ITP 499 – Creating Social Games
MIDTERM EXAMINATION (TAKE-HOME)
Spring 2011
The purpose of this midterm examination is to help you identify the various elements of a social game. The first questions will focus on Terminology, Metrics, Social Game Mechanics, specifically Tutorialization, Progression, Balance, User Interface, and the Game Loop. You will be required to discuss/identify these elements as they relate to existing social games. Other questions on this midterm will be specific to programmers or designers.
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Question 1: Throughout the semester, we have commented on the three R’s (Reach, Retention, Revenue) that are essential to the success of a social game. In your own words, describe and elaborate on each of the 3 R’s and how/why they are essential to the success of a social game.
The 3 R’s of Reach, Retention, and Revenue are essential to the success of a social game much as they are the key to success in any other product. For a product to be successful, it must attract consumers, keep consumers coming back, and ultimately turn a profit for the developer. In social games especially, the 3 R’s each play an important role. Reach is necessary for a few reasons. Just like marketing for other products, if people do not know about your product, how will they pay for it? For social games, this is especially important because only a very small percentage of the user base is actually paying for the service. That means that 98-99% of the people playing are simply losing the company money in terms of development, upkeep, etc. Reach is so important because that 1-2% of those that pay need to be able to sustain the upkeep costs as well as the initial development cost. 1-2% of the few hundred people who buy a business jet may be enough to subsidize the development of that jet, but a social game requires a much larger base. When 100 million people play Cityville, about 2 million of them pay, and suddenly micro-transactions more than pay for the development cycle. Thus, Reach is important because a large user base is simply a must to make a social game profitable (this is probably the main reason that Facebook has become the primary medium for social games, the sheer size). Social game companies turn to game mechanics such as requiring items from friends, or having a certain Clique Size (It Girl) to unlock new game loops/regions/etc. to improve this Reach. Another “how” of Reach is the cross-game marketing bar that appears on top of games such as Farmville directing a player to Yoville of Cityvile. Retention is important for social games for ultimately the same reason as Reach, the money. Since social game monetization is based on micro-transactions, developers need the player to come back again and again to keep spending $1 here and $5 there to increase their ARPPU. Retention is also a powerful tool because it is exponential. For each player that stops playing a game, that is one less real-life person that is telling their friends about the game, or sending invites for their friends to send them a few more Zoning Permits, which means that each player not retained actually diminishes the gameplay quality for all of that person’s friends as well. Developer’s keep up Retention in a few ways: releasing the game at 30% completion to allow room for new features to keep a player interested, having themed limited time items based around holidays, daily bonuses, having friends keep needing you to come back to help them in missions (or sending a message that they just helped you), gifting, or negative harvesting effects (wilted crops or a boyfriend losing interest), but perhaps the biggest thing that keeps players coming back to social games is the human need to feel better than the guy next to him and keep that city growing. Many of the core social gameplay mechanics are built around the need for Retention, highlighting its importance in social game development today. The third R is Revenue. The “why” of Revenue to the importance of social games is simple: without Revenue, there would be no business and hence no games. The “how” is a little more difficult. Games such as Robot Unicorn are barely monetized at all, but the larger games built specifically as social games have learned how to get users to pay and are developed exactly to meet that criterion. First and foremost, the best way to get people to pay for a game is to make it fun, make them not want to put it down, to just buy that 5 more energy to finish the project they are working on. Zynga in Cityville does this by specifically making it impossible to do everything necessary in one visit on a limited amount of energy. After progressing past about level 10-15 in the game, a player simply possesses too many crops and buildings to harvest them all in one sitting, thus creating the urge to buy more energy. Another method is limited edition or holiday-themed items that can set a player apart from his/her friends, whether it is a direct purchase or the purchase of mission items needed for unlockables, such as the clovers needed for Irish-themed booths in Ravenwood Fair. Gameplay boosts is yet a third method to increase revenue, a “hotter” dress, a boost to a player’s boyfriend’s enhancement buff, or purchasing a spin at the lucky gold racks in It Girl might cost a few real dollars. Overall, each of the 3 R’s play their own unique role. All 3 are ultimately required for the lasting success of any social game and any development company.
Question 2: Metrics are key to understanding the success of a social game. Some key metrics used for social games are: DAU (Daily Active Users), MAU (Monthly Active Users), and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Assume you are interviewing for a consulting position as a social game expert. The Interview asks you the questions: Why are DAU/MAU important in social games? Which metric is more important for a social game: DAU or MAU? Lastly, in your opinion, how is ARPU calculated in a social game?
DAU and MAU are so important in social games because they quantitatively and exactly tell the development company how many people are playing their game. Furthermore, when comparing DAU and MAU as a ratio, a developer can see how often their players come back for more, which often translates to spending more money since players who play once a week are much less likely to spend money on the game then somebody who checks in every four hours. Yet another advantage of DAU and MAU is measuring Retention, not only over long spans, but also with new content. If the developer rolls out a new gameplay element and sees a drop in DAU over the next week, it becomes evident that the new feature detracts from the fun of the game or has some sort of glitch and needs fixing; conversely positive effects can also be seen and expanded upon. The more important metric for social games is DAU. Although MAU helps measure long-term effects, Reach, and other factors, DAU is the key to a social games success. First of all, just helping out a friend by sending Marble twice a month gets counted as a MAU, but obviously does not benefit the developer. For this reason, DAU is actually a better measurement of Reach and Retention than MAU because it counts active users rather than passer-bys who may just want to help a friend one time. More importantly, DAU measures the amount of users on each day that may spend money. As previously stated, the users that play every day are more likely to spend real money, not only because of time invested into the game, but because they enjoy the game more to the point where “out of energy” becomes a roadblock instead of an “oh well, I’ll come back later.” Thus, DAU is more important than MAU because DAU relates to Revenue, and therefore encompasses all of the 3 R’s giving a more accurate picture of a game’s success to the developer. ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is calculated by taking all of the Revenue earned over a time-span and dividing by the number of unique players during that same time frame, whether they paid or not. This helps to give an idea of the amount of money coming in per amount of money going out in upkeep of servers, etc.; tangentially it also helps to give a percentage of users that pay money out of total users. ARPPU may be a better measurement of the quality of monetization in the game to see how much money is spent per person who actually spends money, highlighting the Revenue in the game and weeding out the 98% of people who would probably never pay anyways.
Question 3:For the 3 games listed below, please use the attached spreadsheet and analyze the data. What are some of the trends you noticed after reviewing the charts for the 3 games? Be specific and detailed. Why do you feel the DAU as a percentage of MAU dropped for Ravenwood and It Girl as opposed to Cityville? Note: some questions may be answered easier after you have thoroughly played the games. Who are playing these games (demographic data) and from what territories?
Immediately noticeable is the fact that about 75% of players are female, about half of players are from the United States, and about half of the players are 18-35 across the three games combined. These metrics are far different from console or PC games. Interestingly, a higher percentage of females play RavenwoodFair, created by John Romero, than It Girl, created from only a female perspective with no choice for a male avatar. 2/5 ofIt Girl players are under 18, much larger than the 15-20% seen in the other two games, with less than 15% over 36, much less than the ~40% in the other two games. Furthermore, the DAU as a percentage of MAU is around 16-17% for Ravenwood Fair and It Girl, but is around 22% for Cityville. In sheer number, Cityville also trumps the competition with just below 100 million MAU while the other two have risen to 11 and 9 million respectively over a much longer lifespan. The two smaller games however have seen a consistent growth in MAU and thus DAU over a large time-frame, while Cityville seems to have already hit a peakand actually lose about 6 million users (7%) in the past month, despite launching just a few months ago. Ravenwood Fair witnessed a significant drop in DAU over the holiday period between Christmas and New Year’s Day, especially on the day of, whereas It Girl held steady, perhaps a reflection of the older, more female population playingRavenwood Fair. However, Ravenwood Fair is also the only game of the three to have a positive DAU or MAU in the past 7 days, in part since Cityville’s numbers have been decreasing during the entire time-span and possibly a result of midterms with the young population base in It Girl. Cityville also stands apart from the other two games as it boasts an international percentage of players at about 70%, while It Girl is at only 40% and Ravenwood is just over 50%; this may be another factor in why Cityville’s MAU has dropped recently as the majority of the international community hasn’t fully accepted social gaming. A trend common to all three games are DAU peaks on weekends; this is especially evident in It Girl again thanks to its much younger population base.
The DAU as a percentage of MAU dropped for Ravenwoodand It Girl unlike Cityville for two main reasons. First of all, Cityville’s graph does not include its launch date, which is reflected in the initial spikes of the other two games. Secondly, although Cityville’s DAU has increased over the measured time-frame, its MAU has dropped significantly, thus maintaining an upward in slope in DAU as a percentage of MAU. In contrast, the other two games have actually seen a higher relative percentage increase in DAU, but have held an equally increasing MAU. Another key is that Zynga has been consistently pumping out new content to Cityville(such as a warehouse, visitor center, new shops, and holiday-themed items), which may annoy some people and thus reduce MAU, but also may make the gameplay experience as a whole more enjoyable for those still connected to the game, increasing DAU. Overall, the drop and then plateau of DAU as a percentage of MAU in It Girl and Ravenwood is not a cause for too much concern as it does not reflect the physical numbers, whereas Cityville’s upward swing is at best neutral for Zynga, as it displays a downturn in MAU and a status quo in DAU.
Question 4: TUTORIALIZATION. Tutorials are essential to social games. The first 5 minutes of a social game is important to engage the user and ensure they have a meaningful experience. Games with bad tutorial design are reflected with low retention metrics. For this question, you are required to create a flow chart outlining the tutorial sequence for ONE of the social games listed below:
The flowchart should list out the process in which the game is trying to educate the user on the core game loop and key social game mechanics. Being able to recognize tutorial patterns with current social games will help you identify a tutorial that will be streamlined and balanced for your final game project.
Ravenwood Fair
Question 5: PROGRESSION. Progression is a key element to social games and extends from tutorialization. Some questions pertaining to progression in social games include: What happens during the game from level 1 – level 5? What are the various items that unlock at each level? What are the ‘gates’ on progression (why doesn’t allow you to progress quicker)? How do the following items: leveling, coins, cash, etc. impact Progression in social games?
For this question, compare and contrast ‘Progression’ for EACH of the three games listed above (from Question 4). Use the questions listed above as a guideline to help answer this question. You may want to use a Table Format to list out your answers for this question.
Type of Progression / Cityville / Ravenwood Fair / It GirlLevel 1-5 / Quickly unlock basic houses, shops, and crops that spread the harvest timeline (e.g. housing has a 5 minute, 4 hr, 18 hr, one day, and 2.1 day option by level 5); depending on quest progression train station can be unlocked by now as well / Unlock basic buildings and games / Unlock 6 stores, which supplies a full array of the 6 clothes types
Unlocked Items / New shops, houses, community, decorations, basically every phase has new stuff / Games, decorations, wonders, buildings / Clothes
Unlocked Gameplay / Community buildings means your city can grow, seaports, more empty spaces for neighbor franchises, new gifts, train station, expanded energy cap, increased XP necessary to level / New gifts, increased XP necessary to level / Gifts, boyfriend, places to shop, parties to attend, car in LA, house, expanded energy cap, expanded confidence cap, increased salary per hour, increased XP necessary to level
Gates / Houses/shops give less coins, crops are shorter spanned, community buildings give less population, progress to each by leveling or having a certain population, community buildings require progressively more friends to help work there. The initial cap seems to be population and coins, but you are soon solely limited by space to expand. / The main gate in Ravenwood Fair is the ability to earn coins, as higher level protectors, buildings, etc. require many coins. Also higher level buildings require special items such as more crystals, which can be more easily attained by level-locked wonders. / Worse clothes at cheaper stores, Clique Sizereqs for parties/shops/boyfriend, need certain level for boyfriend, car, house, locations. Initially, the level cap is the limiting factor, but it soon becomes cash flow.
Why do the gates not allow faster progression for each of the games?
Gates exist in social games to keep users in the correct bounds (in the happy valley between a game being too easy or too difficult). If the best item could be purchased at level 4, there would be no incentive for progression. Gates force the user to have a long-term, multi-visit investment in the game world to realize the world’s full potential. Furthermore, gates retain competition. If there was no energy in social games, people could continually perform the game loop and level extremely fast, discouraging friends of that user from even trying to keep up; and since these are social games, one of the largest factors driving traffic is the social (conscious or subconscious) aspect of comparison to your friends. Another reason gates limit progression is to keep things fresh. In It Girl, if somebody gets bored of just shopping and partying, they may be about to quit the game until they unlock the ability to have a boyfriend, a whole new game loop earned to keep the player interested in the game. Using the same example, gates give the user something to strive for, like the mysterious Car in LA that may give some sort of cool boost, but the player cannot find out what that boost is until level 22, a long term goal to shoot for. In conclusion, every gate boils down to keeping the game challenging both in the traditional gameplay itself and in the new social realm of having the skill required to progress in comparison to your friend.