Monetizer

Monetizer: Despicable Me: Minions Rush, Pac-Man Rush and Pet Rescue Saga

Looking at tricks and techniques

Monetizer: Despicable Me: Minions Rush, Pac-Man Rush and Pet Rescue Saga

Following on from my speech at the Develop in Brighton 2013 conference, we're now running a regular column called Monetizer.

You can see last week's column here, and we're also posting interesting screenshots over on our new Tumblr page.

It's an attempt to look at the opening to 5 to 10 minutes of free-to-play games to check out the early user experience, as well as any monetization techniques developers are using.

This week, we're checking out three games, all of which are aimed at a casual pick-up-and-play audience.

Let's delve in...

1. Despicable Me: Minions Rush (Gameloft)

As we pointed out in last week's Charticle, Despicable Me: Minions Rush is Gameloft first big free-to-play hit.

The movie tie-in endless runner has been downloaded more than 65 million times, boosting Gameloft to the #1 position as the publisher with the most downloads on the App Store in June.

In terms of the game's top grossing performance, it's been top 100 top grossing in 115 countries and top 10 top grossing in 81 countries. Its peak in the US top grossing chart is currently #10.

We can use these numbers to calculate what I call the Monetizer Success coefficient.

This is ((# top 10 positions/# top 100 positions)/ peak US top grossing position).

For Despicable Me: Minions Rush, the answer is ((81/115)/10) = 0.0704.

This may appear low, but we'd expect the number to increase as the game goes top 10 in more countries and increases its US rank.

As well as the game's success, we're interested in how it monetizes.

Given it's aimed at a casual market, the maximum IAP transaction is $49.99, not the maximum allowed ($99.99).

However, the minimum transaction isn't 99c, but $1.99, so Gameloft isn't being totally altruistic. It is one of the few companies to pop up an in-game warning about the cost of IAP, however.

In terms of in-game currency, there's a hard currency (gold), which is available at six price points. There's also a soft currency (bananas). You earn these by playing the game, and you can also convert gold to bananas.

Bananas can be spent buying permanent items such as new minions and unlocking levels, as well as consumable items like shields and launchers. There is one hard currency item too - the $4.99 Golden Banana will double up every banana you collect in-game.

Other monetisation options include incentivised adverts (via AdColony). You get one gold for watching a video.

In general, though, Despicable Me: Minions Rush doesn't look to monetize its audience heavily during the opening 10 minutes.

Indeed, it only gets a Monetizer ranking of 20.

In comparison, Hay Day ranks 20, The Simpsons: Tapped Out 49, and GREE's Modern War 499.

2. Pac-Man Dash! (Namco Bandai)

We now move onto another endless runner, although Pac-Man Dash! is a 2D side-scroller.

Unlike Despicable Me: Minions Rush, it hasn't found much of a market yet. Indeed, it's only hit the top 100 top grossing market in 2 countries, and hasn't ranked in any top 10 chart yet, or on the US top grossing chart.

For that reason, it has a Success coefficient of 0.

Looking at monetization, Pac-Man Dash! uses a consumable items system, with prices ranging from 99c to $4.99.

This means you don't buy currency, but purchase packs of items such as Extra Time, stage unlocks, and Stamina Recovery.

The latter is a fuel-style system that restricts how many game sessions you can have (10) before being gated, either by waiting for your stamina to refill or by spending money.

This item-based approach works well for King, which has seen Candy Crush Saga become the top grossing game across iOS and Android, as players buy multiple packs of items to complete levels and unlock new ones.

It's not proved so successful in this sort of runner game, however; as demonstrated by Pac-Man Dash! lack of commercial success (at least to-date).

It's also worth pointing out that the Monetizer system isn't really set up for item-based games. For that reason, Pac-Man Dash! only has a ranking of 0.5.

3. Pet Rescue Saga (King)

It's a similar situation when it comes to King's latest mobile game.

As we looked at during this week's Charticle, Pet Rescue Saga certainly has momentum, even if it's not yet at Candy Crush Saga levels.

The iPhone version has been top 100 top grossing in 117 countries and top 10 in 51. Its highest US top grossing position has been #14.

This gives us a Success coefficient of 0.03; something that's bound to increase.

(Incidentally, looking at the iPad and Android versions of the game, they rank at 0.016 and 0.08, respectively.)

Checking out the monetization, as with all King's games, Pet Rescue Saga doesn't attempt to do any monetization this early in proceedings.

Its entire focus is to get players to connect to Facebook (although it doesn't even push this) and then interact with their friends, especially as you get past the first 30 levels.

You don't buy currency either. All King's game monetize via items, which range from $0.99 to $4.99, depending on your bundle.

Hence, just like Pac-Man Dash!, Pet Rescue Saga only has a nominal Monetizer ranking - 0.5.


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Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.