Mastering Retention

The group discusses what a game economy is, and how it can be used to drive player engagement and content discovery in a game. They use a midcourt RPG game as an example to illustrate their points.

The conversation is about designing a game economy. The different aspects that should be considered include the currencies, the transaction systems, and the overall strategy. Scarcity can also be a factor in the economy.

▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

0:00:00​ Introductions

0:05:25​ What is a game economy?

0:17:39​ What makes an economy fun?

0:28:04​ Pre-Production Boosts

1:01:50​ Player’s viewpoints

1:10:38​ Broken game economy

1:41:10​ Scaling currency

▬ Quotes ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

10:35​ “Essentially, the game economy it’s the entire management of value of the game. That includes scarcity, desire, time required to obtained things.” – Javier Barnes

13:30​ “The holy grail of monetization design is you want your player to spend money on your game and be so stoked by they who experience that they feel great about it and they want to tell their friends.” – Kaitlin Kincaid

1:02:50​ “It’s important to contrast the survey, which is the player’s perceptions, with in game activities, which is more of a hard data.” – Kaitlin Kincaid

1:32:04​ “Never underestimate the value of using LiveOps to test economy in general” – Hadrian Semroud

▬ Highlights ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

What I would advise is trying to keep the range of prices kind of relatively stable through the course of the game and make that even in the late game, a purchase of $10 can still make sense because you're following another strategy or something in order not to kill or to move away those players.

At the end of the game, higher ranges of prices are going to be more valuable for the monetization. But if you have a dolphin that can only spend $10 per month, and then once you are three months in the game, what you're asking is not $10.

And one of those things that we're using is having the player unlock better bundles as they progress through the game. So if you want if you want the $5 bundle for 2 million resources, you can get that at level five.

Is there a way to appropriately do that? Such that as players progress and things are more expensive in the game the price of currency kind of keeps on par with that.

So being able to change the price of things again, usually through live events, through some sort of special offer, can allow you to monetize the entire price demand curve and really optimize the amount of money you can get out of the same amount of work producing that hero, that asset in the first place.

This week on Mastering Retention, Tom speaks with Erez Baron (CEO & Co-Founder at Muuula Games) in detail about all that went into launching Muuula Games. The guys also discuss segmented pricing within your game, dive deep into the world of Brain Games, and so much more.

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0:40 How Erez Baron got into the video game industry.

4:45 Segmented Pricing.

18:28 The origins and future of Muuula Games

21:01 Brain Games

31:28 The process of starting a game studio.

34:30 What to look for in a Co-Founder.

42:01 Differentiating Product and Dev.

46:36 Building a great team.

51:26 How to keep more players around longer.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel in order to create a beloved and successful game. Sometimes tweaking an existing formula or feature can be enough to make your game stand out. This week on Mastering Retention, Tom speaks with Patrick McGrath (Founder at Stealth Mode) about innovating within a genre, making slight changes to your game, launching a game from scratch, and so much more!

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0:45 How did Patrick McGrath get into the video game industry?

8:09 Launching a new product from scratch.

10:28 How to figure out what to build.

16:55 Player immersion.

29:02 Innovating within an existing genre.

34:24 Iterating within an existing game.

40:21 Solving issue within your game with research.

44:28 Userwise

53:45 How to keep more players around longer.

In-app purchases are the main way most games make their money, so getting players to not only continue playing your game, but continue purchasing items within your game is hugely important. This week on Mastering Retention, Tom speaks with Haider CW (Director of Economy at Scopely) about how to fine tune your game economy to fit your game and audience, the importance of proper economy maintenance, and so much more!

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0:35 How did Haider CW get into the video game industry?

1:37 What does a Director of Economy technically do?

2:38 Economy maintenance for an existing game.

7:07 Building relationships between rewards.

13:27 The best way to segment players.

19:03 Session motivation

22:02 Progression curve in collection RPG

23:52 Mitigating mistakes in economy design

31:40 Fine tuning game economies

33:22 Different economies for different types of players

35:14 Looter-Shooter Economies

39:59 Maintaining player spending.

43:43 Economy for City Builders

49:14 How to keep more players around longer.

This week on Mastering Retention, Tom is joined by former recruiter, Matt Hood (Game Lead at Carry1st) to talk about what tips and tricks he has learned about the video game industry from his time as a recruiter. Tom and Matt also speak in great detail on the state of live operations and the future of feature development. All of that and so much more packed into this week's episode of Mastering Retention.

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0:30 How did Matt Hood get into the video game industry?

2:50 Lessons from being a recruiter.

5:16 Having a vision.

7:45 Talent Pooling.

10:37 Connecting with people.

12:37 Defining Live Operations.

13:51 The importance of live operations.

15:25 When should you start thinking about live operations?

18:04 Feature Development.

19:50 What is a Config?

27:20 What are indicators your game is a success or a failure?

30:30 Building a better version of an existing game.

36:11 Replicating big moments in your game.

42:28 Collection based feature.

46:45 How to keep more players around longer.

Whether you are promoting your game or advertising in your game, optimal ads and ad placement is key. This week on Mastering Retention, Tom speaks with Mobile Ad Monetization Expert, Yael Takomi (Mobile Gaming at Facebook) about setting realistic expectations for new users, segmented ad placement, the use of analytics in ad placement, and so much more!

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0:45 How did Yael Takomi get into the video game industry?

4:06 How does a player become a user?

5:45 How to tell the story of your game.

9:55 Setting honest expectations for new users.

15:56 Marketing with monetization - with product.

20:31 Where to start with ad monetization.

26:15 Segmented ad placement.

28:31 Ad placement gone wrong.

30:30 Ad placement done correctly.

34:08 You never want to lose a paying customer

39:33 Ad placements based on player sessions.

45:22 Using analytics to decide ad placements.

51:17 How to keep more players around longer.

This week’s installment of Mastering Retention is a special one, as Tom celebrates the 100th episode with the help of Yosi Tal (Senior Product Manager at Papaya Gaming). The two of them commit the entire episode to the topic of retention. They discuss features and emotions that drive retention, segmentation, player progression goals, maximizing the first time player experience and so much more!

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1:19 How did Yosi Tal get into the video game industry?

5:37 The pillars of retention strategy

7:45 Player progression goals

10:47 Playing for status

12:15 Long term retention through social features

14:42 Social obligation

20:10 Personalization

24:14 No-brainer features

26:31 Feelings drive retention

28:31 First time player experience

32:17 Reward calendars

34:47 Personalized player experience

37:45 When to change things for a player

39:36 Is segmentation a full-time job?

41:14 Segmentation mistakes

44:00 How to keep more players around longer.

Almost everyone in the video game industry dreams of launching their own game studio, but not everyone realizes what all that encompasses. This week on “Mastering Retention”, Tom speaks with Andrey Korotkov (CEO at Zillion Whales) about how to come up with creative ideas, how to launch a game studio, what to look for in potential co-founders, and the process of having your company acquired.

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0:45 How did Andrey Korotkov get into the video game industry?

11:34 Mushroom Wars.

16:42 How to start a game studio from scratch.

24:21 Building your own game engine

30:46 What to look for in co-founders.

33:20 The acquisition process

39:36 How to come up with a new game idea.

46:13 How to keep more players around longer.

As the video game industry continues to emphasize additional content and liveOps, it is time to stop thinking of video games as products and more like services. This week on the Mastering Retention Podcast, Tom is joined by Fred Lepont (Head of Product at Ultracine Studios) to discuss player motivations, segmentation, and LiveOps.

Here are your cheat codes:

0:46 How did Fred Lepont get into the video game industry?

9:44 Defining LiveOps.

12:16 The importance of developer input.

15:10 Games as a service.

21:14 Discovering player motivations.

27:12 How to think about segmentation.

40:02 Prioritizing LiveOps

51:05 How to keep more players around longer.