Forum ‹ Monetization ‹ Suggestions for better monetization

[moosemouse]

My game, Big Time Racing (and its Facebook App version), have been out for a few months now. I am still working hard to improve it and promote it everyday, but I am getting frustrated. I am just not seeing anywhere near the virtual goods sales I had hoped for.

My ARPU is around $0.004. Comparing that to Zynga's $0.33 ARPU I have a loooooong way to go. To further the frustration, a Facebook ad click from a US user costs $0.30-$0.60. So even if my ARPU is "Zynga-good" I still have to rely on a lot of viral activity to be profitable. So far the game is not very viral.

Quick stats: The game is currently played about 12,000 times per day around the web, but only about 500 DAU from Facebook. Facebook is really the only significant monetization channel right now.

I am a one-man company, so time/resources/money are very limited. Here are the things I think I need to concentrate on. Please let me know which you think should be my top priority:

1. Promotion. My multiplayer lobbies are empty. This removes what I believe to be the coolest part of the game (real-time multiplayer racing), and makes the game look unpopular/bad -- perception is reality?!

2. More cars, tracks, and customizations. I definitely plan to add more of these, but so far new content has not seemed to increase ARPU. Each car takes me a week to make, and each customization and track takes almost as long.

3. Tournaments. Maybe I need to concentrate on building a communty? I have a forum and an app/fan page on Facebook, so I could organize some events.

4. Maybe the game needs to be more than a pure car racing game. Should I add weapons, power-ups etc.? Is the game simply "not that fun"?

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Shawn

[RastaRalle]

I started playing your game a week ago or something like that.
I think you really should concentrate on distributing the game. The empty lobby is the biggest problem I think.
And please don't add things like weapons. I think that would completely destroy the game...

[GameTwoThree]

I opened the game, and clicked race. It didn't let me race. I wanted to quit instantly.

So basically, make a default car which user don't need to buy and let him race as soon as he enters the game. You should also add in a quick play button which instantly gives you an opportunity to race others. Once the player sees that everyone has a better car than him, he will look into how to upgrade his own.

Also, less text, more logical interface. Consider hiring a voice talent to voice over your tutorial, because when average user sees tons of text he will quit because he came to play not to learn.

Hope that helps.

[moosemouse]

Thanks, guys. Your feedback definitely helps. I am having a bit of "analysis paralysis" right now.. so much to do, and not sure where to start. And I'm having serious doubts that any of it will make the game profitable...

[GameTwoThree]

Mate, you got an awesome engine there. I suggest you either improve this game greatly, or take some time, make a completely different game out of it, and republish it under different name.

Basically, a really great game could emerge from this engine, and that's something you should use to your advantage.

I would put in some weapons and stuff, check out the old Twisted Metal games for PS1 on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCAX9JTLWA0

Also check out Death Rally, a really old 2d game, which has awesome upgrade/shop system, very simple and understandable to every player.

Good luck and keep us updated.

[moosemouse]

Thanks, GameTwoThree

Twisted Metal was a great game! I've got a few new ideas I am going to try before revisiting the engine with a new game.

Also, good news for Flash, but bad news for me -- Flash Player 11 (now in public beta) has a brand new 3D engine which uses the GPU. This means Flash will have some awesome 3D capabilities very soon, but it also means I should rewrite my engine before making any new games.

[GameTwoThree]

You talking about molehill?

[moosemouse]

Yes

[Mrx3D]

Well then its good Molehill 3d is "very" easy to work with,
and the new 3d hardware capabilities are awesome, vertex and pixel shaders in flash!

just remember to use wmode="direct" when running in the browser or it will run slow as ....

[Benjaminsen]

I just played the game an found it way to hard to get started with.

Basic successions.
1: Make racing the very first thing people do when they start the game. And I mean the very very first thing, before registration, before auth, before permissions before showing them anything, let them race.

2: Look at TrackMania and how their multiplayer model works, I personally find it much more appealing than round based racing. This also allows anyone to jump into the race at any time, removing the need for hiding rooms in the lobby when they are already racing.

3: There is a lot of stuff that should be cleaned up in the UI.
3.a Simple things like not showing tunes I have already bought in the left menu.
3.b You need to put more focus on actually racing, right now I find it almost hidden away.
3.c The single player challenge overview needs some heavy work. I suggest making it a progress you go trough, unlocking more challenges as you play etc.
3.d The "you won", "this is your new award" etc texts on the race complete needs much more highlighting. Look at fruit ninja etc type games for inspiration.

4: Implement PayPal. More than 70% of all revenue flowing through Player.IO powered games comes from PayPal. Don't relay on SuperRewards as your primary monetization scheme.

[moosemouse]

Thanks Benjaminsen! That is incredibly helpful. I will implement all of it! I've studied TrackMania a lot since your post letting me know about it from many months ago. They have a slight advantage with GPU enabled 3D rendering technology, so I am not able to have the high number of cars that they have in multiplayer mode. 4 cars at a time is the max I can do right now. But I will figure out a way to do something similar with the technology I've got