Appendix A. The F2P Spreadsheet
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The spreadsheet will help you to understand the health and success of your F2P game by calculating the following monthly KPIs:
Revenue. How much money the game generated for the given month.
Marketing spend. How much was spent on marketing for the given month.
Net income. Revenue less overheads and marketing spend.
ARPDAU and ARPMAU. Average revenue per daily or monthly active users.
Engagement. A monthly average for DAU divided by MAU.
Average daily conversion. Percentage of players choosing to spend per day on average.
New users. Total new users in the given month.
Churn. The percentage of players leaving in the given month.
Average CPA. The average cost to acquire a single user based on monthly marketing expenditure.
Average player lifetime. How long, in months, the average player will spend in your game.
LTV. The lifetime value of a player based on the net income.
The required metrics, collected from the platform holder or your analytics software, to calculate the preceding KPIs include:
MAU. The number of players playing in the given month.
Monthly retention. The percentage of players retained for the given month.
Monthly overhead. The total cost to run the game (excluding marketing costs).
Plus for each day:
New users. How many users started playing on the given day.
DAU. How many unique players played on the given day.
Paying users. Number of users making an in-app purchase on the given day.
These metrics should be input on the sheet named Data and placed in the columns containing italicized text and labeled with an asterisks. The spreadsheet contains further instructions.
Appendix B. Additional Resources on Free-to-Play Games
The following articles were written by the author and are included here to further explore topics relating to the building and running of F2P games. The first article gives some quick tips on making more money from your mobile games. Also featured here are articles discussing the moral debate on high-value IAPs, several approaches to games design and the use of consultants in your business. These articles first appeared on games industry websites PocketGamer.biz and Develop Online.
More Money From Your Mobile Game for Zero Cash: Tips on Maximizing Sales and Revenue
Revised from an article that appeared on Develop Online on November 9, 2012 and December 7, 2012.
It may seem that the only way you can guarantee mobile marketing success is with a wad of cash thrown in the faces of greedy user acquisition solutions. The truth is that the foundation of a good marketing campaign costs nothing more than time. The same is true of increasing revenue. Here are some tips on how to speculate less and accumulate more from your mobile games.
Increase Sales
Perhaps the easiest way to boost revenue is to reduce your prices for a short advertised period. This can be for your IAPs linked to a targeted marketing push to your users (email, push notifications or in-game pop-ups) or the up-front price of your app.
The latter is known as peggling (owing to Peggles notorious iOS repricing) and if done well, can shoot your app up the charts (as it did for Peggle) and bring in lots of organic users along with it.
Create Fresh Virtual Items
If your game has virtual items, you should be constantly building more to draw users back and increase their spend. Consider the following:
Use seasonal content for international or regional holidays that create emotional connections. Think along the lines of Santa hats and the Easter Bunny.
Use analytics to identify successes, seek to understand why they sell so well, and then double down on those types of items.
Use branded content with existing IAPs from film, food or even other games for driving huge revenues.
Lobby Your Platform Holder
The holy grail of app marketing is featured placement. Contrary to popular belief, apps are rarely plucked from obscurity for the spotlight. More likely, featured status is a response to lobbying. So contact the developer relations department for your platform, and ask what theyd like from you.
AB Test Names and Icons
Your high-level proposition is the most important factor in marketing. In mobile this is name and icon, which should grab app store browsers and scream download me!
Put time and effort into building several potential name and icon combinations; then run them in a banner campaign and monitor the clickthrough rate. The results will show you which proposals are most effective at generating interest. Refine the combinations and repeat the campaign. (Google Markj.net AB test for more details.)
Link to Affiliates
Signing up for Apples affiliate scheme will earn you an additional five percent on every sale on the App Store you link to. Plus, youll receive better tracking analytics.
Additionally including links to games, soundtracks, videos or books from inside your game youll earn money; even if the customer ends up buying something other than what they were linked to.
Reduce Bounce and Churn
Every part of your marketing funnel needs to be optimizedfrom banner ads to your name and icon. However, in free-to-play the funnel doesnt end at the game; it ends at the IAP.
When youre designing analytics, it is invaluable to build in a way to track how far users get into your game. Determining where and when players leave will point to where they get confused, bored or frustrated. From this information, you can identify problems and fix and increase retention, which increases revenue.
Make Building an IAP an Event
Remove any expendable steps to an IAP. Then make a show of the result. Whizzes, bangs and particle effects will make the experience fun and rewarding, which in turn will make players want to repeat the experience. Harvesting a gem in Bejeweled Blitz is a perfect example.
AB Test Your IAPs
Minor distinctions, such as color, wording or placement, can make a button more attractive to click; yet its very difficult to predict which changes will work and which will fail.
Therefore, AB testing every button, or indeed the entire process leading to an IAP, is the best way to maximize a clickthrough to a purchase.
Build a Community
Building a community should start before launch and continue throughout the life of the product. Typically, offering early previews in the form of beta tests, through services such as Test Flight, will get people buzzing about the game. As an added bonus, youll receive great feedback and catch missed bugs. Create a dialogue by providing quality activitynot begging for retweets or posting old screen shotson Twitter, Facebook and forums. Present a unique voice, show your passionit will spreadand build stories about the people making your game. Your customers are your biggest advocates. Exceed their expectations, and they will do the same in return.
Cross-Promote Your App
Cross-promotion is a catch-all term for a wide range of activities, from simple link exchanges to complex character or theme swaps. The development community is a fertile ground for creative approaches to the problems of discovery. Sharing players can be a brilliant way to keep them in an ecosystem of like-minded studios.