing: more than 209K followers and 18 MM views. It's not possible for everyone, but if you have the resources to connect with a professional player, you tap directly into their network. The Hearthstone event shown here netted more than ¼ MM viewers, with 10 MM minutes watched. Average time spent watching was almost 66 minutes per viewer. Involving a pro with a significant following allowed Hearthstone to amp up their fan base in a hurry. --END— @Reynad27 has over 200k followers and nearly 18MM views on Twitch and has placed in the top 10 in 6 major Hearthstone tournaments in the past year. @Reynad27 drove over 263K viewers (live), 152K unique viewers (live), 10MM minutes watched, and averaged 65.9 minutes per unique viewer Any relative stats we can share? Maybe relative downloads around Feb 6 · OPS: Feb 6th was our highest revenue day since launch ($80K) and we were 11x of GP revenue that day. · Customers: We treated 2,189 customers (78% of whom were Android customers) and acquired 885 new-to-Appstore customers at an average CNC of $32.67 (vs. a $34.18 forecasted CNC). · Marketing Cost: We expect the total cost of the campaign to be $28.9K (Cost of coins awarded $24.9K + Twitch expense $4K) ----- Meeting Notes (2/24/15 16:36) ----- Check highest single revenue statement (Hearthstone doesn't want) Lynn: check if we really want to highlight we paid pro
- Now there are developers out there who are working to foster advocacy before they even launch. Take Vlambeer, for example. It's a two-person team. They've got 11k followers so far and more than 8 MM views, people watching them as the actually build their game. They are live streaming as they construct it, and the viewers can interact with them. They can say, "Oh, make the guy more muscular, oh no we want lasers" And HE DOES it in real-time—he's like, "Oh, let's try that, let's try this." So the fans become part of building the story and the product. How cool would it be if you could call up American Idol and talk about what's going on—chat with the judge, or get a contestant on the phone—and participate in real-time. And subscribers get special treatment, this enhanced access. Subscribe and you also get the game for free, of course. Vlambeer's 11k fans have already expressed an interest—they want to know when Vlambeer is on line. When this game comes out, those people are going to have it, and they'll be like, "I'm early, I was there first, I'm doing a video where I talk about this great game…" This is exactly how advocacy gets rolling. --END-- You are watching Jan Willem Nijman, game designer and 50% of Vlambeer. When not having lunch on stream JW is designing and programming all of the content you see in Nuclear Throne! Interactive chat 8M views! And they buy app for 12.99
- Here's another example of a development team using Twitch.tv to build interest before launch. SteamRoller Studios hasn't launched their KickStarter yet, but they're about to go to PAX. So here the team of five different people are all on at the same time—so you can hear from the producer, director, game designer, artist, developer They're working on their game and talking through it And at one point in this stream they did the pitch: "Here's how the game works" and the audience would say "confused", or "that's awesome", or whatever And again, if you take the next step—you buy the t-shirt—you get the game for free, and how awesome is that: now you've got people walking around wearing your t-shirt with your logo on it and others asking, "what's that?" and starting the conversation You get a two-fer: the proceeds from the t-shirt plus the advocacy So there are developers out there promoting advocacy as early as possible, even in the concept phase.
- So thinking about all these kinds of influencers and advocates, you naturally start to think about hardware. Well, maybe not naturally, but it's a logical next step. You have to make sure your game is on the devices where your influencers followers actually live. Because if they say, "Go try this!" and their followers can't get it, two things will happen: 1. You won't get the conversion, and 2. That influencer won't advocate for you anymore (why would they tell their followers to do something they're unable to do?) Think about how to get to all the different devices—phones, tablets, TVs, maybe even more specialized or cutting-edge hardware, too, depending on the circumstances. A key approach here is to use Responsive Game Design, allowing your game to work across different device families and controllers without custom code (and I can provide you with lots of additional information about this—I'll have some links at the end).
- Boiling down the story of influencers, it's all about appealing to a small, targeted group that can encourage the mainstream to adopt. Most folks in the mainstream, they don't get your concept, they don't see all the pieces, they won't notice your game in a crowed marketplace. It's the influencers who teach them all that stuff, So really focusing on the influencers is key to your ultimate success. --END-- Focus on a small targeted group that can disproportionally grow your base. Define who you’re going after. Crossing the Chasm model developed by Geoffrey Moore - This model overlays the Everett Rogers' adoption curve with a 'chasm'. According to Moore, the marketer should focus on one group of customers at a time, using each group as a base for marketing to the next group. The most difficult step is making the transition between visionaries (early adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). This is the chasm that he refers to. Technologies or products that cannot cross this chasm will die or remain niche. If successful, a firm can create a bandwagon effect in which the momentum builds and the product becomes ubiquitous. (area under curve = number of users) If focus on a fanbase vs just individual players, you have more opportunity cross the chasm. You want to find innovators and early adopters that will tell your story and bring the players. You can do targeted advertising, email lists, broad advertising. The goal is influencers over broad reach. This is what makes kickstarter powerful. You have a launch mailing list of early adopters that are vested in telling your story!! Fans enable you to jump the chasm.
- Here's a data point from Apptentive, a company that helps open communications between apps and their user base. They measure how well their clients engage and retain their users, and their analysis shows that if you interact with your customers, retention goes up. The effect is immediate, but still significant 3 months later, showing a four-fold increase in retention overall. If you can find ways to turn your base into advocates, it WILL have a material impact.
- Ok, great. So what's the second strategic way to build on the basics and promote a fan base? Content creation. You want to enable people to make content using your game as a base, Which will lead to a greater variety of longer-lasting game experiences.
- As far as content creators go, there are a few different classifications that are important to us. The first is the "entertainer." They take your core content and build their OWN content on top of it. So for example, I showed you PewDiePie who freaks out about stuff and reacts to the game play—he's entertaining to watch. As I mentioned, he's the #1 subscribed channel on YouTube. Rihanna, OneDirection, Katy Perry, these names you might recognize—they're all BELOW PewDiePie. In fact, guess what #3 and #4 are? Also gamers. Gaming entertainment is HUGE. --END-- On YouTube 3 of the top ten most subscribed are gamers. Pewdiepie has more subscribers and more views than anyone else on YouTube. View data from http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/100/mostsubscribed
- There’s also live streaming, such as Twitch. I've mentioned this several times already. Twitch is kind of like YouTube, except that it's live and you can actually interact with the person streaming. Twitch has 100M Unique viewers, with 16B min watched per month The average viewer on Twitch watches for 106 minutes per day. Highly HIGHLY engaged folks. And again, look at the broadcasters with the most followers. Game-related, all. Ok. Entertainers. People that just have a good time playing these games and entertain their fan base But those aren't the only kinds of created content. --END— Twitch is… Really this is like TV for gamers. Think about reality TV, sports news, sports, the food channel, the outdoors channel… for an enthusiast, this is no different. There tend to be three reasons to watch 1) entertainment “these guys are funny” 2) education “I see what that game is now – I’ll buy it” “I need instruction so I can get better at strategy etc.” 3) esports is growing fast (see attached for data points) On twitch, game developer riot had 632M views. League player NightBlue3 has 88M views Twitch vs TV or YouTube: twitch is live and you can interact real time with the broadcaster. You can ask questions and they respond. Imagine watching the voice and being able to chat with the judges or contestants while they are broadcasting. It’s incredibly personal and engaging. Game developers are building a following before they even launch. Vlambeer (maker of nuclear throne) has 8.2M views and 11k followers. While they are designing the characters, you can influence the art or the capabilities real time. If you subscribe for 12.99, you get the game when it’s done. The combination of YouTube Twitch and others like them are enabling gamers to create a LOT of content. Think about how amazing it would be for one of these folks to play your game.. Ok. Entertainers. People that just have a good time playing these games and entertain their fanbase. Let’s look at two other kinds of video content education and esports.
- Another popular area of content creation is focused on education. These creators basically say, "I will teach you how to play Hearthstone," "I will teach you how to play League of Legends" Or build a better deck or figure out strategy—they'll break down the nuances of the game and help you succeed as a player. So it's another reason to watch—one is I think it's funny, it's entertaining—another is I want to learn. --END-- Learn about the game (“what is it, is it worth getting” “how do I get better at this game”) EX: Nightblue3 teaching Hearthstone
- More examples: Minecraft — so much has been added to the original game (through player-submitted mods) that you can effectively play new content almost endlessly. Now when a new movie comes out, someone will create a mod for it. Want to play Hunger Games in Minecraft? There's a mod for that. Similarly, but maybe not so obvious, let's look at Trivia Crack. A large portion of their content comes their players. They have a question factory so fans can create and curate the content. Brilliant. More fun AND lower cost.
- Ok, so the last piece of this puzzle, building a fan base, is finding a way to generate alternative revenue. That is, revenue you earn outside the core monetization loop in your game. This is revenue for you but ALSO for the fans themselves who are participating with you
- The most common way to do this, of course, is through products. This is a great way to go, because now you're making money off the t-shirt, or the plush toy, or the phone case And at the same time you're getting those people to go advocate for you and show off your stuff
- You can also derive revenue from fan engagement outside of your actual product. Here's an example of a developer having raised almost $2 MM on their KickStarter page they've gone up to around $4 MM total, just in crowd-funding alone So that's one way to start generating revenue before you even start building your game Another approach: Riot Games has more than 632 MM views of their esports events, which generate ad revenue for them So Riot is making their normal revenue off their games, plus this ancillary ad revenue from external sources
- Other ways to generate revenue, film and television. Lora Croft, Tomb Raider – 274M Resident evil - afterlife: 296M Prince of Persia – 335M And, Ubisoft actually created their own studio so they can produce movies and TV shows based on their game properties. An Assassins Creed movie is already in production. Now not everybody has the ability to turn a game into a movie or TV show, but we just saw the broadcast opportunities available on Twitch YouTube, etc. --END-- http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2015/02/assassins-creed-movie-officially-in-production/ "We have the pleasure to announce today that the green light has been given by New Regency, and the production has already started," said Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot. "This is a very important milestone for the project and for our team on Assassin's Creed.” The Assassin's Creed film has been in development since at least 2011 when Ubisoft formed its Ubisoft Motion Pictures division, allowing it to maintain creative control over its properties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games
- With that, we've identified three areas we can explore to expand the basic MVP. Let's review the techniques you can apply to build out each one.
- So for Influencers, Make sure you relate to their audience and your game is on the devices they use, but also Provide value to the influencers so they're motivated to advocate for you, and Really treat your early players like gold
- To support content creation, Encourage player-initiated improvements (the bare minimum here is just to get feedback on your game) but you can do more In fact, you should be celebrating the community's contributions And working to find ways contributors can gain value from their creations
- And finally, explore alternative revenue streams. Physical goods are the most obvious approach, but you can also Build new channels for your audience, helping them find you outside of the game itself, and you can even promote them—help them grow so they can help you grow
- As Amazon, we have a broad view of the industry. We have Game Studios, an Appstore, AWS infrastructure used for games, several different pieces of hardware and services like appstream that enable more, and now, Twitch, a game streaming service. With that, perspective, we’re always looking for ways to help game developers excel. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned. ----- Meeting Notes (2/24/15 16:36) ----- Dave: let's call it GDC attendee content