A Hacker's guide to monetizing a free-to-play game | Hacker News Reader

A Hacker's guide to monetizing a free-to-play game

blog.betable.com

34 pointsrabble10 comments

@MostAwesomeDude I think you pointed out a major issue with social games in general, which is that across the industry, free-to-pay conversion rates are only about 2% and player only generate about $1 ARPU/month, meaning, to turn your game into a viable business, you need to have a ton of players or as you put it, "...you really want as many potential wallets as possible."

There are a few new monetization methods out there such as Kiip that you should check out, although I can't speak for how well they work.

One new monetization method that I can speak for, which is proven to work are, real-money gambling and betting mechanics, which produce monthly ARPU in the neighborhood of $300/month -- that's 300X better than the other monetization options currently available to game devs. I know the knee jerk reaction is to think you can't do that without a license and that obtaining a license is nearly impossible, both of which are true, but Betable (developers.betable.com) just launched a real-money gambling engine that hosts and operates all gambling code on behalf of a game dev, enabling them to piggy-back on Betable's licenses, so they don't have to get their own.

FULL DISCLOSURE, I'M THE FOUNDER OF BETABLE. Sorry for the self-promotions, but given the current state of game monetization methods available to devs, I thought it was important for me to jump into the conversation and make people aware of what else is out there. Hope this is helpful.

> I know the knee jerk reaction is to think you can't do that without a license and that obtaining a license is nearly impossible

Actually my knee jerk reaction is that it's undoubtedly illegal for US developers to offer real money gambling in their games (at least, to US players).

And you would be wrong if it weren't for your parenthetical hedge. Using Betable, it's completely legal for any developer to offer real money gambling in their games to any players who are not in the US and a few other minor jurisdictions (in terms of market size).

It's a big world out there. In fact, the market out side of the US is huge. Even Zynga has more players outside of the US than inside of the US (60% Ex-US). The opportunity to go into the Ex-US market where one can make 300X more ARPU/month than in the US is massive.

Also, one thing rabble didn't mention is that Betable handles all gambling aspects of the code and financials, so US developers can legally integrate with Betable, and we just make sure that their player is not permitted to gamble if the player reside in the US (in which case, they could be taken to a virtual goods equivalent or some other flow).

It is illegal for US players to do real money gambling. But the world is big and the there are other markets. As long as the US players are prevented from playing the US doesn't care that it happens elsewhere.

This is a summary of tips from TapJoy's webinar from last Wednesday. They did a great job of outlining a lot of different monetization tips, but their free-to-play tips were the best.

Do the games have to be pure chance to be legal. I thought you couldn't mix games of skill and chance?

Aren't there all kinds of quite specific laws about how odds are presented and stuff like that? How do you plan to police that stuff?

I assume because you hold the licence, you are the one hosting the games and you are essentially just paying us a commission to find your players?

Oh, I just read this in the API doc.. " Because Betable’s servers are located in the UK, developers in any geographical location may build on our platform. However, due to legal restrictions, we block players from accessing Betable’s real-money play in they are located in the United States, Turkey, Holland or any other jurisdiction that Betable deems unsuitible for it’s services."

Something not mentioned here, which I feel is always left out of CSP discussions: Don't ever offer paid-only content which enhances the game. If a person cannot play for free for extended periods of time and have a good experience, they are less likely to recommend the game to others, and when you live on microtransactions, you really want as many potential wallets as possible.

This applies to countless run-of-the-mill, crappy, casual and free games. As an example, the "energy" system makes me cringe. Instead of offering a game to pick up and play, it limits you and beckons you to come back for more later, unless you pay $5.99 now! or something.

I think the energy system in this sense is usually typical of a poor game, from what I've experienced. It would be hard to get it to work unless it was auxiliary to the game in some well-implemented sense.

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