It's A Long Way To The Top...If You Want To Be An Indie Flash Dev by David Scott & Paul Preece of KIXEYE
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The document provides information for aspiring indie flash game developers. It discusses the speakers' experience creating the first flash tower defense game and growing their company to 120 employees with the most popular Facebook RTS game. Tips are provided around designing games with the correct theme that matches gameplay, nailing the first session to minimize drop-off, iterating quickly through prototypes, keeping what works based on player feedback, and leveraging marketing when lifetime value exceeds customer acquisition costs. The document encourages preparing for many attempts, synergizing elements, focusing on the first session, and listening to feedback.
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It's A Long Way To The Top...If You Want To Be An Indie Flash Dev by David Scott & Paul Preece of KIXEYE
- 1. A Long Way To The If You Want To Be An Indie Flash Dev The big fella: David Scott The balding guy: Paul Preece
- 4. Last year we grew from 12 to 120 people We have the most popular RTS game on FB 1.5mm+ people play our games each day
- 8. Design Increasing your chances of success Execution Iterating on what works Profit! Mo money, mo games
- 9. Design The Correct Theme Matching Theme to Game Play
- 10. Design The Correct Theme stuff Crush The Castle (April 28th, 2009) Angry Birds (Dec 11th, 2009)
- 11. Design An example from our past Going from Casual to Hardcore
- 12. Design An example from our past War Commander
- 13. Design Nailing the first session Minimizing drop-‐off What you should I measure? Tutorial no-‐load, drop, completion rates Retention
- 14. Design Nailing the first session The sales pitch
- 15. Execution Iterate, Iterate, Iterate Crappy prototype > amazing design document Build on the prototype making sure each layer feels right Create a vertical slice How changes in one area impact another See the bigger picture Accept nothing less than a fun experience Release early
- 16. Execution Keep What Works Engage eager play testers (mind demographic) Seek & Listen to critical feedback aggregate it, ignore outliers be objective, do not take it personally Removing a broken feature is still progress
- 17. Execution Focus & Priority Once the game is solid move on to other non-‐ code areas Think about 'force multipliers' New user experience Localization Website with area for fans, additional content/levels Marketing
- 18. Revenue Top Tip Do not cap spend!
- 19. Revenue What Works (for us) Good Speeding up time Customization Revenge! Bad Customization
- 20. Revenue Marketing What is it? It is the buying of players Crazy! Why would you buy players? As soon as avg LTV > avg CPI What is LTV & CPI? LTV is Life Time Value CPI is Cost Per Install
- 21. Revenue Marketing Science bit (using example numbers) $2.00 LTV $1.00 CPI 10,000 paid installs = $10,000 profit!
- 22. Revenue Marketing With no virality, primary installs costing $1 (that have an ARPU of $0.75) equate to $0.25 net loss per install With virality however, the ARPU of $0.75 has a multiple of 2, essentially doubling revenue with a net gain of $0.50 per primary install
- 23. Revenue Marketing Pay attention to Buying the right players Margin between LTV and CPI Diminishing returns as you scale up
- 24. TL;DR Prepare to take many shots on goal Synergize theme, mechanics, player expectations Focus on your first session Get an end-‐to-‐end slice working Listen to feedback and be ruthless! Leverage the power of marketing
- 25. Q&A David Scott dave@kixeye.com Paul Preece paul@kixeye.com
- 26. www.KIXEYE.com/jobs Creative: Product: UI / UX DESIGNER TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER ART DIRECTOR ASSOCIATE PRODUCT MANAGER GAME DESIGNER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER PRODUCT MANAGER Engineering: SENIOR DATA ANALYST 2D/3D GAME ENGINEER SENIOR GAMES ENGINEER Full health, dental, and vision insurance SENIOR PHP ENGINEER (100% paid by the company) LEAD FLASH ENGINEER Tax-‐free commuter passes GAMES Relocation packages FLASH ENGINEER Employee stock program ANALYTICS ENGINEER Gym pass to Equinox Located within 4 blocks of both BART & Muni PHP ENGINEER Stocked kitchen & catered lunches twice a week SENIOR SERVER ENGINEER Paid vacation SERVER ENGINEER Bright new office space and gaming lounge SYSTEMS ENGINEER You get to work with Paul and Dave EVERY DAY!