Marketing and Monetizing - Beginning Android Games - page 650

ï?® Virtual currency that has the following properties

ï?® Can be acquired through regular gameplay

ï?® Is used to purchase upgrades

ï?® Is used to purchase additional content

ï?® Can be purchased using real money

Using these elements, you can design a game from the onset to offer very compelling reasons
for users to purchase virtual currency and virtual goods in game. Sometimes you need to
change VC-providing services because of a new feature or because a company has gone out
of business. This design is pervasive enough to allow swapping of VC-based services and
purchasing services without harming the game by changing or removing content or costing
you too much development time when switching services. Therefore, a game that exhibits the
following properties can be said to be monetizable by design:

ï?® Allows the player to purchase virtual products and currency

ï?® Provides incentive for the player to purchase virtual products and currency

This scheme isn't the only way to do it, but it certainly has been a successful one. There
are many successful Android games that use this scheme in some form or another, and we
recommend considering it or at least taking note of the general ideas and applying them to your
game.

Discoverable by Design
What good is a game that no one ever finds? The truth of the matter is that the market is so
competitive now, with so many free games, that to have your game become a big success, you
need to pay particular attention during the design phase to how people will discover your game.
Some games may seem to spring up out of nowhere and just become popular by chance, but
usually quite a bit of thought went into the discoverability of those games when they were being
designed.

Games that are readily discoverable have elements beyond a “wow� factor and a good game
design. They provide incentives for players to tell other people about the game. Much like a
game that's designed to be monetized, a game that's designed to be discoverable incorporates
most or all of the same elements (virtual currency, virtual goods, unlockables, additional content,
etc.) as incentives for telling other people about the game.

Here are a few ideas of how to incorporate into your game content incentives for players to
share your game with others:

ï?® Make a piece of content that can only be unlocked by entering a referral

code received from another player

ï?® Give additional content or VC for tweeting about the game or sharing or

liking it on Facebook

ï?® Award players with VC for all referrals they make to other players