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How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

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Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#51

Post by dmoy »

simias wrote: post #34
cageface wrote: post #25

I really hope this game model suffers the same kind of crash that felled the arcade business in the 80s. At some point I think people are going to collectively realize that they're being manipulated and burn out en masse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash... The overwhelming dominance of this kind of app in the app store has killed a lot of my enthusiasm for mobile, unfortunately. There are…

What really annoys me is when a game that might potentially interest me chooses to go the pay2win way. For instance, tribes:ascend. I wanted to get into it but forums were full of people saying each time they released a paid upgrade the balance went FUBAR. What annoys me the most is there's no way to do it "the old way" and pay a bigger sum of money once and get the full game without having to upgrade for every singl…

I agree with the general premise that pay2win is annoying as hell.

I think it's hard for a lot of kinds of games to fall back to the traditional model when they're competing against other similar games that are free to play on the surface, but pay to win underneath. Free to play gets people hooked. There's a reason why game developers are doing this, unfortunately, because it works :(

As a stingy bastard I just have to resign myself to finding games that don't give you overwhelming bonuses for fistfuls of cash, and just suck it up for the beginning.

As an aside to your tribes example:

Tribes:Ascend is probably not a good example of this, but for a slightly unique reason. It's not really pay2win, it's still sinklotsofotime2win. Only because it has such a bullshit high difficulty curve that you need to play an inordinate amount of time into the game to be able to do anything, regardless of whether or not you're paying money. By the time you figure out how to move, shoot, and play a single useful role (which is a colossally difficult task), you'll have gotten enough in-game xp to build up enough that buying gold is pointless.

If you were looking forward to Tribes:Ascend, go for it. Don't let people complaining on forums turn you away - people will always complain on the forums, no matter what the game is. Tribes is one of the few games I've played where it's fun to just run circles around the map:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9DfMAGuGk

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#52

Post by viraptor »

babuskov wrote: post #38
simias wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really annoys me is when a game that might potentially interest me chooses to go the pay2win way. For instance, tribes:ascend. I wanted to get into it but forums were full of people saying each time they released a paid upgrade the balance went FUBAR. What annoys me the most is there's no way to do it "the old way" and pay a bigger sum of money once and get the full game without having to upgrade for every singl…

I'm creating a strategy game right now and I'm facing this dilemma. I'd like to get $20 from each customer during game lifetime, but it seems that it would be easier to make it free to play and then charge for something in the game. And it's hard to charge for anything that would not make you advance in the game, otherwise it's cosmetics and you're not charging for the game, but almost the same as asking for a donati…

You could do a limited-time free play game. That's what Order and Chaos did long time ago, but since then they switched to in-game store. Maybe it's not that profitable... I don't know. But I can definitely say it was free for (IIRC) a month and was fun enough that I paid the monthly to continue playing.

I came back to it after ~a year and it seems like you can buy lots of items, but they're not really required. The economy is completely messed up on all servers, but that was the case when I started already.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#53

Post by andypants »

xenophanes wrote: post #50
Osiris wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guild Wars 2 is a game that charges for basically cosmetic items. You cannot buy better weapons or better armor, but you can buy costumes that make your armor look cool, or you can buy little things like 2x XP potions (30 minute limit). There is a way to make a game in which in-game purchases don't distort the game mechanics but that people are still interested in. I believe Team Fortress 2 does something similar, se…

Guild wars 2 also sells revive-where-i-am in case you die. (doesn't work in PvP). http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb that's over the line IMO.

It can't be used in PvP so it doesn't give you advantages over other people. It's only useful when you're playing on your own out in the world somewhere. "Revive where I am" is already free if there's another player around willing to revive you.

I'd say it's the opposite of over the line. It's a very useful purchase which doesn't have any big game changing consequences. It's just a replacement for party members. It facilitates solo play for people who enjoy it. And the gem store isn't the only way of acquiring this item.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#54

Post by jonnathanson »

In fairness, the "gems" system isn't unique to this game. I've seen it in quite a few others, especially in the Tower Defense genre.

Where it gets particularly annoying is in games with difficulty curves I can only assume were designed to require more resources than the player is allotted naturally, thus forcing him to buy gems and trade them for upgrades. It's not literal payment-gating of advancement, but it is de facto payment-gating of advancement.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#55

Post by andypants »

ebbv wrote: post #43

This model is Unethical Freemium which has been around for a while now, Clash of Clans is not unique or doing anything new. IMHO, you should not support games that use this model. It's often called "Pay to Win". I will only play games that use the Guild Wars 2 or Path of Exile model; all paid items are cosmetic/fun/convenience only and don't really assist in one player being more powerful than another player. Pay to…

> the game will be won/dominated by the people willing to sink the most money into it, rather than the player who invests the most time/thought/skill/etc.

What is wrong with that? Some people have more money to invest than time, and others the opposite. Find a game that suits you.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#57

Post by socillion »

xenophanes wrote: post #50
Osiris wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guild Wars 2 is a game that charges for basically cosmetic items. You cannot buy better weapons or better armor, but you can buy costumes that make your armor look cool, or you can buy little things like 2x XP potions (30 minute limit). There is a way to make a game in which in-game purchases don't distort the game mechanics but that people are still interested in. I believe Team Fortress 2 does something similar, se…

Guild wars 2 also sells revive-where-i-am in case you die. (doesn't work in PvP). http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb that's over the line IMO.

That's one of the items that probably looks ridiculous if you haven't played, but it took months for the player base to find any good use for it. At the time I was playing, nobody was really using it for anything but terrain exploration - rezzing using the orb after jumping off the map edge.

Here's a thread of players complaining about how weak it is: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Revive-Orb-Is...

Tangent: one of the best parts of GW2's paid model is that if you stop playing you can get a full refund including what you spent in the cash shop.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#58

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

babuskov wrote: post #47
shardling wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kingdom of Loathing's model seems to do pretty well. (And they've been at it for 10 years now, well before "free to play" was a thing.) You can pay for in-game items, but you can also buy them with in-game currency[1]. So you could let players pay to get the special items/upgrades instantly , but still let hardcore players get them without paying through some sort of grinding. So long as you don't have to exchang…

Thanks for the KoL tip. My game is really rather simple card game strategy, with strict rules and requires skill to play, no luck involved. Players don't have "decks", they all share the same deck of cards. Basically, it plays like chess, all players are equal. So, there's no room for in-game economy between players. Currently I'm considering the following models: 1. pay for some additional units (cards) which would…

I've had some of the same thoughts about my own card game. Here's one adjustment you could make to your option 1: if one player has purchased the additional units (cards), then both players get to use them. This is what Blizzard has just enabled for Starcraft II, and is what Goko (sigh) did for Dominion. (please do not use Goko as a model overall however - I can't stand the UX)

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#59

Post by ebbv »

andypants wrote: post #55
ebbv wrote: post #43

This model is Unethical Freemium which has been around for a while now, Clash of Clans is not unique or doing anything new. IMHO, you should not support games that use this model. It's often called "Pay to Win". I will only play games that use the Guild Wars 2 or Path of Exile model; all paid items are cosmetic/fun/convenience only and don't really assist in one player being more powerful than another player. Pay to…

> the game will be won/dominated by the people willing to sink the most money into it, rather than the player who invests the most time/thought/skill/etc. What is wrong with that? Some people have more money to invest than time, and others the opposite. Find a game that suits you.

Because it's not really a game then, it's a store where you buy a thing that says "Winner" on it.

Re: How Clash of Clans earns $500,000 a day with in-app purchases

#60

Post by justindz »

shardling wrote: post #45
babuskov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm creating a strategy game right now and I'm facing this dilemma. I'd like to get $20 from each customer during game lifetime, but it seems that it would be easier to make it free to play and then charge for something in the game. And it's hard to charge for anything that would not make you advance in the game, otherwise it's cosmetics and you're not charging for the game, but almost the same as asking for a donati…

The Kingdom of Loathing's model seems to do pretty well. (And they've been at it for 10 years now, well before "free to play" was a thing.) You can pay for in-game items, but you can also buy them with in-game currency[1]. So you could let players pay to get the special items/upgrades instantly , but still let hardcore players get them without paying through some sort of grinding. So long as you don't have to exchang…

This is a fairly common model. One of the best examples I've encountered lately is League of Legends. The game is a MOBA (coined: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) for team fights on a map that is similar to Defense of the Ancients from Warcraft III. The core of the game is that you learn how to play champions, of which there are over 100, and you boost them up a bit with runes. The game has two currencies: Riot Points and Influence Points. Here's how they handle maintaining balance and rewarding payment with acceleration:

- You start with a few Riot Points. Enough to buy a starter champion, but not much else.

- Riot Points can be purchased.

- Influence points are earned along with experience by playing matches.

- Champions can be purchased with either currency. However, most of them take far more Influence Points, so you can achieve instant gratification through cash outlay or you can play for fun over time and pick up a few more advanced champions.

- Runes can only be purchased with Influence Points. Therefore, you cannot simply drop cash and get the best runes, then have an edge over other players. You earn them by playing. You can earn them faster by getting Influence Point boost periods by paying Riot Points, which of course is cash for acceleration, but not instant gratification since it still encourages you to play and practice the game.

- Every week, there is a free rotation of a set of champions. If you are patient enough, you can try out tons of different champions before spending a dime. If you like one enough to want to keep playing it after it rotates back out, you can drop cash to buy it or spend a giant pile of Influence Points that you've earned. Or, you can simply play with them for fun, endlessly, and enjoy the variety.

- The only "pay to play" thing I've found is that you can purchase extra pages for rune configurations. This can't be earned any other way. It's not overly expensive, it's not mandatory, but it seems like you probably need to do it for any serious competitive play in order to be efficient and prepared for different matches and roles. I wasn't put off by this.

I thought this was a pretty good implementation. I've spent a reasonable, tolerable amount of money so far on the game and have more champions than I probably should have right now, due to enjoying them. The experience felt very much not "pay to win" and that it scaled very well with your interest. The one thing I really liked is that even paying to accelerate your experience was always still contingent on you playing lots of games and therefore getting better and trying out lots of roles and champions. That felt very smart because it doesn't burn you out but invests you further.

If you're researching this kind of model, I would highly suggest trying the game out to get a feel for what the customer experience is like. It seems like a good reference implementation that could be adjusted to match games that aren't based on this champion asset model.

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