Kabam: being greedy is unprofitable
The American company Kabam has decided to soften the monetization policy in some games in order to “strengthen user loyalty.” This is reported in the official press release.
So, the company announced that in the game The Hunger Games: Panem Rising, all users will receive a starting amount of 10 units in hard currency. Up to this point, the player’s “initial capital” was zero.For those who are already in the game, the company presented a certain number of items – and a certain amount in soft and hard currency.
What prompted a company with multimillion-dollar revenues from shareware projects to reconsider its monetization schemes right now?
Kabam is “famous” for its disloyal attitude towards players. In the past, the company has several times become the center of scandals related to unethical monetization. So, in September 2013, after updating the Dragons of Atlantis game, some players boycotted the game, accusing the American company of unfairly changing monetization. The action did not bring visible results: Kabam ignored the demands of the players.
Then in August 2014, history repeated itself. With the update of the game, the cost of content in soft currency has changed significantly. Players who did not spend money could no longer compete on an equal footing with paying users. A number of players, which included “whales”, refused to make micropayments. Kabam did not react again.
The fact that the company decided to revise the monetization policy right now speaks about the changing microclimate in the shareware games market. The cost of running the game is growing, as is the competition. It is necessary to think about the retention of users, about their involvement, because it is cheaper to keep a loyal player than to acquire anew. And focusing on hard monetization in such conditions means losing players. So Kabam’s decision to revise the schemes for extracting benefits is quite justified and, most importantly, timely.
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Kabam is a private company with a staff of almost 800 people.
