How to Monetize Emotions in F2P Games?

Julia Palatovska and Tatiana Timoshenko at White Nights Conference June 27, 2013

Why to develop and publish games on mobile platforms?

7 April 20237 April 2023

G5 Entertainment in brief

• Close to 500 game apps across iOS, Android and Mac App Store

• Over 70 independent game developers publish games with G5

• We release a new game app on iOS / Android / Mac App Store every week

• iOS, Android, and Mac represent close to 100% of G5’s revenue

• Very “long tail of sales”: games continue making money even after 3-4 year after launch

• Focus on free-to-play games: 3 successfully published projects, 10 more to be released by the end of the year

7 April 2023

2011e 2012e 2013e 2014e 2015e 2016e0

400

800

1,200

1,600

491

717

898978

1,0661,161

71

119

182

230

292

369

562

836

1,080

1,209

1,357

1,530

Smartphones Tablets

Mill

ion

units

Bring your games to high growth market

Global shipments of smartphones and tablets expected to reach 1,5 billion in 2016

Source: Carnegie, IDC (September 2011), Gartner (April 2012)

7 April 2023

Bring your games to high growth market

Global mobile app market set to grow from $2.2 billion in 2010 to $37.5 billion by 2015

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 20150

10

20

30

40

2.2

5.6

11.7

18.6

28.2

37.5

USD

bill

ion

Source: Forrester Research, March 2011

7 April 20237 April 2023

Stagnation and decline on console and PC game platforms

Console games

PC games

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 20160

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

USD

mill

ion

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 20160

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

USD

mill

ion

Sources: Carnegie, Gartner (September 2012), and PWC - Global entertainment and media outlook: 2012-2016

7 April 20237 April 2023

App gaming is out-growing all other game platforms

Global mobile app market (million of downloads)

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

24,93645,617

81,422

131,695

205,376

309,606

Growth in the mobile app market is mainly driven by gaming apps

100% of G5’s revenue from app gaming!

Sources: Carnegie, Gartner (September 2012), and PWC - Global entertainment and media outlook: 2012-2016

7 April 2023

G5 well positioned to capture further growth

Virtual City F2P Top Grossing Ranks

CountryOverall

AppsGame Apps

# of countries - rank 1 reached 32 45# of countries - rank 5 reached 74 93# of countries - rank 10 reached 91 103# of countries - rank 100 reached 108 109

Source: App Annie

7 April 2023

G5 well positioned to capture further growth

The Secret Society Top Grossing Ranks

CountryOverall

AppsGame Apps

# of countries - rank 1 reached 2 2# of countries - rank 5 reached 5 8# of countries - rank 10 reached 8 11# of countries - rank 100 reached 72 83

Source: App Annie

…and growing!

7 April 20237 April 2023

Unlockable vs F2P

• Play several levels for free, pay to continue

• Fire and forget, almost no support needed

• Significant operating leverage, as no incremental cost to keep the game selling

Unlockable (”casual”) games Free-to-play (F2P) games

• Free-to-play (F2P)

• Play for free, pay for virtual goods

• Game as a service, regular updates

• Higher earnings potential

The Secret Society

Virtual City F2PNightmares from the Deep

Supermarket Mania

Pricing:$1.99 to $6.99 per gameNo additional cost after purchase

Pricing:No activation costIn-app currency packages priced at between $0.99 and $99.99

7 April 20237 April 2023

High potential of F2P games

Free-to-Play: Increasing usage with updates

Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 Version 4

Income patterns: Free-to-play vs Unlockable

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Number of months after release

F2P

Unlockable

7 April 202312April 7, 2023

What should a game developer do?

• Don’t waste time on PC games

• Focus on development for new platforms

• Bring existing PC games to iOS, Android and Windows 8

• Use iOS as reference platform for all future games

• Bring your best franchises to Mobile F2P format, and go cross-platform

• Choose the right technology/engine, don’t use “blackbox” engines

7 April 20237 April 2023

Publishing with G5

G5 adds value to developers

• Help developers gain independence from PC/Web portals

• Offer great publishing terms and advances

• Assign experienced producer

• Share our best practices

• Localize to 12 languages

• Provide thorough cross-platform QA

• Cross-platform technology, if you need it

• Cross-sell with our portfolio:- Over 100 million downloads of G5 game apps! - Millions of MAU

Millions of downloads for your

game

Millions of users, brand recognition

Promotion of your game in new releases

Regular new game

releases

How to monetize F2P games?

7 April 202315

Monetize emotions

Allow players to pay for satisfaction of their desires: Impatience Curiosity Comfort Ambition etc.

Make players want to pay rather than force them to do it!

7 April 202316

Impatience

Players don’t want to wait, and they are eager to pay and:

• Boost things up• Expand session time• Skip grinding

Make balance realistic. In real life things do not appear at once:

no pain, no gain.

7 April 202317

Impatience: Boost things up

Finish building new floor NOW!

7 April 202318

Impatience: Expand session timeNot enough energy to continue playing

Impatience: Expand session time

7 April 2023

Impatience: Skip Grinding

7 April 2023

Curiosity

Announce new content ahead of time

Sneak peak for new content and functionality that player is going to face in nearest future, make him curious and willing to find out what it is going to be.

7 April 202321

Curiosity

7 April 202322

Comfort

Overcome game restrictionsGet tools for easier progression

Allow to overcome not critical for gameplay restrictions, and players that want to ease the challenge will be thankful.

7 April 202323

Comfort: Overcome restrictions

Give a player several paid options

7 April 202324

Comfort: Ease progression

7 April 202325

Comfort: Ease progression

24 hrs of protection and comfort

7 April 202326

Ambition

Overtake friendsHave the best itemsOwn awesome things

Give players an opportunity to challenge their friends and have the best and most effective items in the game.

7 April 202327

Ambition: Overtake friends

7 April 202328

Ambition: Overtake friends

7 April 202329

Ambition: Be the Fastest

7 April 202330

Ambition: Own awesome things

Ambition: Have the Best Items

Benefit from G5’s success Send your game to

developers@g5e.comand get our proposal