David P. Chiu discusses best practices, common mistakes, and statistics for free-to-play (F2P) games based on his extensive experience in the gaming industry. He emphasizes the importance of real-time servicing, user acquisition, and retention strategies that effectively monetize games, with successful examples like 'Wartune' illustrating how player engagement leads to increased spending. The document concludes with insights on self-publishing versus partnering with a publisher, evaluating the relevance and expertise necessary for producing successful F2P games.

1. Stats, Best Practices and
Common Mistakes for F2P Games
David P. Chiu
Vice President

2. Who Am I?
• 5+ years at Intel in Gaming Developer Relations & Business Development,
Gaming Consumer Marketing and Campaign Strategy
• Former Senior Director of Business Development and Developer Relations at
Kongregate heading BD worldwide for Kong web and mobile
• Worked with hundreds of developers on F2P games
• Currently Vice President of R2 Games USA

3. Reality Squared Games
• R2Games is a leading international publisher of free-to-play
browser and mobile games for core gamers
• 300+ employees with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai,
Shenzhen, Seoul and the San Francisco Bay Area
• CEO Jared Psigoda named Forbes China 30 Under 30

4. CEO Jared Psigoda
Forbes China 30 under 30

5. Reality Squared Games
• R2Games is a leading international publisher of free-to-play browser and
mobile games for core gamers
• R2Games.com is a leading platform for F2P games serving 42M+ users in
9 different languages worldwide
• Browser games include Wartune, League of Angels, Dragon Pals (top
monetizing games on Kongregate.com, Kabam.com, etc.
• Mobile games include EZ PZ RPG, Clicker Heroes, Bigfoot Hunter and
Shards of Magic

6. R2 Games Portfolio

7. The Mobile Landscape
• F2P is the dominant business model
- iOS Top 50 Grossing Charts has 1 paid game (Minecraft)
- iOS Top 100 Grossing Charts has 2 paid games

8. Mobile F2P vs Paid
• Threes was an original puzzle game priced at $1.99
• 2048 was a copy of a clone of a clone of Threes and was free
• Threes found moderate success while 2048 became a worldwide
phenomenon
Creator of Threes:

9. Mobile F2P vs Paid
• Difficult for paid games to compete with free games
• And F2P is complex
• Takes time and live servicing a F2P game to really learn
• Particularly difficult if you are used to making paid games
instead of games-as-a-service

10. Mobile User Acquisition is Expensive
• Need solid grasp of F2P to have high monetizing game
• Need a lot of capital to do paid UA

11. App Store Features are Incredibly
Powerful
• Minor feature: 10k to 100k+ installs
• Medium feature: 100k-300k+ installs
• Major feature: 300k to 1M+ installs
***For F2P games, not paid

12. Best App Store Features Are Hard to Get
# of Apps 1.96M
Approx. # of apps each week ~9k
# of Games 439k
Approx. # of games each week ~3k
Promo slots of new games 16

13. The Mobile Landscape
• Mobile distribution is very challenging
• Competition is fierce:
o 439k existing games and thousands new
games each week
• App store features are hard to get
• Viral hits are rare (Flappy Bird)
• User acquisition is expensive
• Can lower CPIs with big IP (also costly)
Your game needs to retain and monetize very well to succeed!

14. • I can now tell you that the giant bubble on the top right is a
Chinese MMO game called Wartune, published on
Kongregate.com by R2Games
• 36+ months since Wartune launch and still #1 top grossing
game on many platform
• Lifetime ARPPU has increased to $686 (12/7/2015)
• Why is Wartune so successful?
Graph From Previous Talk
R2Games
Source: Kongregate, Nov 2013
Wartune
(published by R2)

15. • The more someone plays a game, they more likely they are to convert from a player to a buyer.
• Becomes a hobby and most committed fans can choose to spend
• Real world example: You can watch baseball for free on TV but hardcore fans choose to spend money on tickets
Long Term Retention Matters
Wartune Lifetime % Buyers by Monthly Cohort

16. • The more someone plays a game, the more they spend
• More time = More transactions
Long Term Retention Matters
Wartune Lifetime ARPPU by Monthly Cohort

17. • Therefore, user LTV increases with time
Long Term Retention Matters
Wartune ARPU or User LTV by Monthly Cohort

18. Best Practices from Wartune and
Asian F2P Design for Increasing Retention

19. • MMORPG with turn-based battles, city-building and isometric-perspective exploration
• Top grossing game in China before making it to the West
Wartune Quick Intro

20. • Solo and team PvE
• Solo and team PvP
• Asynch raids
• Guild battles
• World boss raids
• Farming
• Fishing
• City Building
• Weapon/Gear
• Synthesizing & Upgrading
• Astral Collecting and
• Combining
• Etc.
Pace the introduction of new features/gameplay modes to not overwhelm players with a long and intimidating tutorial.
Keep Players Busy!
More things to do = more players staying

21. • Simple Daily Tasks to earn rewards
• Scheduled Limited Time Events
• Daily Quests
Keep Players Busy!
More things to do = more players staying

22. • Daily play bonuses are good to get users coming back regularly
• But improve on the typical 5-7 day daily bonuses
• Wartune players get a stamp for every day of the month they play the game
• Rewards for playing 2 days up to 26 days
• Incentivizes longer term play
• Doesn’t “punish” players for missing a day
Keep Them Coming Back

23. • Motivate players to get to the next milestone
• Leveling up unlocks features, content, rewards
• Positive reinforcement for progressing
Aim for the Stars

24. • And tap into their sense of competition
• Leaderboards for everything
Aim for the Stars
• Lifetime, daily gain and weekly gain
• So players can compete in many ways

25. Best Practices from Wartune
and Asian F2P Design for Increasing Monetization

26. Depth of Spend
• The longer someone plays your game the more likely they are to buy and the less
price sensitive they become
• Give committed players the ability to spend at $1,000+ if they want
• Have lots of items that are appealing and useful to all players from beginners to
elder players who have played for months or years
• Unlock new items to buy as players level up
• But must also create reasons to want the elder items
• Don’t create a situation where spending is capped by availability or utility.

27. • Location, location, location – make the store easy to find!
• Show balance of hard currency (Balens)
• Shortcut to buy more (Recharge button)
• Make it easy to find the what you want
o Meaningful categories and item descriptions
o No massive scroll bars
Make the Shopping and Buying Experience as Frictionless as Possible

28. • Bonuses % or/and items for larger hard currency packages
• Clearly call out bonuses of larger packages!
• Make all packages visible in one page for easy comparisons
(no scroll bars)
• Hide large packages until after first purchase
Buy Currency Screen

29. • First time buyer/ Starter packages
• Seed players with some paid/hard currency and guide “intro purchase”
• Deals/events to get people into the habit of spending regularly
• Offer items that enhance the gameplay experience (not just speedups)
Make the Shopping Experience Interesting
• Intro the right items at the right time
• Lvl 1 players should not be shown the lvl 100+ holy sword that’s on
sale for $100)
• Keep them coming back – keep store fresh by adding new items,
unlocking items as players level up and featuring seasonal and time-
limited items/ sales

30. Create Sense of Urgency

31. Getting to Market

32. Self-Publish?
Evaluate your game and team:
• What are your goals for the game and studio?
• Does your team understand F2P?
• Do I have the key talent to do a F2P game?
• Do you have enough runway to learn F2P and iterate game in test markets?
• Do you have enough capital for paid UA?

33. Is a Publisher Right For Me?
• How can a publisher help me?
• Allow you to focus on the game while they handle:
• Marketing (screenshots, ads, videos, ASO, split tests, PR, etc)
• App store relations and featuring
• Analytics
• Customer Service and Community Management
• Functional QA Testing
• Localization and localization QA, etc.
• Royalty advances to help you finish the game (not all publishers do this)
• Or/and provide marketing guarantees (not all publishers do this)
• May help negotiate and secure IP for the game

34. Is a Publisher Right For Me?
Evaluate the publisher:
• Are your goals and interests aligned?
• Are they putting some skin behind the game (advances, marketing, resources for
localization, QA, analytics, etc)?
• Potential for long term partnership (e.g. strategic investments)
• Do they understand F2P and have a track record of success?
• Do they have the right talent at the company?
• Does the publisher have 1st party and 3rd party games?
• Does your game fit into their audience and portfolio (casual vs core)?

35. Thank You!
For a copy of this talk, you can email david@r2games.com