Freemium gamedesign

FREEMIUM GAME DESIGN Social Games and Free2play Games

Prepared by:

Fawzi Mesmar

ABOUT ME

A passionate game designer with over 10 years of

experience in the industry, I worked on multiple

platforms (PC, Xbox360, XBLA, GBA, Facebook, iOS

and Android). Projects I worked on includes My Little

pony Friendship is magic, My Littlest Pet shop,

Persona 3 Social and many others.

Currently I’m the Principal game designer of

Gameloft NZ

FUNDAMENTALS OF F2P

DESIGN Basic components of Free to play games

GAME LOOP Successful free 2 play design employs infinite loops of gameplay

MLP GAME LOOP

- The game’s main focus is the collection of ponies, so the loop has to be designed around that

- Ponies have to be the deciding factor around giving the player the available resources to get more ponies and so on

Assign

to shop

Collect

Reward

Get

Pony

wait

FARMVILLE GAME

LOOP

- The trend setter of modern freemium game design

- The infinite loop provides monetization opportunities on each step which makes it successful.

Plant

crop

Sell

crop

Plow

land

wait

CONTROLLED SESSIONS Limiting users from burning through your content

ENERGY SYSTEM

- Definition: giving a limited number of resources that refill slowly over time.

- Great for creating scheduled user behaviour not so good for users with easy access.

WAITING TIMES

- An absolute time that you need to wait for a certain element in which you progress.

- Has complete control on average playing sessions for players

- Strong monetization

SUBSCRIPTION BASED

- A prepaid amount for a certain time of gameplay.

- Unsuccessful in most cases except for rare few game genres.

PROGRESSION GATING Intentional grinding segments to hinder player progress

SAMPLE PROGRESSION CHART

0

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69

Series1

PAY WALLS

- Once the player is familiar with gameplay introduce grind mechanics

- Those mechanics become progressively harder to achieve

- Pay walls should be masked to be a natural part of the game to avoid frustration

HOOK PHASE

- Insure that the player is introduced correctly the game’s mechanics

- Have a taste of premium gameplay

- Rapid progression

- Strong tutorial

SOCIAL GATING

- Some games value user acquisition just as much as monetization

- Can be a double edged sword, but great way to viralize the game

- Has to be timed correctly

SOCIAL DESIGN Games that go viral are more likely to succeed

SOCIAL COMPONENTS

- Freemium games are also known as social games for a reason

- Gifts

- Visiting

- Help your friend

VIRAL FEATURES

- The use of social networks is essentials for free to play games to succeed

- Facebook

- Game Centre

- Steam

ASYNCHRONOUS

SOCIAL DESIGN

- Creating multiplayer experiences without having 2 players online at the same time

- Study social interactions

- Data transfer

- AI supported

REAL TIME SOCIAL

DESIGN

- Two players playing with or against each other at the same time

- Directly affect both players games in real time

- Demands more of the players

- Harder to pull off

RETENTION Getting the users to play the game, then wanting to come back for more

DECAY COMPONENTS

- Creating game mechanics that cause the user to come back to the game

- Elements can go broken or wasted if the player doesn’t check in regularly

WAITING TIMES

- Among perfect example of features that would cause the player to constantly check on their game

DAILY REWARDS

- Similar to coffee cards the object of those features is to create gaming habits as well as retention

MONETIZATION The concept of making money in a free to play game

HARD/PREMIUM

CURRENCY

- The player’s concept of what they’re spending is usually masked by having another currency layer

- The player identifies that whatever is purchased with that currency is valuable, including time

PREMIUM ITEMS

- Items that you can’t have in any other way than direct purchase. Usually used to complete a collection or for bragging rights.

CONSUMABLE

STRATEGY

- Items that are sold to aid in your game but for one time use only

- Power ups

- Revives

- Extra lives

SHORTCUTS

- Help the player skip the otherwise boring parts of the game

- Those boring parts are intentionally placed as well

VANITY ITEMS

- Its very important to capitalize on the players desire of self expression

- Those items do not serve gameplay purposes but they look cool, and delivers a certain message to other players.

ANALYTICS The game of numbers beyond the game itself

DESIGN ON DEMAND

By Data Mining, the designer now has instant access to what features are working and what aren’t; the ability to fix them on the spot and test different markets

Soft Launch

► UPDATING A GAME THAT’S ALREADY RELEASED

WHAT TO TRACK

You need to keep track of user purchases of all items, how often any of

those features are used, and A-B test the UI to find out what’s really

working

► USE THE GAME LOOP TO IDENTIFY THE GAMES MAIN

FEATURES AND TRACK THOSE FIRST

DAU, MAU AND PAU

The initial download number of your game is a good indication of how

successful the title is, however there are other metrics to measure how

much REVENUE its likely to produce

► NOT EVERYONE THAT DOWNLOAD THE GAME COUNT

CONVERSION AND RETENTION RATES

Having a massively successful game that’s not getting income means that

you won’t be able to sustain it for long. You need to know why you’re

losing users if you were and how to convert to paying users if you can.

► ITS IMPORTANT TO FIND WAYS TO TURN DAU INTO PAU

LIVE OPS Maintaining freemium games after release

IMPACT OF UPDATES

ON GAME ANALYTICS

- Updates are important to return interest of users to the game

- More content

- New features

- Bug Fixes

TIME LIMITED EVENTS

AND ITEMS

- Running server side events great help interaction with the game and the audience

- Great source of income

- Massively successful

THANK YOU Fawzi.mesmar@gameloft.com

fawzi-games.blogspot.com

+64 21 077 8587