8. Overall look on what we did so far:
The good and what we are improving
We did good We are improving
• Simple gameplay for soccer fans but
not only
• Change and test content easily
• Give extra value to teams besides
visual
• Give extra goals to players and make
them bring others to the game
• Balance between monetization and
retention features
• AB test in small steps rather than
trying to see all at once
Started in 2001 with dancing bush game on web
Became one of the biggest web game portals
Has grown since then focusing now on web and mobile, being mobile now a very important area and overal has now 200 M MAU on web and mobile
Main products: 8Ball pool, Agar.io and Soccer Stars
End of february and world cup is almost here (we need to do something – timing is important) , we have 3 months to do a game
Based on the success of one of our other games(Pool) we decided to to a real time multiplayer game where real players compete in ‘table soccer’ match ; winner takes all
Took advantage of code used in other games for the base, so our focus was mainly in the gameplay and make a great game:
1) Simple drag and release controls, yet with possibility of creating strategies
2) Simple tutorial, taking player to a match almost imediately
3)Balancing the physics was a challenge, game needed to be fast, yet strategic and depth
end of May we made a 1 week soft launch and june world launch before the world cup
Did it pay off? Yes! Feautred by apple and google ; top 5 download in several countries; 1M DAU on the 1st week
Still this was just the start
After succes a quick win is to put content, but we wanted to add content easily, without the need of binary, once again to allow to take advantage of seasonal events
Our focus in terms of dynamic content was: teams and other items, seasonal tiers (like liverpool on example to celebrte new teams) and prices
Each feature we try to make it easy to edit form CFG without need of binary
Seasonal events is very important and many seasonal promotions have had a very good impact on revenue (example of worldcup teams) ; scarcity effect
Also we made the game so that most of the parameters are easily ab testable without binary – focus on prices ,quantities but also features:
We had very good resutls with ab test altough some caution is adviced -> this will be approached latter
We also felt that the game needed more objectives to improve retention
So we created missions presented by a coach ‘Tony Star’:
1) missions give more meta-game
2) missions would last 2 to 3 days and have different objectives (all possible to edit form CFG)
3) player could see the progress of their friends
Balancing was crucial: to easy and it was no challenge; too hard and players would give up immediately
We created funnels to analyze players progression: I the end we decided to make the first 2 objectives easy to achieve
We also created the coach character: added fun (inspired on mourinho) ; made easier to communicate and motivate with the player; made it easier to pass to sell some promos
We really wanted to increase even more revenue, so we needed to make the main purchasable item of the game, more than just ‘visual’
We added powers to the teams: power on shot + turn time + aim + salary (teams would now charge a % of the virtual currency winnings for they victory when the win
There was a big concern with the powers, we had to balance the well, we did not want to make the game feel like pay to win;
Overall we did a good balance and altough some complains from users, most of them liked and technique still was the main difference in matches (very important in a skill game)
Still the main issue was he salary:
1) big change on choices of players, more averse to risk and playeing on lower tiers
2) less retention, progression was now harder (less wins) and some players gave up
To prevent this: 1) AB test salary – find sweet spot between revenue and retention + 2) easier missions to motivate players
Overall we managed to do this and with this feature we increased our ARPDAU by 30%
After issues with retention we decided to put a feature tested in pool and also other non miniclip games that had a good impact o retention
Gifting:
1) players could send gitfs to each other (even non players of the game); players are curious to see who sent them a gift
2) this creates a social proof effect
3) creates a commitment dynamic between players: when the receive they normally give back and creates a cycle to bring back players
This feature had been positive , increasing retention and engament between players; still now that players have more coins ARPDAU slightly decreases.
Our goal is that the increase on players compensates this ARPDAU decrease, and that is what we are working on (once again balancing) … besides our new feature ;)
- Simple game, multiplayer engaging, for every one
Change game without need of binary
More than 1 year has passed and altough not easy the effort has paid off: users keep increasing and revenue also
We are consisttenly in top free games in several countries after more than 1 year and have 8M soccer matches every day
This has been al thanks to the effort of a great team and I am very happy to work with them. THANKS