Mobile Game Monetization, Monetizing Multiplayer Games (Part 2)

In the previous post of this series, I have elaborated how Head Ball 2 game is doing with the most important aspect of the mobile game monetization for multiplayer games: Availability of purchases. If you miss that part, I strongly suggest to read it before reading this part.

In this post, I will continue to create thoughts about the multiplayer mobile game Head Ball 2. However, this time I will highlight how this game applies successful multiplayer features.

Good Multiplayer Candidate for Earning

You have your game idea. It is a great one. You shared it with your friends. Everyone is agree that they would play this game. Is this enough? Well, obviously, it is not. There are strong and nice flavors in successful multiplayer games. I will summarize them giving examples from the Head Ball 2.

Go Social

Integrate your game with social networks. Thanks to libraries or assets we have, it is not hard at all. Besides this will create an automatic interaction between your players. Social networks are so powerful for games. So use it according to your game’s specific features.

Head Ball 2 is using Facebook as a social network. It also encourages the players to connect with their Facebook accounts, so they can earn some coins. After you connect it with your account, you can play the game with your friends. Besides the Facebook friends, you can still search for your friends with their nick names. So, connecting to the Facebook is not crucial for this game.

What is missing?

Facebook could be used more aggressively in my opinion. As long as I know my friend’s nick names, I don’t need to connect it with Facebook. Although one of the permissions you consent is the friend’s list access. So, they could go one step further and send the link to the selected Facebook friends. So I could send invitation to my game buddies and make them download this game.

Competition

I play more if I know that I can be better than some punk! Competition is a great factor that keeps the players in the game for the long term. Although there are lot of services to help, I don’t see some obvious elements in some games. You need to be lucky to be successful, but there are some stuff that you can do easily and make your success less random.

Leader Boards

Leader boards are one way to create competition. It used to be one leader board with hundreds of players. Now, it is possible to divide the leader board to certain stages. This will give an incremental improvement feeling to the players. At any point of the game, I care about the one hundred player above me at most. When my ranking is higher, this number decreases.

Head Ball 2 has number of leagues that you can promote to, if you keep playing. There is no global list that you will see yourself. You only see your ranking in your league. However, there is ‘Legends’ list for the people who actually promoted up to the whole leagues. So this is a great way to keep the competition alive even when there is no league left to promote.

I also like one another job which the game provides. After every match, it shows you an animation if your rank has changed. When I am in a good mood, it makes me play more and more. You should definitely put some effort to provide some feedback after every game so the player will be aware of the progress.

Infinitely Playable

Statistics shows that players are tend to play averagely 23 sessions before spending money in a multiplayer game. So, your game should be infinitely playable.

Progressive Content

It doesn’t necessarily mean that you should force your users to play the same game. You can have incremental linear content, so that the user won’t feel bored due to the sameness.

Head Ball 2 has the same game in every session. However, since you are leveling up, the stadium is changing. So it is still the same game, but at least it offers something different when you play a lot.

Consumable Goods

Having an infinitely playable game is also important, because you can offer consumable goods there. If there are not enough chance to use items, than having consumable goods loses its meaning.

Head Ball 2 also offers a lot of consumables, so as long as you play, you will always need more consumables to beat your rivals. I must say that, it is nicely implemented in this game and I believe it is one of the success flavors for it.

Cooperation with Other Players

Cooperation in a game connects me with the game more. When I am playing FIFA mobile, I had a team and we were asked to complete some tasks all together. Rewards were so good, too. Long story short, let your users to cooperate each other and reward them.

Competing each other is fun but feeling to belong some bigger circle is also fun. When people are together they feel responsible to each other. Spend a lot of time to use this element.

Head Ball 2 is letting you to create a team or join other’s team. Every team has a mission to fulfill. However, I found this quite badly implemented. Almost no team is active and even thought I have tried at least 10 different teams, it wasn’t possible to achieve the given tasks. It is not hard to list the teams that are actively playing the game. I have disappointed with the implementation of this element in the Head Ball 2.

Mid-Conclusion

Multiplayer games are so good to monetize. You can really use nice flavors which supports the monetization of your game. In short, a good multiplayer candidate for earning should

• be social,
• allow competition,
• be played infinitely,
• involve a social organization.

The last two posts were about giving more general information about mobile game monetization with little examples from the game. Next post will be purely about the monetization strategy of the Head Ball 2. So when it is posted you will see a link below. Stay tuned!