Spacetime Games on the balance between fan and Monetization

At Casual Connect 2013, Gary Gattis from Spacetime Games studio (Pocket Legends, Arcane Legends) told how to maintain a balance in the game between monetization and the pleasure received by users. 

We have repeatedly heard the following phrase from Russian game producers: “the problem of domestic game development is that our developers do not treat game creation as a business.” In other words, more often it is more about self-realization.

There is another extreme in the Western market, which Gary told about in his report at the Casual Connect 2013 conference currently taking place in California. 

According to him, looking at the gaming industry as a business, it’s easy to forget about other important things. For example, about the game itself, about how to make players get a fan from it.

Why is this so important?

If the players don’t enjoy the game, they stop playing. When they stop playing, they stop paying, when they stop paying, you stop earning. For this reason, in his opinion, everything in the industry should come down to the fan. 

The question is how to make sure that the player not only enjoys the game, but also pays in it. Gary doesn’t have a simple answer to it. But there is an experience that he shared.

Initially, Pocket Legends had a paywall. His players reached level 13. At that time, the average game session in the game lasted 10 minutes, and active players spent, on average, about 14.2 hours a month in it.

After removing the need to pay in the game after reaching level 13, the game not only increased the number of players, but also increased the length of the session to 23 minutes, and the number of hours spent – up to 33.5 per month.

In order for the players to continue paying, Gary changed the game cycle a little.

Initially it looked like this:

Players must have the best equipment to kill monsters that leave behind loot that players sell in order to purchase even cooler equipment that allows you to kill more powerful monsters that pour more expensive loot.

Gary reduced the entire cycle to one or two minutes, but did not make monsters easy to destroy after acquiring new equipment. Instead, he started offering consumables as IAP that resurrect or help fight monsters.     

The results are good.