Gram Games | GDG DevFest 15 "Killing Game Ideas at Hyperspeed"

Killing game ideas at hyperspeed

1
ABOUT ME
GDC DevFest 2015 Istanbul, November 2015
● Game Designer for 8 years
● Working @Gram Games
● Experience in board games and f2p.
● 2 published boardgames
● 3 midcore, 2 casual f2p titles for masses

2
5 SHADES OF DRAMA
● Drama 1: do nothing
● Drama 2: do everything
● Drama 3: sit & wait
● Drama 4: pay blindly for UA
● Drama 5: evaluate with revenue
or downloads

3
PLAYING DICE
● Each game is a die
● We need to roll 10
● Thousand of apps each day
● Hard to get visibility and installs.
● Even harder to make a game that
resonates

4
COMPLEX vs. COMPLICATED
● Clear cause and effect
● Plannable functionality
● No emergent behaviour
● Can be solved with enough computing
power

5
HOW TO BEHAVE
● Trial and Error
● No long-term plans
● Iterations
● Data driven
● Constant Learning
● Fail fast

6
ANALYTICS
● Marketing Analytics
● Game Analytics
○ Tutorial Funnel
○ Level funnel
○ Durations & Counts

7
HOW TO ROLL 10
Dice Ideas Dice Production Dice Results

8
KNOWING THE RESULTS
● Realizing when you have the result.
● Which metric?
○ Installs?
○ Revenue?
○ DAU?

9
MINDSET CHANGE #1
● Make fun games instead of trying
to to get profit.
○ Save a lot of work
○ Do more relevant work
○ Fun games always win

10
FUN
FUN?

11
HOW TO TRACK FUN
● Fun game should retain it's players.
● They should come back for more!
● Magic number: Retention!
● What is it?
● Short term/long term

12
WHICH RETENTION
● Goal: leave instincts and see metrics asap.
● Target metric: day 1 retention!
● Not the exact number but closest one.
● Works for most puzzle, arcade, one-tap
games.
● Doesn't show clear success but shows clear
failure.

13
MVP
● What is it?
● Our definition
● Must/would/could
● Suggested Timebox: 3 days

14
MINDSET CHANGE #2
● Look for what you can remove
instead of what you can add.
● That last skin or sound you add
won't affect retention much.

15
WHY THE TIMEBOX?
● We chose to throw more dice, not
better dice
● Each idea has the same chance
● Makes you choose small games
● Reusable code whenever possible

16
GAME LAYERS
● Core Mechanic
● Main Loop
● Retention Layer
● Monetization Layer
● Superfan game

17
MVP FEATURES
● Core Mechanic
● Main Loop
● Onboarding
● Polish
● Retention Layer
● Superfan game

18
MINDSET CHANGE #3
● Let others play it whenever it’s
playable, not when it’s perfect
● We are interactive artists and
have the fear of imperfection
● We have to deal with it.

19
USERTESTING
● Let people play when core mechanic is ready
● And don't ever stop
● Developers are always good
● But also keep casual players in the loop
○ Do NOT answer
○ Do NOT interfere
○ Observe
○ Take notes
● Best for: UI-UX problems, Initial difficulty
problems, tutorial problems

20
INTRODUCING FAKE-LAUNCH
● Not soft launch, not global launch
● Analytics Implementation required
● Get 1k+ players in a week
● Preferably 200+ players/day
● Target d1 retention: ~40%
● Observe other KPI’s (you can spot problems
or accidental unicorns)
● Check onboarding, progress, level funnel
● Check game / session durations and counts
● Interpreting the result

21
WANT TO CONTINUE?
● Investor or financial partner?
● It will be much easier because of
metrics

22
MINDSET CHANGE #4
● F2P Games do not just grow
organically all by themselves.
● Most likely, you’ll have to do paid
acquisition

23
NEXT STEPS
Production
● Full retention Layer
● Plan/do superfan game
● Full polish
Soft Launch
● Get ~1k users each day
● Choose some countries
● Improve long term retentions
● Improve monetization
● A/B tests
● Constant Iterations
● Totally metric driven
● CPI < LTV
Global Launch
● Get rich

24
THE BUMP!
● 1000 users for fake launch?
○ Requires marketing experience

25
2TONS
● MVP planning
● Usertesting
● UA for fake launch
● No requirements
● No commitments

26
HOW GRAM GAMES DOES IT
● Best way to have a good idea is to have lots
of ideas
● Friday Prototyping days!
● Assign workforce for each game idea
● Playable game with challenge at the end of
the first friday
● Submission for fake launch to the store at
the end of second friday
● 35% d1 retention target for first submission
● 45% d1 retention target for next submission
● Timebox of the best idea: 1 month.

27
CONCLUSION
● Try to make fun games instead of
profitable games. Fun sells.
● Create minimum product, look
for what you can remove instead
of what you can add
● Implement analytics and try to
reach the target metric

28
THANK
YOU!

Gram Games | GDG DevFest 15 "Killing Game Ideas at Hyperspeed"

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