Uploaded byLars Jörnow
Accidental Gamers
The presentation discusses the emergence of accidental gamers, primarily women aged 25-55, within the casual gaming industry, exemplified by the success of king.com. With over 30 million monthly active players and strong revenue models based on freemium and in-game purchases, the document emphasizes the importance of intuitive game design for retaining these players. It concludes with investment advice, highlighting the need for stickiness and focusing on successful game design principles as key factors for success in the rapidly growing mobile and tablet market.
Accidental Gamers
- 1. Accidental Gamers: AMultibillion $ Industry 60 slides in 15 minutes. Let’s go.
- 2. There are 4levels in today’s presentation 4 1 2 3
- 3.
- 4. Founded in 2003by a bunch of ex-Spray guys Lars Markgren, Sebastian Knutsson, Riccardo Zacconi, Thomas Hartwig & Patrik Stymne
- 5. 8 years &200+ high-quality flash games later 30+ million monthly active players 900+ million monthly game plays
- 6. These guys investedin 2005 ….and we’ve been profitable every year since.
- 7. The games aremade by ~100 superstars in Stockholm + fantastic offices in London, L.A., San Fran, Milan, Malta & Hamburg.
- 8. We create &publish casual games
- 9. We do casualskill gaming! Collect as many points as possible A game session is between 1-5 minutes long
- 10. Our cross-platform strategy Since 2010 Since 2011 Since 2003
- 11. Homerun = playeverywhere Since 2010 Since 2011 Since 2003
- 12. We cracked theFacebook formula in April 3 000 000 DAILY FACEBOOK PLAYERS 2 500 000 2 000 000 1 500 000 1 000 000 500 000 @ 0 januari februari mars april maj juni juli augusti Monthly: 15 million
- 13. Women love casualgames 81% female 25-55 years old Spends 20-30+ minutes per visit 49% have children in household 92% shop online A very common social gaming profile. 59% are primary household shopper. Comscore
- 14. How we monetizeour games Tournament fees (optional) In-game purchase Advertising (freemium) (Classic freemium)
- 16. Level 2 The AccidentalGamers (A typical King.com-game Launch Party)
- 17. If there werea spectrum…. GAMER NOT A GAMER Accidental Gamer sweetspot Slide imagery courtesy of Chris Trottier, Zynga,
- 18. 10 years ago… HARDCORE GAMERS CASUAL GAMERS GAMERS Opportunistic play of Passionate FIND games they traditional about games enjoy on the web games, consoles …we all made games for people that are INTO games!
- 19. Facebook changed therules of the game…. …people who would never walk into a GameStop store got games right in their face:
- 20. “Lars Jörnow playedBubble Saga”
- 21. Allowing developers likeus to find millions of new players… HARDCORE CASUAL “ACCIDENTAL” GAMERS GAMERS GAMERS GAMERS Don’t seek out games (but will play when prompted) …and these accidental gamers don’t consider themselves “gamers”
- 22. Bubble Saga FarmVille Poke friend Status update Source: AllFacebook.com
- 23. Bubble Saga FarmVille Poke friend Status update Source: AllFacebook.com
- 24. How are theAccidental Gamers different? And how does it affect game design?
- 25. DOs and DONTsfor Accidental Gamers What to consider when designing games
- 26. Intuitive gameplay andcontrols 250+ million downloads Everyone knows how a slingshot works
- 27. Difficult controls Uhhh? Errr? What?? Jump, double-tap C while holding down X and L1…
- 28. Make it yummyon the eyes Out of the top 20 games on Facebook, only Texas Hold’em doesn’t fit into this profile
- 29. 3D navigation /FPS Navigating real-life is not a …but navigating virtually without problem… moving your own body is a big challenge Remember: Accidental Gamers didn’t grow up playing FPS, so it’s completely foreign to them
- 30. NO #2: Slow-progress from ultra-easy to deeper mechanics A very easy tutorial is a must!
- 31. NO #2: Slow-progress from ultra-easy to deeper mechanics A very easy tutorial is a must!
- 32. NO #2: Slow-progress from ultra-easy to deeper mechanics A very easy tutorial is a must!
- 33. NO #2: Slow-progress from ultra-easy to deeper mechanics A very easy tutorial is a must!
- 34. NO #2: Slow-progress from ultra-easy to deeper mechanics A very easy tutorial is a must!
- 35. Sticking points Challenging stickingpoints in games for Accidental Gamers have proven to be very detrimental to retention
- 36. In summary, thegame should be like.. Yummy on the eyes, easy to understand with a touch of depth
- 37.
- 39. Level 3 Mobile &Tablet Looking into the future
- 40. 10 years ago… …people actually read newspapers on the subway.
- 41. In 2011? Notso much…. (now it’s also completely normal to take pictures of random people in the subway)
- 42. The mobile revolutionhas just begun iPhone Relaxed parent iPad “Passback gaming”
- 43. Why mobile isso important 88 downloaded applications iPhone usage: 84 minutes / day. 10 minutes every day on games… Source: Appsfire
- 44. Mobile Apps passedthe Web this summer
- 45. Is this onlyabout this guy? No, but with 61% he’s really important
- 46. Devices Shipped Q1-2011,Daily Android is catching up quickly, but the iPad is unrivaled so far
- 47. May ‘11: 500kapps in the App Store! 500k apps, of which 150k are free = you need to make something exceptional
- 48. Freemium is thenew Black
- 49. The mobile &tablet market is like a… (Young, immature, growing quickly, loved by everyone)
- 51. Level 4 Investing inAccidental Gaming A $6 billion treasure hunt
- 52. Social gaming isHOT! And it’s just getting started.
- 53. KPI crash coursefor social games MAU Monthly active users DAU Daily active users Stickiness DAU / MAU DARPU Daily av. revenue per user These 4 basic metrics work for both Facebook and mobile
- 54. KPI crash coursefor social games MAU 20% stickiness x $0.02 DARPU = Monthly active users DAU Daily active users Stickiness DAU / MAU = high-fiving investors! DARPU Daily av. revenue per user
- 55. Social Game Economics 1 Develop a game: 4 months, 7 people (~$200-300k) Currently only 20 games on FB 2 Get 1 million DAU * (~$300-500k) 3 1M DAU x $0.02 DARPU = $20k revenue per day -> $600k / month Breakeven 30-60 days post launch *Assumes that you have: (a) a fantastic game with 20%+ stickiness, (b) a fantastic marketing guy, (c) a fantastic sys-ops AND (d) an amazing Business Intelligence team
- 56. Social Gaming onFacebook is Maturing DAU* 1 $20 billion IPO coming up 47.8 M 2 15.2 M ~$300M ~$750M 3 ($31M raised) 6.4 M 4 ( $761M) 5.5 M YE projection: 3.5 M 5 2.5 M 6 2.0 M 7 1.8 M *DAU numbers from
- 57. Valuations can behigh (these are all from TechCrunch in the past 6 months)
- 58. Mobile: Go Bigor Go Home A lot of companies will have to go home…
- 59. Investing in AccidentalGaming Companies Please note: this is just my personal advice, and may not reflect the views of King.com Look for Superstars Hit-Driven Stickiness is everything (as always) (find pre-hit?!) (if a game isn’t sticky, kill it) Don’t invest to much in pre-launch development: max 6 months! There’s no better indicator of success than a live game.
- 60. What we havetalked about today King.com is awesome, and makes outstanding games The typical Accidental Gamer is a 35-45 year-old woman There are about 300 million players on Facebook every month Think George Clooney when designing games for the Accidental Gamers Mobile & tablet is still just a happy baby When investing, focus on Superstars & stickiness
- 61. Thank you forlistening! lars.jornow@king.com / +46 760 150 219