"Average gaming ARPPU — 600 rubles": interview with Photostrana
In June, the Russian social network Fotostrana celebrated its ninth birthday. We talked with Leonid Katz, CRO of the social network, about what she can offer the game developer today.
Alexander Semenov, Senior Editor App2Top.ru : Fotostrana turned 9 years old this year. It is still present on the market. What DAU and MAU does the project have today?
Leonid KatzLeonid Katz, CRO of the Photostrana social network: Photostrana is not just present on the market, but is also actively developing:
The DAU of the project is 700,000, the MAU is 2.5 million.
Once the social network was positioned as a competitor to VK, but today it is rather a local rival of Tinder and Badoo, do I understand correctly?
Leonid: In fact, we have never positioned ourselves as a competitor to the Vkontakte network. As for Tinder and Badoo, this is also not entirely true: we have dating apps, but we are not a dating service in its purest form. Fotostrana is an entertaining social network where you can chat with friends, get acquainted, play online games and participate in contests.
Moreover, less than 50% of the audience comes to us for dating: people are more interested in other entertainment, such as photo contests. It is worth noting that only we focus on them in the market.
As for our competitors, these are rather game portals: for example, games.mail.ru , sections with games in Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte.
You have just noted that less than half of the audience comes for dating. But you are trying to keep the dating audience with the help of games, aren’t you? Can we say that this is an additional tool for retaining players after finding a pair and a source of monetization?Leonid: This is both a source of monetization and an element of retention, because those who come to meet us do not stay for long. The average lifetime of a user on dating services is four months. People stay with us for years, because we can offer them something more than just new acquaintances and communication.
I have heard that both MMO and farms are very popular with you. It’s a little confusing. Who is your target audience?
Leonid: The most popular genres are dating, logic games and RPG, and RPG is played mainly by men. The average age of the Photostrana user is 35 years, the ratio of men and women is about 55% to 45%.
Women like simpler applications and prefer logic games more often: for example, solitaire, farm, games in the genre of “three in a row”, “Pet House”, something like a virtual tamagotchi.
Among men, applications with dating elements are most popular: “Meetings”, “Bottle”, as well as online multiplayer games.
What is the general pattern of behavior of your users?
Leonid: As we said above, a little less than 50% of the audience come to meet us, and most of them stay thanks to the photo contest and games. Other users are looking for entertainment and find it in apps and contests. They are not interested in dating.
You named the audience of the project, but what percentage of them actually play, and do not get acquainted or communicate in personal correspondence?
Leonid: Approximately 20-25% of the audience plays.
What is the average gaming ARPU and ARPPU?
Leonid: ARPU of games — 10.5 rubles, ARPPU — 600 rubles. Moreover, in recent years there has been a steady increase in these indicators.
Name the highest-grossing games on the platform.
Leonid: The highest—grossing ones are “Bottle: dating, Flirting, communication”, “Heaven”, Dragon Knight and “Avatar”.
How much can one game earn per month at the peak?
Leonid: At the peak, the revenue of an application or game can be up to two million rubles per month.
You have 150 games on the platform. Why such a small number? High entry threshold?
Leonid: Yes, we have a fairly high entry threshold. We carefully analyze all applications, see if the game has potential for monetization, and evaluate how big it is.
We pay special attention to the degree of elaboration of the game cycle: it largely depends on whether users will regularly return to this application. In all our games, a social component is mandatory.
Which games are ready to host and which are not?
Leonid: We do not host games in which there is no internal monetization, as well as those that completely copy the functionality of existing applications and services on the “Photostrane”.
You have named the most successful projects. Can you tell me which genres, as a rule, do not enter? Or — what usually goes well, but, for example, does not reach the peak values?
Leonid: The most successful projects belong to different genre categories. On the “Photostrane” there is both a hardcore audience that prefers Dragon Knight, and people in search of acquaintances who choose a “Bottle”. From what, perhaps, does not go, so this is “Arcade”: over the past year there has not been a single successful project.
How did disabling Flash in Chrome and in other browsers affect your performance?
Leonid: This did not affect the DAU and MAU of the users of the gaming platform, so we did not experience any shocks. The active audience both played and continues to play.
You have a mobile app, but there are no HTML5 games there yet. Why? Are you planning to add?
Leonid: There are games in the mobile app, but only for Android. As for iOS, we do not add them there, as this may be perceived by the reviewer as an application catalog, and this is prohibited in the App Store.
How many percent of your users log into the service from mobile?
Leonid: About 40% of users use the mobile version of the site.
What to expect from the site in the near future?
Leonid: Now we are focused on making Photostrana even more interesting and user-friendly. We are working on new services and games, improving the mechanics of engagement.
Thanks for the interview.
