

A Hacker's guide to monetizing a free-to-play game - rabble
http://blog.betable.com/tips-for-monetizing-your-free-to-play-game

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chgriffin
@MostAwesomeDude I think you pointed out a major issue with social games in
general, which is that across the industry, free-to-pay conversion rates are
only about 2% and player only generate about $1 ARPU/month, meaning, to turn
your game into a viable business, you need to have a ton of players or as you
put it, "...you really want as many potential wallets as possible."

There are a few new monetization methods out there such as Kiip that you
should check out, although I can't speak for how well they work.

One new monetization method that I can speak for, which is proven to work are,
real-money gambling and betting mechanics, which produce monthly ARPU in the
neighborhood of $300/month -- that's 300X better than the other monetization
options currently available to game devs. I know the knee jerk reaction is to
think you can't do that without a license and that obtaining a license is
nearly impossible, both of which are true, but Betable
(developers.betable.com) just launched a real-money gambling engine that hosts
and operates all gambling code on behalf of a game dev, enabling them to
piggy-back on Betable's licenses, so they don't have to get their own.

FULL DISCLOSURE, I'M THE FOUNDER OF BETABLE. Sorry for the self-promotions,
but given the current state of game monetization methods available to devs, I
thought it was important for me to jump into the conversation and make people
aware of what else is out there. Hope this is helpful.

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dminor
> I know the knee jerk reaction is to think you can't do that without a
> license and that obtaining a license is nearly impossible

Actually my knee jerk reaction is that it's undoubtedly illegal for US
developers to offer real money gambling in their games (at least, to US
players).

~~~
chgriffin
And you would be wrong if it weren't for your parenthetical hedge. Using
Betable, it's completely legal for any developer to offer real money gambling
in their games to any players who are not in the US and a few other minor
jurisdictions (in terms of market size).

It's a big world out there. In fact, the market out side of the US is huge.
Even Zynga has more players outside of the US than inside of the US (60% Ex-
US). The opportunity to go into the Ex-US market where one can make 300X more
ARPU/month than in the US is massive.

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davidtyleryork
This is a summary of tips from TapJoy's webinar from last Wednesday. They did
a great job of outlining a lot of different monetization tips, but their free-
to-play tips were the best.

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jay_kyburz
Do the games have to be pure chance to be legal. I thought you couldn't mix
games of skill and chance?

Aren't there all kinds of quite specific laws about how odds are presented and
stuff like that? How do you plan to police that stuff?

I assume because you hold the licence, you are the one hosting the games and
you are essentially just paying us a commission to find your players?

~~~
jay_kyburz
Oh, I just read this in the API doc.. " Because Betable’s servers are located
in the UK, developers in any geographical location may build on our platform.
However, due to legal restrictions, we block players from accessing Betable’s
real-money play in they are located in the United States, Turkey, Holland or
any other jurisdiction that Betable deems unsuitible for it’s services."

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MostAwesomeDude
Something not mentioned here, which I feel is always left out of CSP
discussions: Don't ever offer paid-only content which enhances the game. If a
person cannot play for free for extended periods of time and have a good
experience, they are less likely to recommend the game to others, and when you
live on microtransactions, you really want as many potential wallets as
possible.

~~~
seagaia
This applies to countless run-of-the-mill, crappy, casual and free games. As
an example, the "energy" system makes me cringe. Instead of offering a game to
pick up and play, it limits you and beckons you to come back for more later,
unless you pay $5.99 now! or something.

I think the energy system in this sense is usually typical of a poor game,
from what I've experienced. It would be hard to get it to work unless it was
auxiliary to the game in some well-implemented sense.

