1.
Building Games for the Long Term:
Pragmatic F2P Guild Design
Anthony Pecorella
Director of Production for browser games
Kongregate.com

2.
Who am I?
● At Kongregate for 5 years, directing our browser-based
virtual goods business
● Also an indie game designer, cofounder of Level Up Labs

3.
● Open platform for browser-based games
● Flash, Unity, HTML5, Java, etc.
● 15M monthly unique visitors worldwide
● Core gamers – 85% male, average age of 21
● MMOs, RPGs, CCGs, TD, shooters, etc.
● Platform level virtual currency, “kreds”
● Mobile publisher of F2P games for core
gamers
● Acquired by GameStop July 2010
What is Kongregate?

4.
Some of Kongregate’s Developer Partners

5.
Context for the Talk
• Focus will be on free to play games, generally
core-gamer in design
• Primary experience is in browser, but most lessons
carry over to mobile
• There is no “ideal” guild, but this talk will try to
help guide your design process with the right
questions to ask

6.
Social Structures in High School
● Ad hoc teams (dodge ball)
● Social group or friends
● School Team (football,
basketball, algebra)
● School Population

7.
Social Structures in Games
● Ad hoc teams (Halo, League of
Legends)
● Friend list (Mafia Wars, Candy
Crush Saga)
● Guilds / Clans (WoW, Clash of
Clans)
● Factions / Races (SW:TOR,
Planetside 2)

8.
A Note on Ad Hoc Guilds
• Nimblebit has tried “ad hoc” guild designs
• Super flexible, but this can be a disadvantage
• Decentralized membership
• Little to no mutual relationships
• Acts better as a fluid leaderboard than a guild

9.
How Important are Guilds?

10.
All That Glitters is Guild
• Every one of our top 10 games has some type of guild
construct
• Guilds are an essential part of high-level monetization in
core F2P games

11.
Numerical support for guilds
• Dawn of the Dragons, by 5th
Planet Games
• Of players who reached level 10,
49% joined a guild
• Didn’t join a guild: 3.2% buyer
rate
• Did join a guild: 23% buyer rate

12.
Numerical support for guilds
• Tyrant, by Synapse Games
• Looking at installs over
the past year…
• Non-guild members
ARPPU is $36.59
• Guild members ARPPU is
$91.60

13.
Long Term Retention is Key

14.
What can Guilds do for Me?
● Retention – regularly returning to your game (rolling D7
retention, regular players, etc.)
● Social connections create sense of belonging, and duty
● Players don’t want to let the guild down
● Keep coming back for sake of others (the Draw Something
effect)

15.
What can Guilds do for Me?
● Engagement – playing deeply into your game (session
time, user level, advancement pace, committed players,
etc.)
● Guild members are great teachers for new players
● Share late game strategy and wisdom
● Powerful elder-game content
● Members need to perform at a high level for the guild to be
competitive

16.
What can Guilds do for Me?
● Monetization – spending among guild members (%
buyers, ARPPU, LTV, etc.)
● Indirect monetization as members upgrade their own status
to be able to perform better for the guild
● Direct monetization can be done in the form of guild items
and bonuses
● Helps mitigate “pay to win” feelings when you have a big
spender on your team
● Some guilds exclusively recruit spenders and require
continued spending from members

17.
The MVG
• What are the characteristics of a Minimum Viable Guild?
• Guild Name: needs to be persistent and visible outside of itself
• Controlled Member List: membership persists and is managed
• Guild Owner: a leader/organizer that at a minimum controls
the member list
• [Shared content: Some sort of content, even just a score, to
unify the guild members]

18.
Guild Features & Decisions
● Now that we have an MVG, what, if anything, should we
add to it?
● What other design questions should I consider for my
game?
● We’ll use an example game…

19.
Guild Design Example Game

20.
Guild Attributes

21.
Creating Guilds
● Should I charge money to create a
guild?
● Avoid creating too much friction
● Guilds are only a means to an end,
a powerful tool
● You want as many legitimate guilds
as possible
● Soft currency prices make sense to
avoid careless guild creation, add
more sense of ownership, or to
pace the player lifecycle
Swords & Potions
Edgebee Studios

22.
● Call them “Teams” not “Guilds”: appeal
better to the demographic
● For consistency, will be referred to as
“guilds” in this talk anyway
● Collect 7 tickets from friends to start a guild
and become Guild Owner
● Enhances sense of ownership
● Acts as initial seed for guild members
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

23.
Joining a Guild
● Introduce guilds at an appropriate time to players. Once
they unlock them then they’ll be interested in exploring
them.
● Have a good matchmaking algorithm for players who want
to find a guild.
● Guild owners will generally want options for open
enrollment, approval, or invite-only

24.
Joining a Guild
● Provide incentives for joining a guild.
Game of War
Machine Zone
Dawn of the Dragons
5th Planet Games

25.
● A player searching for a guild will be
matched up based on having similar game
progression to the average guild member
● Players are encouraged to join a guild
after they finish level 20, incentivized to
do so with a free power-up or free
progress to next section
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

26.
Guild Size
● Not a clear best practice that I’m aware of
● Many games max out guilds in the 40 – 50 range (Tyrant,
Clash of Clans, Clash of the Dragons)
● Other games much larger (Wartune: 210, Dawn of the
Dragons: 250)
● Some games use alliances, officially or unofficially, to increase
guild size
● In many cases guild size increases as it levels up or gets
items. Tyrant ranges from 15 – 50, Wartune from 30 – 210.

27.
Guild Size
● Focus on the functionality within your game
● Do you need lots of concurrent players in a guild for live, real
time events? Larger may make more sense.
● Is it important for members to know each other well and
coordinate strategy and plans? Keep it small and intimate.

28.
● More casual, social demographic, likely to
already know everyone, or want to get to
know everyone, in the guild
● Ideal size is probably around 20
● Keeping with the more simple, casual style
we won’t have guilds level up or increase
in size
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

29.
Guild Identity
● Help your players develop
bonds to their guild and
guild mates and to
express themselves
● Name – often has hobbies,
national pride, or puns
● Guild
colors/emblem/image to
show off
● Many will build their own
guild pages, forums, etc.
Clash of Clans
Supercell

30.
● Guild emblem creation
● Option of background shapes, textures
● Choose main overlay image
● Choose primary and secondary colors
Candy Crush Guild Battles
Game of Thrones Ascent
Disruptor Beam
Diablo III
Blizzard
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

31.
Guild Features

32.
Guild Communication
● Guilds are a social construct, so let people communicate!
● Focus first on guild-specific, necessary communication
● Asynchronous
● Announcements: one-to-many from the guild leader, useful and
important
● Forums: much more flexible, good for persistent discussion of
strategy, planning, recruitment, etc.
● Guilds will often do this for you!

33.
Guild Communication
● Synchronous
● Chat: good for larger guilds, real-time
games, or long session games
● Semi-persistent gives a “best of both
worlds”
Clash of Clans
Supercell

34.
● Guilds are likely to contain a lot of real-life
friends
● A semi-persistent chat would be a fairly
simple and effective communication
channel
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

35.
The Guild Bank
● A place for players to donate or contribute currency to a
shared pool for the guild
● One-way process, typically converted into a guild-specific
currency that may or may not be spendable
● A fantastic sink for soft currency out of the economy
● Typically hard currency can be used at a substantial
multiplier to soft currency

36.
The Guild Bank
● Leveling up
● Simple implementation, more akin to XP. Players contribute
to the guild which adds to the guild XP. Guild levels up at
various thresholds.
● Spendable bank currency
● Similar to leveling up, but gives the guild owner the ability to
select guild-wide upgrades to buy with the currency. Gives
more direct ownership over the guild growth, allows leader to
give goals for players to meet.

37.
The Guild Bank
● Membership dues
● An even more effective way to sink soft currency. This is a
guild-wide, weekly amount that must be paid to keep the
guild from demoting. Scales with size, very useful lever for
balancing.
● Contribution credits
● Members get a credit for each donation to spend at a guild
shop.
● Opens up possibility of guild-exclusive items.
● Gives top guild members an individual benefit scaled to their
own contribution.

38.
● Lacking a currency there won’t be any way
to donate or contribute to a guild bank
● That said, I would strongly consider
adding a guild bank to house winnings
from competitions so team captains can
buy cool stuff for the team
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

39.
Guild Items
● Bonuses for the entire guild, acquired either from the bank
or by players
● Paid guild items seem be to fairly rare, but a great
opportunity
● Caesary had a $100 item that would increase the guild
size by 200 people, sold quite well
● Collective purchasing is a possibility too
● Items should travel with the purchaser

40.
● Guild Store
● Allow captains to spend team points to buy
guild banner customization
● Some options in the store would also be
locked off by league level
● Purchased Guild Items
● Aesthetic items can be sold to guild
members directly to share with the guild
● Potential for high-priced shared items: all
guild mates get +1 life permanently for
$99.99
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues
Candy Crush Guild Battles

41.
Guild Competition / Cooperation

42.
Intra-guild Cooperation
● Cooperative PvE
● Often not guild-specific, but may
offer bonuses for doing it with
guild mates
● Guild raids
● Summon guild-exclusive raids to
challenge with just your guild
mates for rewards
Dawn of the Dragons
5th Planet Games

43.
Intra-guild Cooperation
● Event participation
● Guild members work
together to achieve goals
during events
Kings & Legends
ChangYou

44.
Intra-guild Cooperation
● Cooperative construction
● Work together toward
persistent improvements
Swords & Potions 2
Edgebee Studios

45.
● There really isn’t anything that would
make sense for intra-guild co-op, at least
not for a first pass
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

46.
Intra-guild Competition
● Not necessarily explicit, though sometimes is (Clash of
Clans)
● Provide player progress metrics for members to see how
they compare to everyone else. Level, trophies, etc.
● Am I pulling my weight? Am I behind everyone else?

47.
Intra-guild Competition
● Provide short term
metrics to track recent
activity. Last login,
weekly contribution, etc.
● Did I do my fair share
this week?
● As a guild owner, is there
anyone I need to speak
to or cut?
Wartune
R2 Games

48.
● Provide leaderboard within a guild
● Player name
● Highest level unlocked
● Games contributed this week
● Score contributed this week
● Tapping on a player’s name brings up a
second page that shows the specifics of
their weekly contribution
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

49.
Inter-guild Competition (Passive)
● If you have a metric you can rank all guilds.
● Provide a regular benefit for high-ranked guilds to
incentivize performance.
● Clash of Clans does this well…somewhat.
Clash of Clans
Supercell

50.
● We need a guild metric to compare
● Requires regular, continued participation
● Rewards skill
● Rewards persistent growth week to week
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

51.
● Weekly contribution from each member to
the guild score
● Completing a game generates a guild
contribution value
● Top ten contribution scores from each
player count toward the guild’s weekly total
points
Contribution =
Level _Score
3_Star_Score
´ Level _ Number
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

52.
Inter-guild Competition (Active)
● If it makes sense for your game, active competition can be
very powerful
● Can be synch or asynch, scheduled or ad hoc
Tryant
Synapse Games
Watune
R2 Games

53.
● Don’t need any direct, active competition
– the ranking system should suffice,
especially for a first version
● Could potentially be done through a
challenge system on a particular, or
randomly-generated level
● Each guild has 24 hours to post scores
● Top 10 scores from each guild count
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

54.
A Quick Look at Leagues

55.
Leagues
● In Clash of Clans, the top 3
clans get a reward.
Competition is fierce at the
top, but what about
everywhere else?
Weak Strong
All Guilds
Intense Competition

56.
Leagues
● Leagues are sometimes used in highly-competitive games
like League of Legends and StarCraft II.
● Clash of Clans actually has leagues too, but they’re
individual rather than clan-based.
● Players move into higher leagues by increasing their core
metric, being promoted when they hit various thresholds.

57.
Leagues
● Could we design a better league for free to play? Can it
work for Guilds? What would it do?
● Have a relatively short season or cycle
● Provide rewards to promote retention and engagement
● Be directly competitive, zero-sum to promote fierce
competition and indirectly engagement/monetization
● Provide sufficient number of tiers to allow for feeling of
growth

58.
Relegation/Promotion Leagues
● This is pretty foreign to American sports fans
● Move away from score tiers, instead make it population-
based
● Each level has a fixed percentage of population, guilds
must fight to move up or down each “season”

59.
Relegation/Promotion Leagues
● Reconcile on a weekly basis
● Each week, process promotions and demotions
● 1/3 jeopardy rate: 33% of each level moves down one level,
corresponding guilds from lower level move up
● After the moves, give out weekly rewards for membership
Weak Strong
All Guilds
Intense Competition

60.
● A 16-tier promotion/relegation league
system
● Weekly rewards would include team cash
(to buy emblem customization items)
● Special rewards for top 10 teams in each
league (small number of boosts)
Candy Crush Guild Battles
• Creation
• Joining
• Size
• Identity
• Communication
• Bank
• Items
• Intra-guild cooperation
• Intra-guild competition
• Inter-guild passive
• Inter-guild active
• Leagues

61.
Wrap-up
● Design guilds with a focus on retention, engagement, and
monetization
● Think about how decisions affect player behavior and
relationships
● Be creative, look for new applications and mechanics that
make sense for your game

62.
Thank you!
● For these slides & more talks, visit dev.kongregate.com
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