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How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

shoestring.com.au

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Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#21

Post by Kiro »

fhd2 wrote: post #16
robotmay wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too sure. I see a lot of people these days, and unfortunately even kids, becoming hooked on quick fixes; pay-to-win games, AAA games with 10-hour single-player campaigns, and pretty much all mobile games. I gave a copy of Pokemon Black to a friend's kids (same age as when my brother and I, and all of our friends, were obsessed with them), and they couldn't get more than 15 minutes in without getting bored. Ob…

I'm also not quite as optimistic as the parent. However, I do wonder if legislators will step in at some point. Both the gambling and weapon industries, to which this has been compared below, are being regulated. Well, in Europe at least. Just anecdotal evidence, but there seem to be very few weapon owners or people with gambling problems here in Germany. Edit: Just noticed this comment below, it's already being regu…

Having worked at a gambling company I can assure you gambling problems are probably as common in Germany as in any other country (FWIW about one third of our support staff was german). Regulations can't really prevent you from playing online, no matter how innovative the restrictions are.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#22

Post by HNLogInShit »

This "article" sucks because it doesn't delve into any explanation or provide any insight. So what?

"You're submitting too fast."

You know what, HN? Fuck you. When we take time to submit content to YOUR Web site, you say "thank you." You don't tell us to sit there and twiddle our thumbs in hopes of someday having the PRIVILEGE of posting again. The fucking gall.

Piss off.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#24

Post by yareally »

robryan wrote: post #13
robotmay wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not too sure. I see a lot of people these days, and unfortunately even kids, becoming hooked on quick fixes; pay-to-win games, AAA games with 10-hour single-player campaigns, and pretty much all mobile games. I gave a copy of Pokemon Black to a friend's kids (same age as when my brother and I, and all of our friends, were obsessed with them), and they couldn't get more than 15 minutes in without getting bored. Ob…

What is wrong with 10 hour single player AAA games? These generally offer the most refined interactive story type experiences. I much prefer one of these to most movies.

Mostly the price of the typical 10 hour single player AAA game tends to be $60 + additional DLCs or special preorder things making up go up to the $80+ range.

That might not seem so troublesome on the surface, but there's generally little motivation to replay such games most of the time. Also, the knowledge that there have been many games with much more single player time as well as re-playability for a comparable or lesser price now or in the past. The more those 10 hour games become popular, the more it's considered acceptable and even normal for games in general.

The problem compounds when a new generation plays such games and never realizes how games were in the past. I've already noticed it with PC gamers and that many use controllers now even for typically keyboard/mouse games like FPSs. Companies end up failing to user test for keyboard/mouse players and things like custom key bindings or keyboard/mouse UX get ignored. Probably the worst example I've seen recently was Sleeping Dogs on PC. No custom key bindings (except for keys you didn't care about changing). Things like exiting a vehicle were set to the right mouse button without a way to change. I ended up accidentally pressing it at least 40-50 times throughout the game and had to repeat at least a few missions.

Typically, these type of games are bought for the multiplayer aspect (which is why I assume the single player game is so short and limited). I'm not much for multiplayer gaming unless it's with friends and not random people. Co-op gaming can be especially fun if done right (Saints Row 3, Terraria, Borderlands, etc).

In the end though, it's all about preferences. You might like such games yourself (and many others), but not everyone does. I think such games fill a niche for those that like them, but I loathe seeing them become the majority of PC/Console games as they're not the type of game that usually interests me.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#25

Post by rmc »

ig1 wrote: post #19
RyanZAG wrote: post #3

I don't believe this kind of in-app pay-to-win style games will last much longer. It's the kind of thing someone new to games will pay for, but after paying for a bit, those same people seem to 'wise up' eventually. I think you'll see these kind of games slowly decreasing in profitability over the next 5 years. It's similar to many other forms of short term profit in which the value provided does not equal the amount…

Everything you said could be applied to pay upfront games as well. i.e: "I don't believe this kind of "pay before you play" style games will last much longer. It's the kind of thing someone new to games will pay for, but after paying for a bit, those same people seem to 'wise up' eventually. I think you'll see these kind of games slowly decreasing in profitability over the next 5 years. It's similar to many other for…

Ah, but these are new, and different. So they must be worse. Duh.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#26

Post by lazyjones »

The amazing thing about this is how easily these f2p apps/games can monetize "content" while all kinds of web publications struggle with this. Is "serious" content simply to unattractive or is the fact that the payment process is handled by a centralized, trusted mechanism what makes the difference? If the latter, we should probably add payment options to browsers.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#28

Post by nicholassmith »

The most interesting part (for me) was the mention of the pay for credit to continue. Now that is an interesting use of IAP rather than 'shiny golden boots, £3', as it works on an established model that was reasonably successful for a number of years. Does anyone know of any other games using the same mechanism?

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#29

Post by endemic »

dennybritz wrote: post #23

Don't see what's new about this, i.e. why this has so many upvotes. Tons of mobile games have been following on the same model for a while. Is this being upvoted just because the number looks stunning?

Yeah, seems like just another scammy F2P mobile game. Kudos to them for making money hand over fist, but I don't think I could sleep at night if I built my business by exploiting users.

Re: How one Japanese gaming startup is generating $3.8 million in revenue per day

#30

Post by w1ntermute »

coffeeaddicted wrote: post #10

Our highest law court in Germany made a judgement recently which can make selling that kind of games a lot harder here in the future. They forbid advertisement for online game items if the advertisement is targeted at children. The concrete example which triggered this could be translated as "Take the chance bargain and give your armor and weapons that certain something." German link: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/m…

There was a similar thing in Japan with the kompu gacha ban a year or two ago, but the companies have just found ways around it and are thriving the same as ever.
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