Gaming has advanced to an incredibly advanced level in the last few years. The onset of Facebook as a platform, as well as the rise of smart devices with super fast graphics processors and amazing screen resolution have helped to fuel the rise. Games are now apps. You can download one on the fly, check it out and toss it if you don’t like it or check back if you do. No more disks, running to the shops and checking if your machine can cope with the game specs – its a brave new gaming world.
So because games are increasingly becoming a commodity, they clearly have to work harder in order to retain players and gain new ones – tough job.
I’ve been playing a few iOS strategy games and have noticed a few trends with how they deal with retention of players as opposed to acquisition, as well as how they are trying to monetise thier properties. I have a few insights on this.
1) Charging top dollar for a game is over – most games seem to be below $5 – this means game are looking at in app purchases to make the bulk of their revenue. Download fees are nice to have, but don’t seem to be as lucrative as in app purchasing.
2) Challenges and unlocks – in order to keep people interested, games keep throwing out random challenges and unlocks. Some of these are time based i.e. building something/ modding a weapon etc
3) Welcome back prizes – a new thing ive noticed. Each time you log into a game (on a new day) you get a chance to spin to get in game currency. Fun and smart way to bring people back
4) Different in game currencies– this is key yo the monetisation startegy. Most games have 3 currecines that have varing degress of diffucltyies to earn. The harder the currency is to earn – the mroe yo ucan do with it in game or you can buy more of it from a firendly in game store
5) Constant updates – Developers are constantly updating the games and taking people comments and gripes into account. This is a great way to keep a game fresh and exciting and ensure peope check back to see what has changed
This was based on 2 iOS games namely Zombie HQ and Clash of Clans that I recently played
I’m sure im missing a few tricks here – let me know in the comments
Mike Solomon 