Building Thriving Virtual Worlds=PROFIT

Justin BeckCEO

UA costs are rising…

Player retention is THE

way to make profit

R&DDesign of the game

PublishingSocial engagement with your users

Live OpsIncorporating feedback into the content updates

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How we make moneyDownload the game for free

Play and love the game

Buy virtual currency

Spend virtual currency in the game

Repeat and buy more

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Virtual Goods Expenses

Purchase Swag 30%

Level Up 22%

Premium Resources 15%

Everything Else 33%

67%

Gross RevenueTotal Accounts

Average Payer LTV

$5M1.8M$145

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Design

Open World to Explore

• Flag chains• Direct engagement with neighbors

Hunting Parties

• Group hunting• Invite in-game friends for

synchronous game play

Kingdoms

• Recruiting, building, warring

Player to Player Trade

• The virtual economy formed around trade

Chat and Messaging

• The social infrastructure to pipe it all together

Things we would do differently

• Synchronous game play• Relying on neighbors• Total persistence• A true economy

Things we got right

• Robust chat system• Smooth friend, invite, and personal messaging

system• Faces and characters • Social Engagement Loops

Publishing

Marketing and Communication

• Community building is downward, upward, and cross communication.

Update Hut Posts

Support Tickets

Game Forum

App Reviews

In-Game Chat

In-Game Messages

Social Media

PR / App Description

PLAYER CROSS COMMUNICATION

GAME DEVS

Engagement

• Ask questions and respond to player questions• Facebook makes this engagement even easier

Update Hut Posts

• Communicating change logs• Preview updates before they come out• Replying to feedback• In-game messaging about updates so that

everyone knows they exist

Curating a list of Beta testers

• Sending beta builds• Getting bug reports back from them• Getting game play feedback from them• They will be fickle (just like your players)• They will be intense when engaged • Auto Error reporting

Customer Support

• Have a straight forward customer support policy– Ignore the bad, reward the good

• Discipline when necessary• Metrics to Measure:

– Ticket volume and backlog– Average solve time– Average response time– Productivity

Live Ops

Swag

• Custom hats, weapons, and skins• Limited time, in general high price• Very cool looking

– Player recommended Swag– Connected to Holidays

• Bundling with Sales

Economy

• Very small adjustments to problems and situations

• Player confidence in market stability is shaken when large changes happen– Players speculate and then act, thus causing large

swing changes

Competitions

• Weekly Hat Races• Weekly Tournaments• League Rewards based on timeline

Additional content

• Our “Ages”– Exploration– Gathering– Emergence– Kingdoms– Ascension

• Dungeons• Expanding skills• Increasing level cap

Recap

• Design– Stay focused on features, social implications, and the social

engagement loop (including motivation)• Publishing

– Build strong downward and cross communication channels in the product

– Focus on engagement and quality over support• Live Ops

– Plan for content, know how much it will cost– User player feedback in making it– Know how it will be messaged and consumed

Thanks!

justin@perblue.com