It’s happened. F2P Mobile is now officially triple A. The major publishers have all put more focus on mobile than on console. (see Bethesda, Nintendo and Konami)

Now we are also starting to see high budget games climb on the top grossing charts.

If you still believe that the AppStore can still have indie success on the Top Grossing, the stakes are rising. Games from now on will need significant investments in their visuals on top of having a strong economy design to succeed.

The proof of triple-A F2P is “Marvel Contest of Champions” by Kabam. Showing their recent commitment to working closely with Hollywood, they’ve brought both AAA visual standards and a strong license to mobile. As a result the game has been downloaded by over 30 million people and taken a dominant spot in the Top 25 grossing:

But is this game just all glam, but no substance? Can Marvel sustain in the Top Grossing?

The Pitch

Kabam’s approach for Contest of Champions was clear: Take “Injustice: Gods Among Us” and, apply it to a new license. On top of having the license, take learnings from Kabam’s other games and improve the economy design, multiplayer, and ensure that events are strongly tied to its core.

Its a simple premise, but Kabam’s secret formula of events, multiplayer gameplay and monetization is a powerful force. They’ve proven this before with the Hobbit’s mobile game and the Fast and the Furioius mobile game.

Injustice: Gods Among Us was a game released in March 2013 by DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Its essentially a very simple fighting game at its core with a collectible card game as its meta.

Both Injustice and Contest of Champions are similar to Idle games where it really gives players a “bait and switch”. Based on the screen shots you’d think this was the next Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. But after the first battle you quickly get introduced to the true intention of the game : collecting the characters and upgrading them. You came for the 3D fighting mechanic, but are quickly hooked in the long haul to collecting the characters.

The Core : Back to Basics

Comparing Injustice to Marvel Contest, Marvel has simpler controls, easier strategy, and much shorter battles. Injustice focuses on building up a combo enough to do a quick-time-event (“Swipe to knock down opponent”) whereas Marvel is more about building up a sustained combo of attacks of choosing whether to jab (which can be defended) or go for a heavy attack which can break defenses.

Fights are much shorter because they’ve cut out the 3v3 battle. Its 1 on 1 like original fighting games with victory based on the first KO.

Overall I believe the changes make the game better for mobile. Its easier to play and the fights are quicker. This allows players to complete sessions in less time and spend more time in the metagame. However, moving from 3v3 sacrifices some of the strategy in the battle. As a result battles quickly grow pretty tedious, which puts more pressure on the metagame to keep the strategy.

So how did Marvel fill the gap in the Meta?

Unlike Gods Among Us, Kabam also chose to focus on elemental types. This adds more strategy to choosing which hero you bring to different fights. Also to make sure that the simple 1v1 fights don’t push players to collect and invest in only 1 hero, they added elemental types which push players to collect heroes of each element.

Each element has a strength and a weakness. So each time the player enters a match, they run the risk of facing up against an enemy which is their weakness. This adds strategy to choosing who you bring along and making sure you have a spread of different strong heroes for each type.

Bringing this all together, Kabam really pushes players to be strategic outside the battle. So when you’re playing a online match, players are invited to strategize about which fighter they want to play against an opponent:

Note here that the Scarlet Witch shouldn’t be paired up against Hulk. The player  should try to find a better matchup.

The Meta : Gacha for the West

This is really where Contest of Champions gets interesting. At the metagame layer, the game delivers on the licensee’s strengths. There are a ton of different Marvel heroes to collect, each of which has their own, stylized 3D model.

Each character feels unique. Each character looks beautiful. As a fan of Marvel, you’re really driven to collect your favorite heroes. However, this is where the monetization and retention come in. To get your favorite hero, you need to get lucky in the Gacha system.

This Gacha system is embodied in the Crystal Vault :

Crystals are a currency that is used to give a random reward. Crystals are earned through timers (daily, every few hours), through play (multiplayer or single player) or from purchase. Each time the player completes one of those actions, they are pulled into the Crystal Storage screen. From here, they can open up a random reward within: A resource or sometimes a new character. Here is an example of a player opening up a crystal:

These Crystals are the most important design decision that Kabam made.

There are 3 reasons for this:

#1: Each time the player earns a crystal, they are brought back to the Crystal Vault

Each time they complete the actions needed for the crystal, they are brought back to the storage area. Each time they are reminded of all the other options they can purchase, and all the other means to progress. Players know that in order to get heroes, they need to earn crystals. In order to earn crystals, they need to pay or play.

#2: Each Crystal is a Lottery

Each crystal gives a chance of what you want. No crystal ever gives defined rewards. Want that cyclops? Well that’s the top prize in this crystal, so buying the crystal will not guarantee you earning Cyclops. This is gacha done perfectly.

Gacha works because in the beginning players can purchase these gacha packs (crystals) and get great content. Each time they open a crystal they get a brand new hero they’ve never seen before. As time goes on, as a designer you introduce mechanics and promote content that drive players to want rarer and rarer star players. So a player wanting a 4 star rare Cyclops is going to have to purchase many, many gacha packs before they get exactly what they want.

This should be taken with some fairness though. You want to make sure that player’s don’t feel cheated when they spend money. So similar to Hearthstone (each card pack includes 1 rare), Contest also guarantees a certain star tier with each crystal that is paid.

Unlike Injustice: Gods Among Us and Mortal Kombat X (a recent release by Warner Brothers) Kabam chose to offer no direct purchasing of heroes. In Injustice, players can look at the store of all the heroes in the game and directly purchase the hero they want. In Marvel, players have to use Crystals to collect all the heroes they want. This design is more similar to Japanese games like Puzzles and Dragons, and has been a lucrative business for them. By cutting out the direct purchase and going for a more pure-Gacha system like Japanese games, they’ve maximized their revenues.

#3: They offer no direct purchase

Never allow player’s direct purchase of the content that they want in a Gacha system

Allowing players a direct purchase of the hero they want is a hit to your retention and monetization. You’ve given them the end game content for a single quick purchase.

You can see this also when you compare Mortal Kombat X to Contest of Champions. Mortal Kombat X was recently released by Warner Brothers. Arguably each game is well designed and looks beautiful, but on a Total Revenue to Total Download ratio, Marvel comes out well on top. Kabam is simply far better at monetizing, and offering no direct purchase improves this metric.

Gotta Collect ‘Em All

But the strength of Gacha lies only when you’ve added an additional layer: Rarities. In order for Gacha to work, you need to drive desire to get the absolute rarest items. In the beginning as a player it is alright to get a 1 or 2 star spider man. It feels good to get these heroes. But as you play, you quickly realise that this spider man isn’t going to cut it — you need to play your chances at getting the rarest heroes.

To do this, Kabam added Star Tiers to their heroes. Each hero can be found in 1 star to 5 star forms. The higher the star rating, the rarer the hero. Having a higher star hero increases their base stats, exponentially increases their potential highest level, and adds passive and active special abilities during the battle. All 3 of these are important to monetization and retention.

Having strong base stats makes the hero feel powerful immediately versus opponents. Making sure that Rare monsters immediately feel good to purchase and easy to dominate opponents with is crucial to drive first time purchases.

Exponentially increasing the maximum potential also increases the amount the player must invest their time and energy to reach the hero’s maximum potential. The higher the star rarity, the more time the player must spend to upgrade the hero to their maximum potential.

For players to upgrade their heroes, they must use in different strands of ISOs. ISOs come from actively playing (mostly) so in order to fully upgrade your amazing 3 star champion, you have to collect ISO.

This is essential for Long term retention. This mechanic nudges players commit to training their heroes to receive their full benefit. Without this exponential growth, players would pay for the best hero then forget about actively playing in the game.

 

Lastly, Adding Passive and Active special abilities in the battle gives visual feedback to the player that what they are doing (collecting rare heroes) is worth it.

Heroes that are 3 stars or more have an extended special ability bar (as shown above in the bottom left). When the player fills up this meter, the hero shows a unique animation and does a lot of damage. You can only trigger this ability if you’ve got the 3 star or higher version of this hero. This is very important to ensure that players feel rewarded and powerful for getting the highest heroes.

Just increasing a virtual number is not rewarding enough for players. Eventually you’re going to have to give players real visible rewards for getting the rare content.

In Summary

Kabam’s Contest of Champions decided to focus their innovation on outside the battle, in the Meta. The Meta for all games is what drives long term retention and strong monetization. This paid off for Kabam.

They focused on creating a pure Gacha system, stripping out elements from Warner Brother’s Injustice: Gods Among Us that was conflicting with what they know to drive strong free to play design:

• Simpler, shorter battles for better sessions
• No direct purchase of heroes
• Engrained crystals into the core game loop
• Deeper Star Tier system to create more reasons to purchase
• Elemental system to promote collection of heroes

As a result, Kabam have a top performing game.

To be Continued…

Marvel Contest of Champions innovations and design insights don’t just stop at the Gacha system. Rather than overwhelm you, I’ll put this one on pause for now. Next up I’ll focus on Multiplayer and Session Design.

Stay Tuned!

Idle games are an exciting new genre that I expect to expand greatly in the coming years on mobile. Idle games, Clicker games, or “games that play themselves” is a baffling genre. Inexplicably these games are dominating many of the popular flash portals and shooting up the charts on mobile. Make it Rain by 337 Games, Tap Titans by Game Hive and now AdVenture Capitalist by Kongregate have all shown that this genre has a rightful place on the AppStore.

But why is this genre so popular? Why does this genre even exist? Why even discuss games that people don’t really play?

Idle games have risen on mobile because this is a genre that is perfect for modern mobile free-to-play design. The mechanics of idle games create perfect mobile sessions and drive strong long term retention.

What is an Idle Game?

Idle games, sometimes called Clicker or Incremental games, are games which are all about management of revenue streams. Similar to simulation games, their main differentiator is the focus on revenue growth decisions.

For some examples:

• Idle Games on Kongregate
• Reddit’s Guide to Idle Games

Cookie Clicker is the best example of an idle game. Each time you tap the cookie, you gain 1 cookie. You use cookies to purchase upgrades. Upgrades increase either the rate of tapping the cookie (now you get 2 cookies per click!) or increases the rate of cookies generated automatically (Grandmas will make 1 cookie per second). These automatic cookies are generated whether you are tapping or not. They are generated even if you’re away from the game.

On paper this sounds too simple to be fun. But try for yourself. The simple act of purchasing an upgrade always feels great. The growth curve is so fast it gets very addictive, very quickly.

Progress just for the sake of progress is fun. Even if it only means a virtual number increases faster.

Rate of resource generation is the core of the game. But an economy that inflates so quickly with a single currency has flaws. Very quickly, the game’s upgrade costs skyrocket. Starting off with nice low numbers the game quickly skyrockets into costs of trillions just a few sessions in. Most designers would cringe at this type of growth curve. What kind of player wants to worry about numbers in the trillions? In AdVenture Capitalist, your costs will eventually reach more than 1 Tretrigintillion (10 to the power of 102). Yet, players love this. Progress always feels good. Players playing for long enough to reach these ridiculous numbers feel like it is a real accomplishment.

As a result, Idle games have claimed 3 of the top 10 most played games on Kongregate (source: here). There are even Twitch channels dedicated to watching a computer play a game itself. Inexplicably, this genre has seen incredible growth.

Regardless of your stance of whether or not this is a “real” game genre, the mechanics in Idle games are perfectly realized for mobile. Idle games can teach mobile game designers a lot about creating a game that has strong session design. Idle games are so strong because:

1. It always feels good to come back.
2. Sessions naturally ease the player to leave
3. The mechanics ease the player from micro to macro gameplay

#1: It always feels good to come back

Many mobile games suffer gameplay mechanics that feel punishing on returning to the game after leaving for a few days.

In FarmVille: crops wither. If you do not come back to the game in time, your crops are worthless. In Clash of Clans: resources are stolen. The longer you are away from the game, the more likely a majority of your precious resources are stolen. Your rank on the leaderboard could be lowered. Your Clan becomes upset that you haven’t donated enough troops. These mechanics are all strong at driving reasons to come back, but also creates reasons for players to quit.

Idle games don’t suffer from this problem. Each time the player returns to the game, they are left with a massive stockpile of cash. It always feels like a bonus that they left the game. If a player leaves for a day, a week, or a month it only increases the amount of currency in their stockpile. In most economies this would be troublesome. Not in Idle games. Because the growth curves are exponential, leaving a game to infinitely generate a low income rate is absolutely fine.

For example, lets take 2 players. Player A comes back every day. Player B skips a week of play. Both players are generating 1 million cookies per day at this point in time. Player A, the active player, returns day 2 and receives 1 million cookies. Player B, who skipped the week, returns to have 7 million cookies. Player B can clearly purchase far more upgrades than Player A. Player B actually feels very rewarded for leaving for so long — they are rewarded with a very long session which they can purchase many things. However, comparing the growth curves Player A purchased many upgrades on that second day. So Player A by day 2 is already at a new growth rate of 10 million cookies a day. Player A is clearly growing far faster than Player B, but both players (because its a single player game) feel they made a smart choice. Player A is rewarded with faster progression. Player B is rewarded for waiting so long. It always feels good to return, but returning more often gives you faster progression.

Mobile games should strive to create this feeling. It should never feel like a punishment to come back to the game.

Players should be reminded that coming back often is a benefit, but coming back at all is always a bonus.

For this reason most farming games have shifted away from FarmVille’s model. Instead of withered crops, there’s low storage limits. In Clash of Clans, they incorporate shields and enforce looting limits to make sure players dont feel that not coming back feel too badly.

#2: Sessions ease the player away

Coming from my previous post on Flexible Sessions, the perfect mobile session finds a way to naturally push players out of the game. This is necessary for pacing and long term retention. Strong mobile games give strong reasons to come back (see above!) and strong reasons to leave the game. Idle games have mastered this natural prod of players out of the game.

As Idle games push players to invest in automatic revenue generators (ex. Grandmas in Cookie Clicker) over manual revenue generators (manually tapping on the cookie), players inevitably will reach a point in the game when they just have to wait. The player can purchase small upgrades fairly rapidly, but they know to make the next big leap of progression its smarter to purchase the more expensive upgrades. So, they leave the game feeling smart about their decision.

This is the exact point which the player, themselves, have opted-in to leaving the game. Naturally, the game has prodded the player to leave. Mobile games must strive for this. Create a situation which the player feels smart about leaving your game. Idle games have even managed to do this without timers, without social appointments or any other tacked on system as discussed in Player Commitments.

Create a situation which the player feels smart about leaving your game.

#3: It eases the player from core to meta gameplay

The first experience of a new player is very simple. In Clicker Heroes: A player just madly taps an enemy monster. In Make it rain: A player flicks heaps of money into the air. The first experience is addictive and immediately fun. Its obvious how to get better – tap or swipe faster. Players quickly master this mechanic and it feels natural. However, this mechanic’s interest quickly burns out. After the first few sessions, players are quickly tired of having to manually collect.

This is when the game offers a bait and switch. You came for the simplicty of tapping, but what you’ve been given is a game that is all about managing resources and upgrades. Players shift from tapping to managing which upgrade to purchase next. This clever switch means players that would have been burnt out from the simple mechanic are now thinking about long term decisions in the game. Which upgrade is the best value? How do I optimize my growth?

Mobile games must master this bait and switch. Players expecting to come into any mobile game will expect some core gameplay that mimics what they’ve played in the past. Playing bejeweled for Candy Crush, playing command and conquer for Clash of Clans, or platforming for King of Thieves. However, as a free-to-play designer your job isn’t to just hook these players with fun intial mechanics. You need to find ways to retain these players for years. The best way to do this is to switch the player from focusing on second-to-second core gameplay (tapping cookies) into longer term decisions (optimizing progression). Idle games clearly show a blueprint of how to accomplish this, regardless of the core gameplay.

Looking to the Future

Idle games are big and going to get bigger.

Anthony Pecorella gave an excellent talk at GDC 2015 on Idle Games summarized here. Clearly with the success of AdVenture Capitalist, Tap Titans and Make it Rain, more developers are taking notice.

The genre is ripe for innovation. Recently CivCrafter came out. A take on the idle genre with multiple resources and battles. Tap Titans has shown that the genre can apply to the auto-rpg genre. I believe that the progression systems in these games can really be applied to any genre. Replacing the core game play with a puzzle mechanic, an RPG battle mechanic, a Simulation theme, Arcade gameplay are all possible angles.

The key is to design the bait and switch: give the players the game play that is addictive and fun in the beginning, but eventually nudge them into purchasing the automatic resource generators. Players can then make the choice between grinding the core gameplay, or leaving and gaining the benefit just by waiting.

Get ready: the future will be all about games you don’t play.

All games feature three dimensions that determine player success: skill, stats and luck are required to win and progress in a game. However many prototypes and many games that I play each day seem to struggle with this mixture.

The main reason this happens is the player suffering from a lack of transparency  about how they can improve. If your players can’t answer the question: “Why did you lose this round?” — then you have issues in transparency.

You need to seek ways to isolate and clarify the impact of Skill, Stats and Luck to make your game engaging.

The Importance of Stats, Skill and Luck

To start to fix these issues of transparency, it is important to define what the balance of stats, skill and luck your game is. Each is important for the success of your game.

Stats are essentially everything that the player invests in outside of the core gameplay. Most games have RPG stat systems that players are seeking to upgrade. For example, upgrading building defense stats, upgrading unit abilities, or upgrading the speed of a car. These systems are most likely what paces and slows down the progression of the player. A strong stat system is necessary if you want to ensure a level 100 player feels dramatically more powerful than a level 1 player. These systems are most likely what your players are investing real dollars to purchase quickly and to give them an advantage in gameplay. Without stats, long term gameplay is extremely difficult — there’s nothing players can invest in to get better at your game.

Luck is any systems in your game that are purely random. For example, the gems falling down during Candy Crush or Hearthstone deciding which card will be drawn next from the deck. These systems are important to create drama and entropy in gameplay. Luck ensures that the gameplay never is boring since a positive (or negative) action can happen at any time. Luck also widens the breadth of skill needed to master the game. Being able to craft the best deck is easy, but being able to handle the near infinite possible outcomes of card order is an extremely difficult skill to master.

Skill is any player choices or player interactions that have an impact on the outcome of your game. Skill is the player’s ability to time jumps in Mario, their ability to effectively place units in Boom Beach, or their ability to choose between cards to play in Hearthstone. This variable is by far the most important to a player’s retention to your game. Players that feel the game has no skill will not stick to a game. Fun and engagement come from learning and feeling smart about one’s decisions (Theory of Fun, Raph Koster). Without skill, there is nothing to learn, there is no game.

For example, Clash of Clans clearly focuses on Stats and Skill. There are very few sources of luck in the game. Players seek to upgrade their buildings with currency to progress in the game. Stats is clearly the strongest focus for Clash of Clans to ensure that progressing and upgrades are felt and long-lasting. Skill is secondary: players optimize placement of buildings and placement of units to defend and attack. Skill is controlled and balanced very closely by Supercell.

Candy Crush focuses on Luck and Skill. There are no upgrades in Candy Crush, just boosts. These boosts can’t be upgraded, and give a very clear (transparent!) benefit to the player. Clearly Luck is their largest focus, ensuring that each move a player chooses they never will be able to predict fully what will happen. This creates casino-like “near misses” that are only cured through replaying a level or paying for boosts.

Different games on the top grossing chart focus on different balances of Stats, Skill and Luck. A rule of thumb is to select two of stats, skill and luck as your game’s focus.

The more factors that are included in your game, the more likely you will have issues with transparency. When the balance of Luck, Skill and Stats is unclear to the player, engagement suffers.

Be as Transparent as Possible

Let’s take for example a typical tactical RPG battle.
Each battle has a significant amount of variables that have an impact on its outcome:

• Each unit has stats for attack, defense, speed, attack range, etc. (Stats)
• A player can choose what unit types they want to bring into the battle. (Skill)
• Each turn the player chooses where their units will move and when they will attack (Skill)
• Each attack has a critical chance to do extra damage (Luck)

After a battle is concluded, the player lost. As a result, a player must ask themselves — what did I do wrong? How do I improve? What do I need to do in order to win this battle?

It could be Stats: they need to upgrade their units more.
It could be Skill: they made poor decisions in the battle.
It could be Luck: they were just unlucky with critical hits.

Ensure your game is giving the player a clear answer.

When there are many variables determining your players’ success, it is best to isolate each variable as efficiently as possible.

When there are many variables determining your players’ success, it is best to isolate each variable as efficiently as possible. To isolate, you don’t always have to give feedback immediately when the action has occurred. Feedback on each variable can come before, during and after the gameplay.

Isolate Stats, Skill and Luck

CSR Racing is an excellent example of how games can isolate each variable. Before a race, CSR Racing isolates Skill from Stats. Using a small progress bar, they compare the player’s stat level against the opponent. If the race is going to be extremely difficult, the player is warned before they begin. This helps the game in two ways:

1. Drives desire for Stats. Stats are given a clear value in the game. Players clearly see that if they improve their stats, they improve their chances of winning.
2. Avoids unnecessary losses on levels that are too difficult. Many times players will blame their skill above all other factors. If they continually play a level that clearly isn’t balanced for their level, they will eventually feel the game is unnaturally difficult and leave.

CSR isolates Stats before the race with this small UI change.

CSR also seeks to isolate how much skill impacts the outcome of a race. During the race, the player gets very clear feedback about their timing skill. “Bad Shift”, “Good Shift” and “Perfect Shift” come up throughout the race giving immediate, clear feedback about how well the player is doing. At the end of the race, the player clearly can say “I had all perfect shifts! I did everything I could!”. Vice versa, a player can say “I had some bad shifts in there, maybe next time I can improve my time…”.

Through these two small mechanisms, CSR has effectively isolated skill from stats. Players clearly know the reason for winning and losing, and can decide the best course of action to improve their chances.

A Tool for Transparency

To start to fix issues of transparency it is imperative that you play test your game often. When discussing the game with playtesters be sure to ask after each core gameplay round :

“Why did you lose this battle?”
“What could you have done differently to win this [battle/race/round]?”
“How did you figure this out?”

If they can’t answer these questions, it is time to improve your transparency.

To improve, list the inputs (Variables) and outputs (Feedback) of your game:

• Which variables impact the result? ex. Unit Stats, Unit Placement, etc.
• How do we give feedback about each of these variables?
• Which feedback systems are actually working? (players are acknowledging them in playtests)
• Can we give strengthen feedback for this variable before, during or after the round?

Strengthening feedback is dependant on whether the variable is stats, skill or luck driven.

Variables that come from skill usually require more direct feedback immediately after the action is taken. For example, Pokemon gives the feedback “Super-Effective” immediately after a player has made a good choice about what attack to use against the opponent.

In Mario games, whenever mario is killed by a baddie, the game pauses and highlights exactly where mario was hit. This small and subtle trick ensures that players clearly see the reason for their failure and helps with learning.

Variables that are luck-based can be made more transparent by using expected visuals of where luck comes from. Use a deck of cards, a spinner, or a slot machine. These are expected to be pure random. Players will quickly understand that they have no skillful impact on these results.

Variables that are stats-based are easiest to give feedback before the round begins. Ensure you warn players before they are going into a battle without the necessary upgrades.

As you add strength to these feedback systems, continually play test your game. When players have a clear idea of how to improve their chances, your game will be far more engaging.

Summary

To increase engagement in your game, seek ways to make your systems more transparent in terms of skill-based, stat-based and luck-based variables.

Stats, Skill and Luck each have their own benefits and drawbacks to a game’s success. Ensure you know the focus and balance for your game. Balancing for high levels of all 3 is exceptionally difficult, and can only be accomplished through isolating Stats, Skill and Luck in a transparent way.

To ensure high engagement to a broad audience, be as transparent as possible why a player won or lost in your game. Listing out the variables leading to the outcome and analyzing whether the player has enough feedback is the first step to reducing confusion.

Your goal as a designer: Players should always know how to improve.