Cross-Posted from Deconstructor of Fun. Co-wrote with Joseph Kim.

It’s hard to go a day without hearing about Fortnite anymore. In February, Fortnite passed PUBG in total revenue on PC and console ($126M versus $103M). While PUBG (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds) started a movement, Fortnite created a phenomenon.

However, while the Battle Royale genre continues to heat up, I’d like to focus on a specific topic: the Battle Pass system as the monetization driver. Fortnite, for all of its smart decisions and flaws, made one key choice months after its launch: it wasn’t going to monetize based on loot boxes, instead, it was going to monetize off of its Battle Pass system.

It’s not as if Epic hadn’t thought of making it a loot box driven economy — Fortnite’s own “Save the World” mode is a loot box driven economy which you buy llama-themed pinatas that contain random gameplay-impacting items. Yet for their Battle Royale system, they chose to go against this.

Regardless of what you think of the choice — Fortnite’s revenue shows they’ve done something right. Fortnite has been steady as the top grossing game on mobile for weeks now, demolishing traditional mobile free-to-play titles, and outpacing all other battle royale style games on mobile in both downloads and revenue. The fact that the game was invite-only for the first weeks or so makes the feat even more impressive.

However, these results beg a question: is the revenue coming simply because of the user base size (DAU), or does the Battle Pass system actually drive higher revenue-per-user than a loot box system? In terms of KPIs, we’d be comparing ARPDAU or ideally, LTV.

While no one but Epic can peek behind the curtain and see what their metrics are, we will speculate today!

Fortnite’s Cosmetic-Driven Economy

Much like in MOBAs, Fortnite’s progression and monetization only come from cosmetics. Fornite is a “free-to-win” model: they do not sell anything that could impact the balance of the battle royale gameplay. All guns, armor, ammo is scavenged in the battle royale gameplay, but a player can choose what cosmetics they want to bring into a match.

Fortnite allows you to select a number of cosmetic options to bring into battle:

• A Skin/Outfit your character wears
• “Back Bling” — or a knapsack
• Harvesting tool — a Pickaxe is boring, why not a Scythe?
• Contrail — what Glider you use while falling (gotta look cool while falling)
• Loading Screen — what loading screen you see (only for yourself)
• Emotes to communicate with others. (you can bring in 6 emotes which you can trigger)

Since progress isn’t made through traditional stats and level up, the only way to show off your progress is through cosmetics. It’s not pay-to-progress, it’s pay-to-look-cool.

Until Fortnite, cosmetics-only based mobile games have not been able to achieve strong overall revenue, at least in Western markets. Although the large revenue growth certainly derives strongly from a massive number of installs, the amount of revenue and the #1 top grossing status cannot be explained without a level of monetization heretofore unseen by cosmetics in Western markets on mobile.

With the cosmetic driven economy, rather than dropping new cosmetic gear through gacha/loot boxes (like Overwatch, Destiny, etc.) cosmetics are either purchased with V-bucks (premium currency) or earned through the battle Pass. Interestingly, directly purchasing cosmetics through the shop has limited access. Each day there is a limited selection of items to purchase, so while loot boxes aren’t included in the economy, there is a limited set of items that are available at any time. Great for driving players to check the shop out daily, and giving additional pressure to purchase items while they are available.

The Battle Pass

Besides being able to purchase cosmetics with premium currency, players can also play and earn cosmetics and consumable boosts by completing their Battle Pass.

The Battle Pass is a set of rewards which can be unlocked by completing challenges. Completing challenges rewards the player with XP, which increases your tier, which unlocks subsequent rewards. The challenges themselves range in difficulty but give a baseline of progress for the Battle Royale style game.

When playing a Battle Royale game, especially if you’re not skilled, most games will end up with getting shot and losing all your progress. Also in many battle royale games there can be times when you’re waiting around for other players to arrive. These challenges give players additional goals to think about while playing, and can make even a losing round feel like progress.

The monetization comes in with the free vs premium tracks, much like the VIP system in Wargaming’s World of Tanks (read the full deconstruction of World of Tanks). Free players get far fewer rewards than the premium tier. Creating a very clear conversion effort. Look at all the stuff you “earned” but didn’t receive! The amount of content given out for the premium tier is compelling — its generous in terms of the payoff and pays back your effort quickly. This feels very similar to Annuities or “Subscription Diamonds” in mobile games. A small price that pays out far more than it costs – but only if you engage in the game.

The Battle Pass is limited to a season, which is what makes it so compelling. Each season has a matching Battle Pass, which comes with its own set of cosmetic content and rewards. If you don’t complete the battle pass in time — you don’t get the content. Some content may come in and out of the store on a daily basis — but then it’s usually for high costs of premium currency.

There’s a big “Fear of Missing Out” feeling with this system.

If being able to directly purchase progress was in any other game, most free-to-play designers would shoot this down. It’s usually a far better idea to monetize players on the gameplay itself and not allow players to directly pay to skip. It would feel very pay-to-win if you could directly pay to reach the top arena in Clash Royale, or pay to skip a set of levels in Candy Crush.

However, since Fortnite can’t really monetize on the core gameplay, and this is really just paying to reach cosmetic content (your battle pass tier isn’t really a metric player compare as a sign of skill) — player’s don’t seem to mind, and their revenue isn’t impacted. Player’s have a way to pay-for-progress to the cosmetic items they want.

Want a head start on the season so you can show off the cosmetic items before your friends get there? Pay to skip ahead!

A week’s challenges or season coming to a close and you don’t have time to get all the remaining challenges? Pay to skip ahead!

For this reason, the spend depth and potential of the battle pass system shouldn’t be seen as limited to just the monthly purchase price. When a player has locked into the battle pass, they are more likely to be highly engaged that season to unlock the content and to convert on skipping ahead to get all that content they unlocked.

User Experience of Battle Pass vs. Loot Boxes

Battle Pass can be best described as a system first and foremost for retention and player experience. Comparing Battle Pass to Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG), it gives players real goals, a direct sense of progress, and a clear path to the cosmetics that they want. PUBG instead uses a loot box system to gate all of their cosmetic content. Players play a match, get as many “Battle Points” (BP) as possible, to eventually open up a loot box.

These loot boxes can sometimes be locked with a key that needs to be bought with real money, which feels pretty much like a blatant rip-off. Like most gacha systems, as a player, this means the path to desired content is completely luck-driven. You can’t even save your BPs or a dust-like currency (example: Credits in Overwatch, or Dust in Hearthstone) to eventually get the item that you want. You just need to get lucky.

From a player’s perspective, Battle Pass simply feels fair compared to the competitors gacha systems.

So overall, from a player’s perspective, Fortnite’s Battle Pass system is a great match for battle royale:

• It gives secondary goals which give a strong baseline of progress and can keep the game interesting
• It gives players a clear marker of progress through a season and a goal of what to accomplish besides just killing every round
• It’s a compelling conversion item + retention driver. The amount of content for the price and the clear visual of seeing content that you “earned” but can’t access is a compelling driver to both monetize and engage in the game.
• It creates an endowment effect of purchasing an item but only being able to unlock the content if you engage highly in the game

But it’s not as if this Battle Pass system came from nowhere, it’s obviously inspired by the playbook of Valve’s DOTA2. Their compendium battle pass has been a staple of that game since 2013. Looking at Valve’s evolution of the compendium, you can see potentially how this system will evolve in Fortnite.

The Benchmark: DOTA2’s Battle Pass

Started in 2013 as an incentive for players to donate & get interested in the e-sports scene of DOTA2, the compendium was essentially an interactive guide to an upcoming tournament. Similar to a guidebook you’d get at a sporting event: it told you about the players, tracked the stats, and got you interested in the game itself. Valve doubled down on this by making it digital, interactive, and gave a portion of the money raised by the compendium as part of the prize pool. Players had a way of supporting the esports scene for their favorite game.

This has since evolved quite a bit. What started as just a compendium turned into a battle pass. They eventually added goals for players to accomplish in PvP that would increase their level for that season, and unlock cosmetic rewards (just like Fortnite’s today). However, DOTA2 has gone far deeper, with a number of recent additions that significantly increase the depth of the system.

• Multiple Paths give players choices as they progress in the battle pass, giving far more goals in parallel for advanced players. Also, give further reason to reach higher levels in the battle pass (some paths only unlock when you’ve reached a high enough level).
• Unlimited tiers with content unlocking slower and slower over time. Whereas Fortnite is capped at 100 tiers of content, DOTA2 has unlimited. This creates situations where players are even competing against each other to see who can progress farther in a season (when the competition itself is directly pay-to-progress)
• Treasures/Loot Boxes as rewards rather than direct cosmetics. This gives players a mix of direct rewards and a chase to get the random rewards that they want.

So while Fortnite’s Battle Pass system may just be in its “early access” phase right now with a basic feature set, it’s clear that Epic is taking inspiration from Valve’s similar Battle Pass system. This evolution shows that the current implementation is not just limited to 100 tiers of content, but could be a far longer lasting and complex chase which could drive even higher retention and monetization. This system clearly has been successful for DOTA2, since recently they’ve started to shift the system to a full-on subscription style service called “DOTA Plus”. Little details are known at this point, but it looks to be replacing the Battle Pass with an ongoing subscription that gives even further systems and progression.

But comparing the Battle Pass system to a pure-gacha system, is Fortnite (and potentially DOTA2) leaving money on the table? While it’s obvious that its a play for stronger retention and higher conversion, is the lower spend depth hurting them?

Is the tradeoff of giving away all this cosmetic content for higher conversion really the smartest business decision?

Revenue Analysis of Battle Pass

Just how impactful is Battle Pass to monetization? More specifically, we should ask this question on two levels of scope:

1. Battle Pass vs. Cosmetics: How does Battle Pass monetization compare to other forms of cosmetics based F2P, mobile monetization?
2. Battle Pass Overall: How does Battle Pass monetization compare to F2P, mobile monetization overall (including pay-to-progress models)?

We can get a rough sense for both of these questions by doing some high-level comparison. In particular, we can a) compare monetization of the various “fair-to-play”, cosmetics driven Battle Royale games and then b) compare monetization with “pay-to-progress” game monetization schemed games.

As an initial investigation let’s take a look at lifetime average revenue per install (ARPI) of each of these titles based on Sensor Tower data to comparative, key high-performing titles:

*Note: Rules of Survival does contain some weapons in its loot box, while they are balanced it is not strictly a cosmetics gacha

Source: ARPI based on Sensor Tower data

Battle Pass vs. Cosmetics

Let’s now address the first monetization question we posed above: How does Battle Pass monetization compare to other forms of cosmetics based F2P, mobile monetization?

At first glance, it would seem that Knives Out has the best per user monetization (ARPI) of the Fair to Play games. However, two issues are not fully captured by the chart above:

• ARPI growth over time and
• Audience distribution.

#1. ARPI Growth Over Time

Note the number of months in launch in the Lifetime ARPI chart above. Generally speaking, the longer a game sits in launch, the better the game’s ARPI becomes (eventually achieving it’s LTV):

Source: Based on SensorTower Data

Note the number of months since launch in the lifetime ARPI (avg. revenue per install) chart above. Generally speaking, the longer a game thrives in live operations, the better the game’s ARPI becomes (as the installs decrease and existing users spend more during their lifetime):

#2. Audience Distribution

The other key driver for monetization for Knives Out is it’s audience. Japan *generally* monetizes much more strongly than other countries, often 2x+ that of US. Hence, the large concentration of Japanese users in Knives Out primarily drives the monetization gap between Knives Out and Rules of Survival.

You can see the revenue split by top 5 countries for all three of the games below:

Source: SensorTower

So what happens to monetization if we were to exclude Japan?

Wow, what a difference a country makes! Without Japan, Knives Out actually becomes the worst performing game in term of monetization. Somehow Fortnite per user monetization actually does better without Japan.

Battle Pass vs. Mobile Free-to-Play

Let’s now address the second question we posed regarding Battle Pass monetization earlier: How does Battle Pass monetization compare to F2P, mobile monetization overall (including pay-to-progress models)?

From the Lifetime ARPI chart, it would seem to indicate that more traditional F2P monetization mechanics such as gacha or PVP speed-ups are much more effective on a per-user, unitary level than cosmetics based monetization.

However, we should also take two factors into consideration:

1. Months to LTV: How much further can a cosmetics driven monetization last over time?
2. Downloads vs. ARPI: Although ARPI for “free-to-win” games may not be as high as other, more traditional F2P monetization mechanics, these games should generate higher install volumes based on the friendlier monetization scheme.

Let’s discuss both of these points in turn.

#1. Months to LTV

So how long can gacha based games continue to increase ARPI until it hits LTV? Unfortunately, we only have 6 months of data on Rules of Survival and Knives Out and less than 2 full months for Fortnite.

One way to estimate the ARPI growth is to just do a logarithmic trendline and extend out the timeframe to say 20 months.

Another way we could guess the eventual LTV of these games is by taking a look at other game examples such as Clash Royale:

Source: Based on SensorTower data

Based on the above ARPI growth continued for at least 15-20 months. Hence, the 20 month timeframe for our logarithmic trendline earlier.

Traditional F2P designers would typically assume that cosmetics driven monetization should hit their LTV ceiling much sooner than a well-designed gacha game.

However, for the sake of simplicity, and just to get a rough feel let’s assume that the fair-to-play game monetization will follow a similar trajectory. In fact, let’s just eyeball all of this pretty roughly to estimate LTV.

Assumptions based on a rough eyeballing of Clash Royale ARPI growth:

• RoS/Knives Out will increase another 50%
• Fortnite to increase by 125%

On the face of it, Knives Out and Fortnite would have similar long-term LTV estimates based on our analysis above. However, when we factor in audience concentration, we can conclude that Fortnite has much stronger monetization design. This was clearly shown when we excluded Japan from our monetization data earlier.

#2. DL vs. ARPI

Although we’ve focused so far primarily on unitary economic measures like ARPI, at the end of the day, what matters most will be the amount of overall revenue (and profit) a game can generate. Hence, in addition to ARPI/LTV we must also look at product level economics by also looking at downloads and in turn overall revenue.

As you can see from the chart below, while free-to-win based monetization has not performed as well on a per player basis, but overall revenue can be quite healthy even compared to top pay-to-progress types of games.

Also note that we only have less than 2 months of data for Fortnite (so it’s not an apples-to apples-comparison), and it has been limited by a number of issues such as being iOS only and having high-end device requirements.

Further, Clash Royale, unlike the other titles, leveraged one of the strongest IPs in mobile gaming and utilized massive user acquisition to help drive stronger install volume for their game.

* Less than 2 months of data only and currently only on iOS
** Puzzle & Dragon started off in Japan only
Source: SensorTower

Battle Pass For the Win!

So, what is our conclusion on the original monetization questions we posed with respect to Battle Pass?

While pay-to-progress style economies will certainly drive higher per-player revenue, for games that monetize off cosmetics the battle pass is certainly showing impressive results. Battle Pass will likely become a dominant monetization system used with cosmetics based monetization in the future. Not only can it provide far better player experience, but by a rough calculation, it shows that it can drive higher LTV.

Just keep in mind these calculations are rough – these are using estimates of revenue and downloads, we’re using trendlines based on a small set of data, and we’re looking at a game that didn’t start from scratch when launched on mobile. The legion of fans that came over from PC/Console area already highly engaged and used to its systems. We’ll need to see how this goes in the coming months!

Yet by these rough calculations, we’re pretty excited. A player-friendly system that gives better goals and drives higher engagement shows the path to stronger revenues. All the while Valve’s DOTA2 shows that this is just the MVP of a battle pass system. Bringing in a hybrid of gacha design and a deeper battle pass will most likely be the future for cosmetic driven games.

Exciting times ahead!

What does Splatoon, a paid game for consoles have to do with mobile free to play?

Well, you can find inspiration and clever design in any medium. Just so happens I’m a massive fanboy of Nintendo, and after playing their game for months it was inspiring to spot some really interesting design bits that can be applied to any free-to-play game.

Just to give you some background, Splatoon is a multiplayer 3rd person shooter for Wii U.

Splatoon of course isn’t just your run of the mill shooter however. Nintendo re-invented this genre from the ground up. The focus isn’t on kills, instead it is on covering the arena with as much of your team’s colour as possible. Kills can help slow down the opposition, but it is more about controlling territory than it is about camping for kills. As a result the game feels much more casual for players that aren’t interested in getting headshots, yet strategically deep for players that want to compete.

The core gameplay aside though, Nintendo did something I don’t think many designers expected. They built a masterful metagame outside the battle which drives strong long term retention. Instead of just taking the tried and true Call of Duty perk & leveling system, they’ve built something that feels great and keeps players coming back. This is something that all F2P games strive for.

Today I’d like to focus on 2 mechanics in Splatoon that can be applied to any F2P game:

#1 Splatoon Clothing

 

The part that binds the entire metagame together for Splatoon is the clothes. Nintendo’s design of how players get clothes, unlock clothes and level up clothes makes this game work. It makes this game last.

Nintendo could have decided to go with the tried and true method that many shooters and skill based games go with. Call of Duty pioneered a system in 2007 which many online focused games have used since. Players gain levels by playing games and gaining XP. Levels unlock new guns, new perks and new gadgets to play with in the multiplayer game. As you progress up the levels you’re rewarded with more options to choose from. This system is simple and effective, which is why most multiplayer games have used this method over and over.

 

But this Call of Duty system also has its disadvantages. Each player unlocks equipment and upgrades in the exact same way. So while it allows players complete flexibility in choosing their loadout, there’s very little choice in the grind. Players just seek to optimize their XP growth.

Splatoon approached this in a completely different way. Splatoon instead ties perks and abilities to clothes. Instead of players being able to freely decide which perks they want, players need to choose clothes, upgrade them, and hope that they contain the perks and abilities that they want.

On the surface this isn’t a massive difference from most MMOs or Multiplayer games. Some games decide to tie aesthetics to special abilities in a game. The key difference that Nintendo makes is that the abilities of a new item are random. When you buy a new piece of clothing, only one perk is shown. The remaining perks are slowly discovered the more you play with the item.

The result is that this system feels like each piece of clothing is like a trading card booster pack — that you slowly open the more you play the game.

This means in theory buying multiple of the exact same pair of shoes can result in different perks awarded. This system results in players opting in to grinding for the gear that both looks good on their character and has the abilities which work well with their play style. This combination makes for a very powerful long term retention driver.

The 2 key reasons that make this system work:

There is no right answer

What’s important about this system is that the abilities are designed and balanced properly so that there is no set of abilities that dominate over all others. A must in any skill-based PvP game. Each ability benefits different play types equally.

Because there is no dominant play style, players are more likely to experiment. Players naturally will experiment with different perks, seek out cooler clothing, and as a result opt-in to playing with a ton of clothes that they normally wouldn’t bother with. Just in efforts to discover new abilities and experiment with different perks.

Just like Hearthstone, or any game with a strong meta-game balance, there should not be a dominant strategy. The more intrigue that goes into players debating over the optimal strategy, the more likely that players at the high level will be happy to experiment and try out new builds.

The clothes don’t give everything away from the start

Nintendo could have simply shown all abilities on the item from the point of purchase. Because they chose both to hide the abilities and force the player to play to discover them, they created a strong drive to keep playing.

F2P designers should seek to find similar systems in their own games. In any loot-based game or gacha-style system, do you need to give away all information about an item from the start? Can you ask the player to play before they discover any special abilities?

By asking the player to play instead of immediately get the benefit, you’ve asked them to invest in your item. Just as psychology teaches us, by making the player work for the benefits, they are more likely to find higher value in the outcome.

They will be more likely to “grind” (level up) multiple versions of the same item to get the benefits they want. They will be more likely to feel really smart when they’ve lucked out and found an item that randomly had a unique ability. This will build investment in the player and drive a long lasting metagame.

As a result Splatoon’s meta game is a longer lasting system than Call of Duty’s, despite having less perks, less guns and more casual gameplay.

#2 Special Order Queue

The second interesting system in Splatoon is the clothes ordering queue. Now that you know why clothes are important and why players happily grind for them, there’s an additional system which drives players back to the game.

Players in Splatoon can walk around the lobby area and see different avatars from around the world. You can walk up to anyone and see their clothes, which perks are on them, and how cool they look. This is a good system for driving desire (“I want that hat! With those abilities!”). Nintendo doesn’t stop there though — it also allows players to order clothes they see from other players. So if you really like that hat, order it!

But ordering is not immediate. Instead Spyke (a character which you order from) needs some time to get the item. To order you have to add it to your queue. An item from your queue is delivered once per day. When that day is over, if you haven’t purchased it, the item is gone. The next day you return the next item in your queue is available.

So this means:

• You as a player opt-in to coming back tomorrow to buy the item (or the days after depending on your queue)
• The rarer the item, the more likely you are to commit to returning
• When you arrive the following day, you’ve committed to purchasing this item within the time limit. You ordered it!
• If you can’t purchase the item by the end of the day, then only you are to blame. Pushing players to create a goal to play enough to purchase the item within the time frame (“I only have today to buy that cool hat! I have to get the coins!”)
• If you don’t come back to the game at all that day, the item is lost off the queue. Again, only you are to blame. You opted-in to this purchase window.

This system is interesting for free-to-play for 3 reasons:

Using the daily pacing feels natural: There’s no timer in my face, yet still paces the player. Daily cycles feel more natural to a player compared to a long timer (ex. “come back in 24 hours!”)

It builds commitment in the player: The player is now committed to come back to purchase the item, and to play the game enough to be able to purchase the item in the time it is available.

Punishment is fair: The player completely opted-in for this restriction, making the player more likely to accept the punishment if they fail. This also means that they are more likely to spend to avoid the punishment (“It’s my fault! but if I just pay $x I can avoid the punishment…”)

These 3 ingredients make for a very compelling F2P mechanic for both retention and monetization. This can be applied to any game that has a wide variety of items and gear to give away. Characters in Contest of Champions, Gear in Fallout Shelter, or maybe even cards in Hearthstone. Having an order queue which is filled on a daily basis can be a strong daily session driver. It drives strong commitment, feels natural, and feels fair.

In Summary for Splatoon

Splatoon is a very interesting game. If you have a chance to play it, I highly recommend it.

Besides the usual Nintendo charm, Splatoon managed to inspire me with a couple very interesting F2P systems:

• They drive me back to the game to find the best clothing and abilities
• I’m committed to come back to the game and play a few rounds each day to pick up my orders for clothes

These 2 key systems that can be applied to many F2P games to drive what’s most important: long term retention.

Supercell’s most recent soft launch is called Smash Land. It’s been in soft launch phase in Canada and Australia since March 31st 2015 (About 2 months from this post). There is no doubt that Supercell’s soft launches are huge news for the mobile free to play industry. Supercell is notoriously picky about what games that make it to soft launch. Each new game goes through rigorous internal feedback, and only the best games survive. The games that hit soft launch are games that Supercell genuinely believes have a shot at the Top Grossing charts.

Smash Land is based on “Monster Strike”, a massive mobile free to play game in Japan. In December 2014 it took over Puzzles and Dragons’ top spot in the Japanese charts. Similar to how Supercell started Clash of Clans with looking at Backyard Monsters, Supercell now looks to simplify the design of Monster Strike so that it could work in the Western markets. But in Supercell’s simplification of a game that performs so well in Japan, has the game stayed intact?

Has what remains kept what is required to be a successful game?

Smash Land’s Core Battle

Supercell decided to keep core battle game the same as Monster Strike. The core battle mechanic is a Physics-based RPG battle. Almost like a game of pool, the game is mostly about predicting how balls on a flat surface will bump and move to create a preferred outcome. In Smash Land, the game is about lining up one of your characters so that it bounces between walls, enemy characters and your own characters as many times as possible. The player then collects up to 10 different heroes, each with their own special ability. For an overview of the mechanic, watch this video:

Overall the core battle feels smoother, cleaner and is much easier to understand than Monster Strike. Each character feels unique because of their special abilities which feels great.

The gameplay is very strong for a mobile F2P game. Its easy to pick up and understand for any player. The feeling of skill is strong — I can predict a few bumps and feel smart about setting up strong combos. On top of this, because of the nature of physics, Luck comes into play. Like Peggle, physics is usually pretty easy to predict after the first shot, but after the first few collisions it becomes almost impossible to predict the outcome. As a result each move can result in some “Post-Action Luck” which is critical for casual games.  Players feel smart and each shot is unpredictable.

Overall they’ve taken the best bits of Monster Strike and applied it to a more focused experience. It’s a great battle system that is easy to get addicted to.

Heroes

Outside of the battle, players can also engage in upgrading their heroes stats. This is really where Smash Land departs from Monster Strike.

Monster Strike contains far more variety of stats for each character:

Just comparing these two screens you can see the dramatic comparison between the games. Its much easier to understand Smash Land compared to Monster Strike.

However, at what cost is this simplicity? In Smash Land the major differences between the characters are special abilities and their health to damage ratio. In Monster Strike, the team you bring into battle requires far more strategy as you progress in the game.

You need a balance of elemental types on top of ensuring you’ve got strong special abilities that are complementary. My guess is that while Supercell’s game clearly scores points for understandability, it will seriously limit the long term replayability of the game compared to Monster Strike. Players just won’t have nearly as much to strategize about in the long run.

Smash Land also departs from Monster Strike in how upgrades are handled.

Heroes are upgraded with gold and time. So the player collects gold from playing matches or collecting them from treasure hunts, and turns this gold into upgrades to their heroes. The cost of each upgrade escalates very quickly. As a result, the game really starts to require many, many battles before you can afford a single upgrade.

Smash Land’s system is far simpler than Monster Strike. Monster Strike takes cues from Japanese Gatcha games like Puzzles and Dragons. To upgrade your heroes you must collect hundreds of characters and consume them to give experience points to your heroes. For a great overview of Gacha, read here.

Leaving the Gatcha system out for Smash Land is a big risk, what remains is a far too simple economy that quickly becomes a grind.

Monster Strike’s system with consuming & collecting monsters has a massive advantage in the long run compared to Smash Land. Instead of just 10 heroes, Monster Strike has almost 1000 collectable monsters in the game (source). With this massive set of monsters, they have created a system where players have much more excitement for the long run.

As I’ve spoken about before, to alleviate the feeling of grinding it’s all about creating random spikes of progression. Similar to games like Diablo you need to find ways to add luck to your progression. Ensure that each battle can result in a lucky outcome which could dramatically increase their pace of progression. In Diablo this could be finding a legendary weapon on the ground which makes it a breeze to beat the enemies following.

In Monster Strike, instead of powerful rare swords, players can randomly get awarded rare monsters from the gatcha system. The player now feels lucky, like the game gave them something for free that should have cost them real money or a lot of time. Because the player got this rare monster, they can rush through previously hard levels and feel great.

Overall the rate of progression may be slow, but because there are these moments where progression randomly spikes, players are far more likely to engage for a long time.

This variable progression is missing in Smash Land. To progress, you must upgrade your  heroes in a linear path. Each victory gives you a calculated amount of rewards. The cost of upgrading a hero grows each time.

Overall, with only 10 heroes and very limiting upgrades, the metagame is just too simple. I have the same heroes as everyone else, the same upgrades as everyone else, so there is no moment where I feel like I’ve got a really unique set of heroes that are more amazing than my opponents. Without this unique feeling, it is hard to get attached to my characters or get attached in the long run.

Desirable Stats

Smash Land removed plenty from Monster Strike when they simplified the heroes/monster collection structure. But regardless of how many collectable characters you have in your game, if you want players to engage in an upgrade system you need to ensure that those upgrades are desirable.

In Smash Land my drive to upgrade is very weak. The battle overall feels very Skill & Luck driven (as I described above). The outcome of battles has more to do with getting repeated bounces over how much each player’s heroes had levelled up. In many cases I won with far fewer levels than my opponent, or I lost at the hands of an opponent that had far fewer hero levels than me. This translates in less player demand for upgrading their heroes. Instead of having a strong desire to have the strongest possible team, players will blame victories on their skill or luck and will more likely be content with their team as is. This is a difficult balance to get right in any game. For more on Stats vs Luck vs Skill, read on here.

But for this game, where its whole monetization plan is dependant on players upgrading their characters, Stats must take more precedence in the outcome of a battle.

If the player has a decreased desire to upgrade their heroes, then this will break how the game monetizes. Hero upgrades are at the core of how this game makes money. Players grind for coins (or spend money), on top of have long timers (8 hours or more) to upgrade their characters. After spending money in the game, speeding up the upgrades all of my characters substantially, I really didn’t feel any more powerful in the game. I lost subsequent multiplayer battles, and was now facing an even higher upgrade cost for my heroes. In the end spending money in the game really just didn’t feel worthwhile.

Overall Thoughts

If this wasn’t launched by Supercell, this game would never have gone under so much scrutiny. The game on its own is polished, fun to play, and ticks all the boxes for being a successful free to play game:

• Strong Pacing of content
• Multiplayer gameplay to provide long tail retention
• Guilds to bring players together without requiring Facebook
• A simple game mechanic that’s easy to pick up and play, hard to master

But when you put them all together in this game, the metagame is too simple:

• There is not enough variety or strategy in choosing heroes
• Upgrading quickly becomes tedious and a long grind
• There is not enough desire to upgrade your team to compete at the highest level

So how will this do on the market?

So far it seems Supercell is keeping this game in a quiet soft launch. Comparing this soft launch to Boom Beach, by 2 months Boom Beach was higher in both the download charts and grossing charts within Canada (source:AppAnnie). That points to Supercell keeping the marketing costs & number of new users down for the time being while they improve the game. Supercell is very rigorous with their soft launch games. Just last year they released “Spooky Pop” which failed to hit their targets. As a result they decided to cancel the game.

Can Supercell turn this game around during the soft launch? I think it will be difficult. They cut so much away from what made Monster Strike work, its hard to see if small feature additions will be able to rebuild what’s necessary. It will only happen if they completely rebuild their Hero progression systems.

I think Smash Land should be an example for all future mobile game designers. Simplicity can open up to wider markets, but the focus on Free to Play must be on long term retention, not the widest audience. Game designers must strive to create enough longterm depth in their metagames, or else they will fail.

 

Blizzard’s Hearthstone has defined collectable card games (CCGs) on mobile over the past year, and with the recent launch of the versions for smart phones on both iOS and Android the mobile revenues have rocketed roughly sevenfold.

Hearthstone is an interesting game to look at, because it breaks so many of the conventions of mobile F2P:

• It has no energy system
• It sells only permanent items
• It is highly skill based
• It is mainly synchronous PvP

As such it appeals to a lot of self designated “gamers” that find other mobile games somehow below them. This run down of the game will take apart the main features and discuss how they create and great game, and whether there are larger implications for the mobile F2P industry.

Core Loop

The core loop in Hearthstone is incredibly simple:

There are two main play modes: Ranked and Arena.

Ranked can be considered the basic game mode, where players play against each other synchronously to climb a monthly ladder. Players use decks that they have constructed from their permanent card collections. It is free to play, and players earn coins for winning matches and completing quests that appear daily.

Arena can be considered a secondary play mode, but is hugely important to and complements Ranked play. Here players also play synchronously with each other, but they must pay an entry fee – either coins or real money. Players make a deck as they enter the arena, choosing one of three cards at a time until they have a full deck. The rewards depend on a player’s performance, but can be generous compared to the entry cost.

The balance of the two modes is important, because it provides both payers and non payers, as well as players of different skills something to do. Earlier on, players may find Ranked play easier as they learn to put together decks that rely on specific combos. Later on they may find Arena more fun as there is the challenge of putting together a deck on the fly, and all players have the same chance of getting legendary cards.

Pacing

Quests act as the pacing system in Hearthstone, but it is so well framed that many players don’t see it for is. Rather than restricting the number of matches that players can play in a certain time, quests limit the amount of coins that a player can earn. Players get one new quest each day, and are limited to having three in total at any one time. Players can earn small amounts of coins for winning matches in Ranked play (10 coins every 3 wins), but this is small both compared to the time it would take to play these matches (perhaps 30 minutes or more on average), as well as the coins earned from quests (40-100 per quest).

As players earn most of their coins from quests, and not from playing matches, Hearthstone has no need to limit the amount of times a player can play. Players can (and do) sink hours into climbing the rankings without breaking the economy, as after the first few games their in game earnings are virtually nil. This is such a simple yet effective feature I am amazed that more F2P games have not copied it – energy systems are by far the most hated, yet standard F2P systems.

Single currency, single resource

I count coins as the single currency in Hearthstone and dust as the single resource. Hearthstone does not have a soft currency for everyone and a hard currency for payers. It follows therefore that it does not have items that can only be bought for hard currency. Purchasable things in the game can either be bought for either coins or real money. Dust is reserved exclusively for crafting specific cards.

The fact that as a non payer you can get anything in the game, and you can earn coins at a reasonable rate, helps create an environment that seems fair and inviting for both payers and non payers alike. Whilst the temptation to drop real money on a bunch of packs is constant, it never feels like someone has beaten you just because they’ve spent money on the game.

Permanent purchases

The nature of card rarity in Hearthstone also supports the feeling of fairness. Cards have one of four rarities: common, rare, epic and legendary. However, in contrast to many of the other mobile CCGs, cards cannot be upgraded or fused. This means that buying cards always results in a permanent addition to your collection, either directly or through the crafting system.

As with all CCGs there needs to be some method of dealing with duplicate cards, to maintain the randomness of pack opening. Hearthstone only allows players to have two of each card (one of legendaries) in their deck. Duplicates beyond this can be disenchanted for Hearthstone’s main resource: dust, which in turn can be used to craft any card in Hearthstone. The conversion rate is obviously not great – cards give only 25% of their cost to craft when they are disenchanted, and making progressively rarer cards gets ever more expensive. You need to disenchant 320 common cards to craft a single legendary. But the system does mean that even if players only get duplicates through randomly opening packs they can work towards specific cards that they want to create particular decks.

The fact that purchases result in permanent items that cannot be taken away from the player makes them all the more attractive. Players know that if they get a legendary card they will always have it, and its power will stay constant. Players can still spend huge amounts of money on the game, as there are so many cards to collect and the chance of getting a legendary is so low. Various Reddit posts put the cost of a Legendary at around $12-24, so with 67 legendary cards currently players could easily spend over $1,000 getting all of those alone. The cost of the epics and rare cards would be on top of that, and players can pay 4x for cards with a gold back – a purely cosmetic change.

Buying Experience

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N0p4YSXn4Q]

The permanence of purchases together with the overall polish in the game creates an incredibly positive buying experience. You would expect nothing less from Blizzard of course, but the pack opening sequence is spectacular, especially when compared to the drab experience in many mobile F2P games to skip a timer or add more resources. Buying something feels great, a detail that is all too often overlooked.

Skilled play vs. Pay to Win

Most mobile F2P games steer clear of including too much skill. Skill makes games more difficult to balance, as players will have a varied experience of the same content. Furthermore, with highly skilled games it is difficult to give players a continuous sense of progression, as their skill level will typically plateau after an initial learning period. As most mobile F2P games are selling progress, they need to maintain the sense of progression that grind based games give, as ensure that players have broadly the same experience by leveling the playing field with luck.

In contrast, Hearthstone has a high degree of skill – the game has an impressive number of tournaments and events, and Blizzard host a World Championship at BlizzCon that had a prize pool of $250k last year. Youtube and Twitch are awash with Hearthstone matches and the top players are starting to make their fame and fortune from the game. This is clearly a far cry from games like Clash of Clans or Game of War, where success largely depends on the amount of time (and money) players can grind into the game.

That said, in Ranked play, working your way up gets more difficult the higher you go not only because you meet more skilled opponents. Any player will tell you that you need to both have the right cards to put together in a deck to create the right combos, as well as the ability to change your deck as you go. This flexibility is vital as the meta game changes as you move through the ranks. At a given time, rush decks might be unstoppable at ranks 20-15, but easy prey above rank 10.

Always having the right epic and legendary cards to finish off your deck becomes essential, but you rarely need very many of them to create a good deck. The pressure to spend is in having the necessary breadth of cards, rather than a deck construct solely of very rare cards. This creates a dynamic where players do need to spend to play at the highest levels, just as League of Legend players need to practice with all the different Heroes rather than just the ones that are freely available that week. At the same time each individual card is balanced for its mana cost and players who have spent a lot of money to acquire a lot of different cards might be beaten by a player who has spent very little, but happens to have the right cards for that particular battle. Players must spend to progress in general, but matches don’t feel pay to win.

Synchronous PvP

Hearthstone is one of the only successful mobile games to centre on its synchronous PvP experience. Vainglory and others have tried to take this challenge on, but no one else has succeeded except another game backed by a massive desktop IP: World of Tanks Blitz. Hearthstone was in beta on PC 9 months before coming to iPad, and had half a million downloads before it even hit the App Store. This period was essential to give them the critical mass needed to match players with each other at an appropriate level. Without it players would either be facing long wait times every match they played, or getting matched against players of very different skill – either case is a potentially game breaking experience.

Blizzard’s ability to drum up this level of interest in a new game is a testament to their expertise at launching new synchronous PvP games, but absolutely not a reference that other developers can hope to emulate. Without Blizzard’s existing World of Warcraft IP, installed fanbase, community management efforts and PR, the game would have faced a much harder prospect of building the community necessary for critical mass. I do not believe that we will see a synchronous PvP based game successful on mobile without a PC version any time soon.

Conclusion

The success of Hearthstone, combined with how different it is from many other mobile F2P games makes you expect it would have a huge impact on the prevailed design trends in the industry. The pacing system in particular seems superior to the energy systems that are still prevalent in many games. However, the fact that Hearthstone was launched PC first on the back of the huge World of Warcraft brand has allowed a number of other differences that the vast majority of mobile F2P developers cannot hope to emulate.

Let’s take a deep dive into ZeptoLab’s latest game King of Thieves. Launched in February 2015, this game has piqued my interest. While not on the top spot yet, the game’s bold design deserves a look.

In my opinion, this is a game that deserves to be successful. It feels unique and has all the elements that make up a top grossing game. ZeptoLab has taken what works in simulation and strategy games, and applies this to a totally new genre and a completely new target audience.

This approach is what I feel more new game designs should do to be successful on the AppStore.

The Pitch

The pitch for King of Thieves is “Super Meat Boy” combined with “Clash of Clans”.

The core gameplay is a one-button platformer. Your Thief (the little cute black shadow) automatically runs left or right. You can tap to trigger a jump in the current direction. You can also jump off walls to reverse the players direction. ZeptoLab has managed to give classic platformers a mobile makeover. With one-touch controls it feels native on mobile. With simple rules, it feels expressive and gives players plenty of options. The gameplay is simple and is very transparent about what you did wrong each time you die. This creates very addictive core gameplay. 

The object of each level is to reach a treasure chest. Go from “point a” to “point b” by avoiding traps. Hitting a trap will reset your progress right to the beginning. This punishment gives the game the “Super Meat Boy feel”. Reasons for losing are always clear to the player, and there is very little friction to restarting. The player jumps back into the action as soon as they are killed, making it extremely addictive to just keep trying to beat a level.

The meta (the progression systems outside of the core platformer gameplay) is a re-hash of Clash of Clans. They’ve managed to modify the standard Clash of Clans formula into something that works very well with the core platformer gameplay. Just like Clash of Clans, King of Thieves asks the players to manage two layers of gameplay: attacking and defence. On attack, the player plays platformer style levels to steal gold and gems (more on this later). On defense, the player must design a base that defends against other players’ attacks. Players sessions are focused on stealing as much loot from players around the world to upgrade their own abilities.

The Session Loop

To deconstruct, I’d like to focus on session design. To do this, we need to break down the game into its daily action loop: the repetitive actions the player takes to progress in the game. Let’s evaluate each step in regards to how it impacts the way the sessions feel.

Looking back at the post on Flexible Sessions, the key principle of designing sessions is about creating a diminishing curve of value for sessions per day and for session length. Just to reiterate: The first rule is that the first session of the day should feel more impactful than the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time the player returns. By the 5th+ session, this should give minimal value to the player. The second rule is that session length should also have a diminishing curve of value. Eventually a player should naturally feel that returning at a later point in the day would be more beneficial. These two rules make up strong session design.

So how does King of Thieves execute this?

Step 1: Collect Base Rewards

Each day the player begins their session with collecting the rewards from their dungeon:

• Collect gold from their stash. (Optional Short Timer)
  This is a bucket-filling mechanic. Allowing players to collect from the stash as many times as they wish throughout the day.
• Collect gold from successful defences. (Short Timer)
  Making sure players feel good about their defences, players collect gold for every failed attempt by other players in their dungeon. While not a lot of gold, this certainly feels good when you’ve come back after a long absence
• Collect generated gems (Long Timer)
  Gems generate on the map on a longer cycle (multiple hours). 

You can see here that these three reward cycles each have varied timer length, which allows for strong session design. Short timers to value coming back more per day, but longer timers to reward daily play. Using rewards of varying length, the player has a clear diminishing value for returning multiple times throughout the day.

Step 2: Loot Dungeons with Keys

After the player has collected all their rewards, they want to maximize their cash for their current session. There is always the threat that other players in the world will steal any resources they have when they leave the game.

 To do this, players loot other player’s dungeons (PvP levels) or designer-created levels in a map (PvE levels). Player-created levels hold high value gems. Whereas the PvE levels have higher gold rewards (sometimes), unlock new gem generating mines and new dungeons which the player can move to. This system works because both PvE and PvP benefit the player in different ways.

 King of Thieves innovates with their pacing mechanics. Instead of using energy or lives like in most games, they use “Keys”. Keys refill like in most games with time. The key difference is that the amount of energy (or keys) the player needs to spend to enter a level is randomized.

The player chooses locks on a screen with their keys. If they get the right key, they enter the level. If they choose the wrong one, they must spend another key. The game supplies the player with more than the usual amount of energy (10+). However, some levels can use 1 key to enter, others up to 15 keys to enter. Why would ZeptoLab design a system like this?

This system doesn’t please all player types. I’m convinced ZeptoLab benefits more from this system than the player experience. Not an easy choice I’m sure as a designer, but these sacrifices are sometimes necessary in a free to play game.

 From the onset, this system feels arbitrary, just like an energy system. The player’s ability to loot is capped by some tacked on economy. Compared to Clash of Clans, Clash’s pacing mechanics make sense: you will eventually run out of troops to loot opponents. King of Thieves just says you run out of “keys”. Could this be fixed if the player had to “craft” keys in their base? Could this be fixed if the player had to build clones of their shadow player to start looting? Maybe. Overall I’m not a fan of the system, but I understand the benefits for ZeptoLab.

 Because the system is randomized, players can try for one more level even if the player only has 1 or 2 more keys left. If they get lucky, this feels great. They get to play the level with little cost. If they fail, they are presented with this screen:

This screen is a high conversion screen for their video ads. Want to keep trying? Watch a video ad. Video ad revenue is becoming more and more interesting in the mobile free to play space, and I completely understand why ZeptoLab wanted to create a pinch point for this type of system. Players then binge watch some videos to get in that “just one more play” feeling.

On top of converting players with video ads, this type of randomized energy system also creates a nice way to balance harder and harder levels. Players can upgrade their key storage limit to be able to reach higher and higher levels. The higher the level, the more locks that the player must attempt. Also, this can create an interesting session per day value curve. ZeptoLab can use metrics like sessions per day and session length in their decision about how lucky the player is. This may be dubious, but this type of “invisible hand” to guide the session design can be very powerful.

In the end, I’m unsure if this system of randomized keys was the best choice for King of Thieves. The system is a unique design and I’m excited to see what the market thinks of it. Just based on the conversion to video ads, I think this could be something to try for other genres.

Step 3: Upgrade Your Base (or Else!) 

After the player has looted as many dungeons as they could in that session, they may use their found coins to upgrade their dungeon and resource generation. Any coins left over will most likely be stolen, so players attempt to spend every coin they looted. This promotes going for one more looting session, or extending the session to purchase more gold.

Step 4: Fuse Gems

 The key to the meta and progression of the game is fusing of gems. Players collect gems from mines on the world map and by looting other players in the world. The player then takes the gems collected and fuses them in their base.

 Fusing usually takes many hours (3+ hours for a usual gem). During this time the gems in this fusing ritual are open for stealing by other players. This is the most anxiety-inducing timer in the game. A gem will be stolen unless they keep the game open or have amazing defences. I spent about two hours on a weekend keeping the game open while watching movies because I was too afraid to close the app and lose my gems.

So why would players opt-in to this nerve wrecking timer?

Increasing gem value is the goal of King of Thieves. The total value of your gems is how you rank in the game. Players are looking to retain only the highest quality gems (which is shown by a number). However, there are only limited slots the player can have to hold onto gems. So players quickly run out of slots and are forced to fuse gems together to make more slots for higher level gems.

This was a very, very smart design choice by ZeptoLab. This creates a natural cap for progression and creates a lot of very interesting choices for the player. It also creates an obvious high conversion item for monetization: the extra slots for gems. Similar to the builder in Clash of Clans, ZeptoLab has created a high conversion item out of these extra slots. I’m convinced that if they brought this to the forefront and made it cheaper for first time players, this could be a strong conversion item.

Step 5: Optimize Defences

After they’ve completed this loop: collect, attack, upgrade, fuse… what’s left?

 Just like in Clash of Clans, players can extend their sessions by optimizing their dungeons defence layout and adjust the positions of traps. This comes with one caveat: the player must be able to beat their own level twice… in a row.

This definitely creates a session extension. I’ve spent well over a half an hour trying to create the optimal dungeon design. All this time was not incentivized by the game, but I wanted the best layout possible. This is exactly what you want to create in your session design. A session extender that players can take as little or as much time with as they wish. The value diminishes over time.

What King of Thieves did right: Social Pressure Mechanics

ZeptoLab shows an excellent example of how to add effective social mechanics to a game. Asking players for help to retrieve lost gems creates social pressure. I feel good about helping my friends, I enjoy when my friends help me out when I’m less active. I rely on my friends to help me optimize my fusing timers. The value of having active friends is apparent.

 The league system creates a nice PvP environment with a clear reason to collect gems. Instead of feeling like I’m levelling up just based on some arbitrary number the designer has created for me (ex. collect 5000 gem value in 5 days), I’m competing against a living breathing opponent. I have to be engaged to compete, and the number is always growing so I never feel safe about my position. Sometimes I wish there were ways to specifically steal from other players on the leaderboard you were competing in. This would really drive up the competition.

King of Thieves also uses the same idea of clans in Clash of Clans. King of Thieves wants you to join a Guild. While the system is clearly in its infancy, it shows a commitment by ZeptoLab to the future of the game. Guilds are what will really drive the long term retention, and including it in the global launch was important. The mechanics at this point are still too early, but in the coming months I expect that ZeptoLab will build from this base and make very competitive play between Guilds stealing gems from each other. I hope they find a way that Guild members can work together on a dungeon or a raid. It would also be interesting to incentivize Guilds to put their most valuable gems in a vulnerable position. This will really drive competitive gameplay between the Guilds and give a collective goal.

What King of Thieves could improve: Hardcore Skill

 In the translation of the Clash of Clans metagame to Super Meat Boy style mechanics, something fundamental was lost. Because platformer gameplay is inherently so skill-based, the translation still feels like a massive amount of skill is required to win.

 Clash of Clans (as discussed before) although it requires some mix of stats and skill, the main determinate to win each fight is Stats. If you have an amazing army, you are going to win. If you have spent a ton of time (or money), you will be able to dominate against an opponent lower than you. As you defeat more of these easier players, you will be matched higher and higher in the leaderboards. This will demand more skill, but mostly more stats. This system allows players to “hover” around matchmade opponents that challenge their skill level, but still require high stats. Even if I’m terrible at selecting where my troops go, I’m still progressing, and I may be lower on the leaderboard compared to other players at my stat-level, but I still am progressing.

King of Thieves is never flexible over the amount of skill it requires from players. As you progress in the game, it keeps demanding more and more skill from its player base. As a result, the game feels very hardcore. The players that reach the end game are a smaller and smaller niche of highly skilled players. Why does this happen?

As the game progresses, players slowly get harder and harder obstacles they can place in their dungeon. In order to set up a dungeon that is difficult, the player has to beat it themselves. As a result of this system, unless a player is highly skilled, their dungeon, regardless of the defences, will remain at the same low level of skill-difficulty. There is no way for a player to increase their defence without actually being far better at the platforming game.

There are some stats that affect the game: the damage of the obstacles, your shadow’s equipment and armour, the amount of keys you have, etc. But these stats clearly take less of a precedence over the skill. In my opinion, there are some levels that you just need high skill. So as you progress in the game, no matter how much time or money you’ve put into the game, you will reach levels that it doesn’t have an impact if you don’t have the skill. There is no “hovering” in the matchmaking that allows players to feel progress regardless of skill. Players with low skill will feel it: they are punished by losing levels very often.

This is most likely an artifact of trying to combine a high-skill genre (Super Meat Boy) with Clash of Clans. While this pushes away players that are expecting a lower skill level, I think it also engages the highly skilled players even more. The tradeoff between a highly engaged niche target audience and a flexible broad audience appeal is incredibly difficult to get right.

The Results:

On launch, the app was featured by Apple. This drove hundreds of thousands of downloads, but has yet to crack the Top 100 US Grossing. Can it get there? This will be an extremely tough. After a featuring, the only way to drive the necessary volume to reach the Top Grossing Chart is to purchase installs. This is extremely costly.

However, the game supports very strong early day retention and with more work can improve their long term retention. With continual improvements, this game has a chance to reach a stable position in the Top 250 Grossing.

Personally, I’m cheering for ZeptoLab. This design is refreshing. I had the feeling that the mobile free to play space is even more risk-averse than the console/pc space. This feels like a step in the right direction. This is a game ZeptoLab should be proud to have worked on. I hope other game developers can look at this example on how to innovate in new genres

 

More and more games now are adding modes where players no longer even need to play.

Players can simply open up the app, start a round, flip a switch, then put their phone down. The AI will make all their decisions. The AI will have all the fun while the player waits for the virtual reward at the end of the round.

At first glance, this is worrying. This turns the game into a Skinner box. Tap the button, wait, get a reward. Where is the fun in that?
Instead of making the core battle so boring that auto-mode is necessary, shouldn’t designers seek to add more depth to the battle?

No.

Focusing design on in-depth core game mechanics is a losing battle.
Focusing on making long-term decisions more interesting is a much better strategy for free to play games.

Battles are the Hook

In the RPG Genre, having an interesting battle mechanic provides the hook for the game. This is what draws players in and immerses them in the world. If I have no option of control, then this isn’t really a game.

When a player starts a battle, they expect to make choices and see their impact. Having novel mechanics in the battle provides early players with a new experience that they have never had before. As seen above, in Summoner’s War, in the beginning, you have choices for each of your players of where they need to attack. This is engaging at first, but quickly goes stale. This isn’t the focus of the game.

Secondly, it really showcases the artwork. Your artwork sets the expectations right from the beginning. A player is only willing to invest in games that feel polished, exciting and professional. Making sure that players experience as much exciting battles in the beginning is important.

However, as they play many battles, inevitably the mechanic will get boring. Inevitably the artwork will get repetitive. There are few games in the history of game design that have ever managed to keep a core game mechanic interesting thousands of times repeatedly (ex. Tetris, Chess, Collectable Card Games). Especially in a non-multiplayer context, in a casual game, and even more in a mobile context where the interaction complexity possible is limited. In theory this could be done, but it would be incredibly difficult.

So how do you keep the gameplay interesting for the long haul while still allowing for a great initial experience?

Bitcoin Billionaire

Bitcoin Billionaire is in a weird genre. I’m not really sure how to label it… It’s part simulation, but mostly an “Endless Progression” style game. Your goal is to try to collect as many Bitcoins as possible by tapping the screen.

Initially there is the appeal of just madly tapping on the screen. Each tap gets you 1 Bitcoin. You strum your fingers across your ipad watching your money go up. You’re so good at this!

But after about 30 seconds this starts to become a bore (also your fingers are getting tired!). So now the game starts to push you into making investments: earn Bitcoins while you’re not tapping.

What this does is ease the player away from a newly-boring core mechanic into something much more interesting: managing investments and optimizing the rate of progression. Bitcoin Billionaire has done an excellent bait and switch: you came for the tapping, but now you are addicted to buying income sources. Cookie Clicker, Make it Rain, Clicker Heroes and Bitcoin Billionaire are four excellent examples of games that have managed to ease a player from a boring core mechanic into something that is much more interesting in the long haul.

This transition is exactly what all games need to deliver for successful long term retention. So how do we add this to other genres?
Auto-battle is how its been added to the RPG genre. Eventually the game recognizes that making choices in the battle is no longer interesting. The bait and switch becomes making the choices outside the battle more interesting than the battle itself.

But Auto-Battle isn’t a trivial system to add. Like all design decisions it comes with benefits and consequences.
There are 2 questions to ask if an Auto-battle system will work with your game:

Session Design: Auto-Battle or Job system?

Auto-Battle as a system essentially means that a player will make a choice about which “dungeon” to enter, then leave their phone on and come back to it after a few minutes.

Is this valuable to your session design? Players just opening your app for long periods of time? It will effect your KPIs — your session length will go up. But is that really what you want in the design? Successful games push players to return to the game often throughout the day and focus on meaningful choices. So why demand that they keep the app open during the battle?

Job Systems in games have been around for quite awhile. They reached a peak with games like MafiaWars in the early days of Facebook. A player would send their units on Jobs. Tap a button, and the unit would be disabled for a limited time. When the time was up, the rewards for the action were given. This was a nice appointment mechanic that allowed players to opt-in to coming back to the game. If the game was only job systems however, the game grew stale. But what if a Job System replaced the need for auto-battle?

What may be more interesting is asking the player to make a choice: Do I send my fighters out without my control for 5 minutes, then return with the loot? Or do I think the AI will mess up this battle, so I should do it manually for the next 10 minutes? This way players can make a choice whether to end their session and come back later, or improve their chances of winning by playing the actual battles manually.

Is there enough depth outside of the battle?

If the game is really distilled down to a few taps each day this can get boring quickly.
Grinding for rewards and items is only fun when there is significant complexity and depth to collecting items.
By adding auto-battle in the game, this will put much more stress on your long-term meta mechanics. Do your players have enough interesting decisions outside the battle that will last for months?

Summoner’s War has Relics to provide interesting decisions in how you upgrade your players. Brave Frontier has the boosting and fusing mechanic which provides years of collection and interesting long-term trade-offs. Many games have a very in-depth loot system which makes for interesting decisions choosing which gear to keep.

However, even with a strong loot system with collection, players need an indicator of progress. They need to be immersed in your setting, story and game. Having an auto-mode is great, as long as eventually players will be pushed to an epic boss battle. A battle that surprises them, challenges them, and maybe even progresses the story. This will be necessary wrapper around the grinding that makes it all worth it. These auto-battles end up building anticipation to something new and exciting for the player.

In the end auto-battle lets players focus on the choices and decisions that matter to them, no matter what stage of the game they are in.

Mobile Session Design defines a game’s ability to pace its content and create strong long term retention. It’s one of the biggest indicators for a game’s long term success. I’ve spoken about a number of considerations you need to have when designing sessions:

Firstly, you need to ensure your initial user flow into the game allows players “Easy In”. They quickly understand what they need to do, and how to accomplish it.

Secondly, sessions need an “Easy Out”. Players need to slowly and subtly be prodded to leave the game to ensure they don’t burn through your content or burn out in interest too quickly.

Thirdly, you need to ensure during a player’s session they are making commitments to come back. Driving strong re-engagement and creating habits to return.

Lastly, I spoke about allowing players to return to the game naturally in search of surprising content or offers. Ensuring your game has cycling content throughout the day to pull players back like the masters of session design: Facebook and Twitter.

With these components you can build strong sessions that will last for months, even years.

To bring it all together, now it is about making these components feel natural and unrestrictive to the player.

The Problem with Energy

When it comes to session design in free to play, the natural tendency is to add an energy mechanic. Energy is a cheap and simple way to pace players. They come into the game, have full energy and can only spend a specific amount of it before its time for the player to leave. Later on in the day, they receive a push notification telling them that their energy has refilled, they can play again! When completely depleted, energy can be purchased to play a few extra sessions, although energy is no longer is really an effective monetization mechanic.

Energy has always been a tacked on mechanic in many games. It’s an aging industry standard that players are pushing back against. Players now demand that games don’t feel nearly as restrictive towards when and how they play.

So what is the real issue with Energy?

Issue #1: Energy gives an abrupt end of the session with no commitment

Energy was necessary to create the “Easy Out”: giving a players a reason to leave, and giving a strong reason to come back. However, this is not a player commitment — this is just them running out of a pacing currency and now having to wait for it to return. Players don’t make a an opt-in commitment to return to the game when their energy runs out, instead they just feel they are being prevented from playing for no reason. Energy thus has a strong stigma, and I’ve seen large drops in user funnels when players realise their sessions are being controlled by such an arbitrary economy.

Issue #2: Energy has communication issues

Energy sometimes just doesn’t make sense in a game’s theme. It costing energy to do every action feels weird. In previous social gaming environments this was the standard, but in today’s mature mobile market energy being tacked on doesn’t translate well.

Lives are taking some precedence in match 3 games or skill based mobile games. This makes some sense and translates well. If you fail, you lose a life. It’s been a staple of the Arcade. It has meaning and players feel like they have an impact on how long their sessions will last.

I am convinced Lives remained a staple in even modern Nintendo’s design because it created this “Easy Out”. Giving a players a reason to walk away from a game when they were getting too frustrated by it. This made sure they would return another day to try again.

Issue #3: Energy doesn’t pace engaged players

Energy works because it allows for many play sessions per day. With short refill timers for lives, player can keep coming back throughout the day with full lives and try again. However, since simulation games push players into much longer timers for benefits, simulation can pace their content a lot better. In the long run, a city building system is much better at pacing its content than an energy structure.

Pacing content with energy is difficult because highly engaged players can come back 20 times per day and have full benefit. The optimal would be that their benefit for returning would slowly taper off instead of grow in a linear way. So a hyper engaged player wouldn’t blow ahead in the content compared to an average player.

What ends up happening in a game like Candy Crush is that you have to balance your games to ensure that regardless of engagement level, a player gets new content in a controlled, steady flow. But with energy and allowing players to come back with full benefit throughout the day, designers can end up pacing content for way too long for the average player. Conversely, they could just not care about these hyper engaged players ripping through their content and allow them to progress quickly. Yet these are your super fans — these are the players that would gladly pay you if given the opportunity!

What Flexible Session Design looks like

The optimal Session design will seek to pace Benefit vs Sessions per Day and Session Length in this manner :

A graph which the growth rate slows over time. The benefit for playing 10 sessions per day is higher than 1, but it grows at a much slower rate. Also for session length: Playing for 2 minutes has great benefit. Playing for 6 minutes has more, but grows at a slower rate. This is optimal for keeping players growth controlled, while still encouraging strong re-engagement.

Boom Beach’s Sessions

Boom Beach have one of the best mobile sessions around.

Boom Beach follows the rule that the first session of the day is the strongest: your longer timers (buildings) have completed and you collect a majority of your resources.

Some players can come back a second time that day and get a similar benefit. Yet as the game grows these timers get longer which makes the second session less beneficial.

The benefit of coming back beyond this is mostly just to battle. This is the funnest part of the game. This can give some big currency rewards and random rare drops. However, the more you raid other player’s bases, the more likely it is that you will be raided. This makes the benefit taper off as the day continues.

Clash of Clans even has a mechanic if you are active in the game, no one can attack you. This strongly recommends re-engagement for players that are paranoid about their resources, but because the game is still paced, they aren’t progressing fast when they come back for these “defensive” sessions.

So this works for Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, but how do I apply it to other genres? Especially other genres that don’t have a town building or simulation component?

Idea #1: The longer you play, the harder it gets

Smash Cops Wanted Level is a good example of a flexible energy mechanic. Each time the player plays a round, their wanted level increases (similar to GTA). This means each subsequent time they play the game will get more and more difficult. 1) This makes complete sense given the nature of the game. 2) It allows the illusion of allowing the player to play forever :

Idea #2: Separate playing and progressing

Hearthstone does this beautifully where they really allow players to come and play as much as they want, but the currency is only tied to completed missions. Missions regenerate the next day.

Of course this only works if you are confident core mechanic can last this long. This is a feat only very few designs have pulled off. I’ve only really seen it in Trading Card Games and MOBAs (ex. DOTA or League of Legends). If you believe even the most engaged players won’t bore of your core after playing it constantly for months, then you can consider opening it up without restriction. Especially if you’re going after a more core or traditional gamer audience which is outspokenly negative towards obvious timers or energy mechanics.

Idea #3: Take a bet on your skill

A combination of lives and a randomly generated level list is a good way for players to manage their own sessions and prevent session burnout.

As I spoke about before, a game can allow for a list of missions to be randomly generated. Each has a different tradeoff between risk and reward given the player’s current level in the game. This list is regenerated on a quick timer, so players can always come back to the game to search for “deals” on which level to pick on this list. Which level do I think I can beat, that will give me the best reward?

They make the call whether they go for broke on a difficult level or go for grinding missions with significantly less reward. You can subtly control the drop rate of these types of levels to ensure that players aren’t going to get too many grinding levels and exploiting the session design this way.

With the life mechanic, players are adequately punished for losing a level. Adding urgency and making this a really interesting decision. Plus, with the “Shopping for levels” mechanic, the player has reason to come back throughout the day but is still restricted from always getting what they need.

Keeping your sessions flexible will make the game feel much less restrictive. This in turn will really make players feel that your game is something that will adapt to when and how they want to play. This attitude will turn into strong play sessions per day and much stronger longer term retention.

Continuing from my last post, I’d like to dive deeper into driving re-engagement on mobile.

Driving long term retention continues to be the focus for mobile free to play developers. As marketing costs for launching titles continues to hit new highs, it becomes more and more important to retain players over the long haul.

The first strategy for driving players to come back for a long time is about designing your game’s features so that players are committed to returning. Players activate timers to trigger a notification in a few hours. Players could also push another friend to play a round, then receive a notification when its their turn to play again. These evoke a very “explicit” session design. There are push notifications always notifying you when you need to come back to the game. Very obvious reasons to return to the game.

But this is exhausting and can lead to very structured session designs that don’t bend around a players life. It also gets really tiring, very fast. Players getting notifications in the middle of the night, feeling like in order to play optimally they need to return.

As a result, explicit push notifications are fine for triggering 1-3 sessions per day. However, any more than this and the game just turns into an annoying Tamagotchi and players will break away from your game.

But 1-3 sessions per day frankly isn’t enough for free to play games. Looking into some industry data from Digi-Capital, we can see the importance of Sessions per day and its correlation with hitting the top grossing :

Hitting a strong session per day count is a very good indicator for a top grossing game. So how do we design a game that pulls the player back very often?

Learn from the Masters: Facebook & Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are the clear winners on mobile for sessions per day.

But Why?  What is driving us back?

There are direct messages and notifications — people post about us or message us. This provides the “explicit” notifications. Players return because they are committed socially to reply to these messages and look at their notifications.

But why do we open up facebook every time we’re in line at the grocery story? Even when there are no notifications on the phone? Why do we pick up twitter every time we have a boring break in a conversation?

Because of the news feed. Because there is always something to check, always a hope that something new is going on.

Throughout the day the content on both of these networks is changing rapidly. A user can come back once a day, five times a day or a hundred times a day and still get enjoyment. This is what mobile free to play needs to strive for.

Going Deal Hunting

Alright, so game design can’t provide the same amount of new content and surprises that a social network can. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t hit the same level.

A first great example of creating this session design feeling is cycling content in shops.

For shops, you don’t have all the items available at all times. Some of the best moments using the store in Borderlands or Diablo was when the store had the exact item that I wanted on sale or for a deal. If your design supports a huge possible library of items to sell, then a cycling shop is a must. Highly engaged players feel great finding deals on items that were previously too high. Players always have hope coming into the game that there might be the solution to their problems available in the shop for a deal. In short: the shop provides a feeling of something new and interesting that could change their fortunes. If the cycle is short enough, and the deals good enough, this can really push players to come back throughout the day. It also adds urgency to purchasing behaviour — each deal feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Of course we’ve seen this behaviour in other forms as well. Ebay, Craigslist, and Steam Sales are great inspiration for creating a store that really pushes players to come back constantly to go deal shopping.

Also, this cycling can create some other interesting monetization mechanics. You don’t want to come back throughout the day? You really want to find that item quickly? Then pay some currency to refresh the store. You can see this in the recent Backflip game, “SpellFall”.

Shopping for Level Design

Of course this constant cycling isn’t limited to just in-game shops. This same mentality can be applied to your progression system or matchmaking system.

Let’s take for example a game like Boom Beach. What would happen if you only have 10 opponents you could play per hour. Every hour, the full list is refreshed. Players then would shop the deals on this board. This hour, which of these opponents are the easiest to beat and provide the best reward? Then each hour they return and search for the “deals” on this board which will help them progress. This could be a great replacement for the current system where players feel like they are matched with extremely difficult opponents and can only progress by grinding the PvE computer levels, greatly reducing the importance of PvP in the game.

Having levels that cycle and change throughout the day is a way to add interesting choices a PvE or level based game. Puzzle and Dragons have Event dungeons for very limited time. Making these more central to the daily grind and progression is a great way to add more interesting choices and pull the player back more often.

For trading and resource based games, having customers that have random requirements and give random rewards cycling throughout the day is an easy way to add excitement.

Hay Day most likely didn’t add this because it makes setting long term goals very difficult for players. Players can’t predict if making bread for the next hour or milk is the right choice. So of course this has to be balanced with ensuring the player always has a clear deal they are going for, but can find interesting deals along the way to speed up their progress.

Your goal as a designer at the end of the day is to get players to come back for multiple sessions per day. Allow players to feel smart about taking advantage of one-time offer deals that progress them faster. This will make your game feel much more alive — it’s constantly changing, and a player can’t predict what the optimal path to completing the game will be. Progression will not be linear and boring. How often you need to grind, how many rounds you need to complete before you can beat the next boss isn’t laid out in front of you.

Most importantly — you will always have a reason to come back to the game.

Why does a player want to come back to your game?

As a mobile game designer, you need to come up with a very compelling answer. Creating a polished, addictive game is half the battle. You need to find ways to nudge your players to come back to the game after they have left. Designing your game around pulling your player back in is the critical battle on mobile.

So what games are good at pulling players back in? Not necessarily the games with the best mechanics.

Looking at the top ranks on the AppStore, it is inevitable as a traditional game designer that you will look at some of these games and be baffled at how they could possibly be so addicting and have so much traction. The player enters the game and collects simple rewards (which require no strategic input from the player). These actions levels up the player using archaic RPG mechanics, then the player quickly leaves. While it is easy to point and spot flaws, it is also important to recognize why these mechanics work on mobile. Specifically, these games allow the player to enter and exit the game very quickly. The player comes in, knows exactly what they need to do, quickly makes their strategic moves, and then leave to carry on with their daily lives. The game is adaptive to the player’s life, it allows them to complete a clear bite-sized section of gameplay within 30 seconds, and is clearly built with mobile in mind.

Yet despite how little time they are actually in the game, they are immersed in this environment while they are not even playing. While outside of the game, players commonly think of what they are going to do next, they plan out their long term goals, and rethink their strategy of their previous sessions. Even when the progression is fairly linear (for example, Cookie Clicker). This is an incredibly powerful technique that is a driving force of why these mobile games are so addicting. This is partially why FarmVille got its edge when it did, and why mobile games with similar mechanics continue to gain traction on Mobile platforms. So as a game designer, before you look to point flaws and discredit games that use these mechanics, challenge yourself to create a deep, immersive game mechanic which allows the player to obsess while they are away.

There are 3 strategies that help drive re-engagement on mobile :

1. Building player commitments
2. Always have reasons to return
3. Flexible session design

Today I am only going to write about one: Player Commitments. The remaining two will follow in future blog posts.

Building Player Commitments

The most basic and impactful way to drive players to return after they have left your game is to push players to make a commitment to return before they leave the app.

The most well understood example of this is the farming crop mechanic. A player “plants” an object in your game, and chooses which contract they want: do they come back in 5 minutes for a little bit of crop, or in 4 hours for a large harvest. Regardless of which length they choose, they’ve made a commitment to return to the game.

Many social game designers have different takes on this method. It has been overused by farming style games, but it should not be underestimated for its value. If you manage to make the player care about coming back, this will drive re-engagement.

It is important to understand the difference between Opt-In commitments and opt-out commitments. A player should be able to select and commit to a selection of times to come back. They should not be forced into a specific time. There is distinct reasoning in allowing players to schedule their game around their life. If you take that control away from the player, then the mechanic fails to be a commitment, it just becomes an annoyance.

Adding Timers

If you use time-based commitments (or timers in general) it is important that you set the expectations correctly from the beginning. Timers should be only included in actions that are innately expected by the user. Repair times, travel times, investigation times are good examples of this. In reality, these actions take time, so of course the game will add a timer this.

Also ensure that timers are consistent — if starting an action sometimes has a timer and sometimes does not, this can really set users off.

Lastly timers should not be added for every action of the game — namely it should only be added to areas that build excitement and anticipation. Adding timers to the end of an action loop is best. For example a player collects resources and then triggers building a structure. Or in Dragonvale when a player ends their loop with breeding two dragons :

Dragonvale does this superbly with the breeding timer. Engaged players know that long timers are exciting! The longer the timer, the better the dragon. This makes the timers feel great, and is added in an area that boosts the anticipation — finding out what’s in the egg.

Social Commitments

Timers are not the only way to pull players back. The current market is becoming more and more apprehensive about this type of mechanic. Instead of using time-based commitments, Social commitment is another angle that many games use.

Building a mechanic that revolves around active players collaborating, competing and communicating with each other can drive re-engagement.

Asynchronous Multiplayer

 

Asynchronous multiplayer is best found in games like Words with Friends, Draw Something and Tap Sports Baseball. They are games that revolve around social interactions between players. Each player makes a move in the game, then waits on their friend to make the next move. This has huge benefits for retention and virality. Players are prodding their friends in real life and through mobile push notifications to continue playing. Each time the player returns they have a set of games, ready to play.

 

The downside is that you physically can not play this mode unless you have friends that also own the game. This is the reason why these games are predominantly free, and also why they commonly take a long time to take off. The game only gets popular when a lot of players are playing it around the same time. Tap Sports and the New Words with friends have added new ways to start interacting with random strangers in the game. Not as engaging as playing with your real-life friends, but still better than playing with no one.

Challenges and Gifts

Depending on the nature of your game, a similar social connection to asynchronous multiplayer is the idea of challenges or gifts.

Gifts, like being able to send rewards to other players, is an easy way for players to push each other to play. This is not nearly as powerful as asynchronous multiplayer, but it does show some “social proof” that others are playing the game. The major benefit on mobile is that it can send a message to the other player. Popping up on their screen to rejoin the game.

Challenges can also be implemented as a “competitive gift”. Essentially players challenge another player to beat their score. This is a great way to push high score mechanics to be a bit more social. Players compete in one-time challenges and aim to defeat their friends as often as they can. A great idea is to incentivize this. Blend a bit more of a “gift” into the idea. So actually push players to challenge each other, and receive a reward regardless of winning or losing. This way players will push each other to play for quicker access to the rewards.

Social Leaderboards

Leaderboards are not a new concept. It is basically a must-have with any standard game. Most players do not pay attention to them.

But that is only if you chose it not to be their focus.

Social Leaderboards can really be used as a mechanic to pull players back in.

If your game revolves around a central leaderboard, then you can use social notifications to make players very protective of their rank. When Player A beats Player B, make sure Player A can send B a nasty note, saying how terrible they are at the game. Make sure Player B can receive that note on their device, they will immediately come back into the game and play until they can push themselves back up the leaderboard. This can be a hugely compelling mechanic if built right. This focuses on more engaged users, and more casual audiences may be turned away if this is completely the focus.

One key issue happens when a leaderboard has no expiry. A player reaches an amazing score one week, but then never has to return to the game ever again since no one can beat them. It is far better to make your leaderboards expire, so that the winners have to return to claim their crow. A weekly “tournament” leaderboard is a great way for a player to be engaged on a real time basis.

 

Overall there are many more ways to build player commitments. Here I’ve spoken about two types that are common in games: Time based commitments and Social based commitments.

Regardless of how you design and what you choose, be sure to ask yourself during play testing:

Is there a compelling reason for our players to return to the game in the future?
Have players made a commitment to the game before leaving to encourage them to return?

In my next post I’ll discuss more “implicit” features that can drive re-engagement. It doesn’t always have to be about Timers or Social features. Looking at the most popular applications like Facebook and Twitter will give you a strong idea about how to drive players to want to return to your game multiple times per day.

Why is it that in the Top Grossing Charts on mobile there are no games with high amounts of player skill?

Where are the Marios? The games that tested your abilities right to the last boss?
Where are the Call of Duties? Games that allow you to play competitively online for hundreds of hours?
Where are the Street Fighters? Games with so much emergence and depth there are books on how to master the controls for the game…

Mobile renditions of these genres may have found a way to get a decent amount of downloads, but none of them have found a sustained spot on the Top Grossing.

Why?

In order to be successful in free to play you need to pace a player’s progression so that they can play your game for months.
For a game to enforce slow progression for all player types,  you need to be able to balance with high precision.

The more player skill effects the outcome of your game – the harder it is to balance for optimal monetization.

How Candy Crush handles Skill

If Candy Crush was balanced to have less luck and more skill, the game wouldn’t be nearly as successful.

For one, it would not have broad appeal. Players without the necessary skill levels would drag behind and leave because of the difficulty, while players of high skill would rip through the content without spending a dime.

But the major reason why Candy Crush Saga is successful is the way that the game paces its content. Candy Crush has a lot of levels, but with 300+ levels, it still takes you months of engaged play to even dent the map. This stalled speed of progression is exactly what is required to be successful in Mobile Free to Play. A game that lasts for months (better yet, years) with a healthy pace of content to keep players engaged. This drives a strong long term retention: a large percentage of players returning to the game after hundreds of days. This KPI is the most important measure when evaluating a games success, we have seen this time and time again at Wooga.

So how does King do it? How do they pace the content so well so that players only reach the 100th level after playing for a month? They do this by varying up the difficulty. The difficulty of levels is not a steady linear increase like in most classic games. Level 55 is not necessarily easier than level 56, level 100 is not necessarily easier than level 200. In Candy Crush (and all of the games that copied the formula thereafter) there are levels that are meant to be easy, and levels that are meant to be hard. A set of levels are designed as easy to make sure that you have moments when you are loving the game and feeling smart/powerful. However, there are also levels that happen more sporadically which ramp up the difficulty exponentially. These levels are “blocking” levels — they are there to be extremely difficult. These levels are required to convert players to payers (give them reasons to use all those boosts), reinforce that the game is not a cakewalk, and that level progression should be celebrated, (see twitter…) but mostly so that there are levels which have to be played over and over and over and over again before you progress – pacing the content.

Florian Steinhoff did a wonderful GDC presentation about this exact balance when he discussed Jelly Splash. I’d really recommend watching it if you have vault access.

The problem facing game designers looking to create new genres in Free to Play comes back to Player Skill. How do you build these blocking levels that are so important to your retention & monetization? If a player has a huge influence on the result of the round (whether they progress or not) then balancing for a skilled player versus an unskilled gamer would be impossible. I can beat the new Super Mario Bros. in a few hours, it takes others with less experience years to do the same. How Candy Crush builds these levels is by making the chance of winning, regardless of your skill, low. Like 5 to 10% (sometimes I’ve heard numbers even lower). But isn’t this frustrating? No! Since the game has so little skill (in comparison to other genres), they can balance these levels to make sure that players consistently come close to reaching the goal. Those near misses everyone talks about. These keep the player feeling like they can beat the level, they just need to play a few more times or convert. With higher player skill, this becomes much more difficult to achieve.

Super Mario Saga

So let’s go with a little bit of an experiment. Let’s take a game that has high amounts of skill and try to pace it without resorting to “dumbing down” the mechanics.

Super Mario is a game everyone loves – lets assume (for this experiment) that you could actually get the same level of control and ease of use out of a mobile version of Mario.

To play the game, the player progresses along a map, working between worlds which have unique content in each world. It takes months of time for artists, designers and developers to build each world. We need to try to make this amount of content last for months in the hands of players as well.

First off – we ramp up the difficulty on some levels like Candy Crush did. This will prevent players from progressing too quickly and force them to master the game. However, then we’d have a retention issue. The game only appeals to a small niche, and most players are dropping out because the game is too punishing and unrewarding to play.

So let’s add an upgrade system! You collect coins from playing, and then you can use those to improve the runners abilities to pass those levels. For unskilled players – they can grind on previous levels if they need the boost, but now they can progress! Games like CSR and Deer Hunter do this very well. Players can upgrade their weapons or car to improve their chances of winning. Blocking levels are directly tied to your upgrade level, and grinding is a core part of the game loop. However, in our Mario game we start to get some issues. Compared to CSR and Deer Hunter, there is substantially more skill in our game. So a player beating a level has a lot more to do with their current skill level than over how much they’ve upgraded. Those blocking levels are not forcing you to upgrade at all, it’s just demanding more skill. So in the end we have no control over the pace of skilled players, and unskilled players are forced to grind. No fun.

Here in the bottom right you can see the recommended gear for completing a level. In order to actually ensure a player NEEDS this upgrade — you need to make sure their skill isn’t overpowered and they can beat the level regardless.

What else can we do?

Games like Hearthstone and Diamond Dash are games of high skill and have performed very well in the Top Grossing charts. These games use Multiplayer PvP to control the player skill.

Tying PvP (Multiplayer) to your progression is one way that high skill games can pace their content. Ranked Mode in Hearthstone is an excellent example of how to do this. You may be a highly skilled player, but matching you against an equally skilled player and tying the result of this match to your progression allows High Skill games to balance out.

Games like Brave Frontier put most of their Skill into the decisions made in the metagame/elder game. The skill from Brave Frontier is not in the battle. Players are asked to mindlessly tap to fight against opponents. In later stages they even have an automated mode when you bore from mindlessly tapping. The skill in Brave Frontier comes from the choices you make as a player about which monsters/fighters you want to upgrade and which ones you take away. These types of mechanics certainly take much longer for players to appreciate and master, but in the end these are the mechanics that drive players to play these games for months rather than put the game down because they’ve bored of the core mechanic.

Takeaways

So what’s your take away? You can say two things –

1. I’m going to be that crazy game designer that cracks this nut. I’m going to go out and design a game with high skill that will dominate the marketplace that has strong retention and amazing monetization to shoot up the top grossing.

2. Or I will sit back with most free to play designers and continue to find ways to subtly water down skill based mechanics so that we can keep players in the game long enough to monetize and turn them into dedicated players.

I strongly believe that the mobile marketplace is maturing. The current marketplace is slowly demanding more skill from their games. Players are becoming fed up with re-hashed mechanics from a couple years ago. Players can see through Candy Crush’s mechanics and are not sticking to these types of games like they used to.

Finding ways to smartly add skill to games will be the key to opening up new genres on mobile.