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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

#21

Post by Pxtl »

trin_ wrote: post #19
programminggeek wrote: post #9

I think League of Legends or maybe Team Fortress 2 are about as good as it gets in terms of over-delivering value and not overselling their micro-transactions. Not everyone is going to be so successful with the same approach though.

LoL is horrible compared to Dota2 in this regard. You cant play every hero and with added points you get addex abilities. Dota2 micro-transactions only pay for cosmetic items that you can (mostly) also get via trading with other players or as a drop after each finished game.

On the other hand, you can't really blame Riot for needing to grab more money than Valve. Valve has deep pockets and is willing to take a small profit if it means they survive in the long run. Also, Valve's brand is strong-enough that they have players beating a path to their door no matter what they publish. Riot has none of these options. Every player they earn on the strength and reputation of the game alone. They have no cash to fall back onto if LoL doesn't make money for them.

If LoL doesn't make money for Riot, the developers don't get to eat. So yeah, I'm not surprised they went with a F2P model with a little bit of pay-to-win in there, and their variation on it (rotating characters and you pay to keep the ones you liked) is a novel and fair approach to it.

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

#23

Post by kmfrk » 

    Clash of Clans on iOS is doing well..
    supercell is making 1 mil a day off of microtransactions?
former_zyngite:

    So much more than 1m a day from what I understand. Yes.
    Clash of Clans is doing well. That's the understatement
    of the year.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1fpbv1/i_was_one_of_th...

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

#25

Post by cageface »

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 a lot of very interesting things you could do with a pocket computer that's always online and equipped with a bunch of sensors but nobody cares because if you're not playing these kinds of slimy games with the rest of the top 20 you might as well not exist in the store.

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

#26

Post by Yhippa »

programminggeek wrote: post #9

I think League of Legends or maybe Team Fortress 2 are about as good as it gets in terms of over-delivering value and not overselling their micro-transactions. Not everyone is going to be so successful with the same approach though.

Don't forget Guild Wars 2! No monthly subscription fees and there are plenty of ways to have fun without spending lots on microtransactions.

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

#27

Post by intended »

simias wrote: post #13

So it's the very definition of "pay2win". What I don't understand is how they get people to keep playing once they realize they don't need skill to win, but rather a valid credit card number. Certainly it must feel like using cheatcodes? The victories must feel empty and you'd get bored pretty quickly, at least I think I would.

Well if you consider the design paradigm and the monetary chain it makes more sense.

The player population is broken up in the same way casino visitors are, with the whales providing the most income.

Everyone else though is content.

It's not unbearably bad for everyone, they just accept that they can have less fun. Since their target market is casuals, most people don't know there is an alternative.

Further since this model is more profitable, the casuals likely will never know there an option.

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

#28

Post by grayrest »

simias wrote: post #13

So it's the very definition of "pay2win". What I don't understand is how they get people to keep playing once they realize they don't need skill to win, but rather a valid credit card number. Certainly it must feel like using cheatcodes? The victories must feel empty and you'd get bored pretty quickly, at least I think I would.

> What I don't understand is how they get people to keep playing once they realize they don't need skill to win, but rather a valid credit card number.

It's all about how it's presented. Gems aren't presented as win buttons but rather as boosts to a particular aspect. When you add boosts together you're basically buying things outright but there's no button for "$65 max level barracks" (haven't played, won't be). This is important because it's more like "I have all these pieces except..." and you have this resource you started with and have received more of via normal gameplay that happens to solve the problem. I'm sure the amounts start low and slowly increase.

As for the hollow/bored, it's a competitive multiplayer game. Being the biggest dog in the neighborhood is always fun and once that's over it becomes you against the guy in the next neighborhood over who's also spending so it becomes not about spending money to win but rather spending money to compete.

This is a classic pay to win set of mechanics. It works when your audience either doesn't know how things work like the author or doesn't care (enthusiasts of the korean mmos that pioneered the model). I got pay2win burned–enjoyed the game, didn't recognize pay2win, basically did the same analysis as the article author, was sad–when companies in the US were initially exploring the space. I now check how the company is making money off the game before playing any F2P and convert microtransactions to dollars as part of the spending process.

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

#29

Post by sharkweek »

czzarr wrote: post #16
simias wrote: post #13

So it's the very definition of "pay2win". What I don't understand is how they get people to keep playing once they realize they don't need skill to win, but rather a valid credit card number. Certainly it must feel like using cheatcodes? The victories must feel empty and you'd get bored pretty quickly, at least I think I would.

It's called addiction. They get people addicted to the power that gems confer them. People don't care that they need no skills. They just want that high that the gems give them.

As a former WoW player -- I remember the "thrill" I would get anytime an achievement alert would pop up; those silly little accomplishments became rather addictivie

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

#30

Post by Guvante »

trin_ wrote: post #19
programminggeek wrote: post #9

I think League of Legends or maybe Team Fortress 2 are about as good as it gets in terms of over-delivering value and not overselling their micro-transactions. Not everyone is going to be so successful with the same approach though.

LoL is horrible compared to Dota2 in this regard. You cant play every hero and with added points you get addex abilities. Dota2 micro-transactions only pay for cosmetic items that you can (mostly) also get via trading with other players or as a drop after each finished game.

But you also get a feeling of accomplishment when you unlock a hero.
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