泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌_Building a good business model (Part 1)

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Building a good business model (Part 1)

 

Writing a series of columns, I've talked about game characters, the elements of the video game, game balance, smaller game developers, and the future of the gaming industry, etc. However, I barely mentioned a video game as a product from a commercial perspective. I'd like to deal with the game as a commercial product.

 

I want to talk about a video game business model (BM). What is BM then? Simply speaking, it is a monetization strategy that a developer uses to drive profit for its app. The video game is a product and developers have to succeed in making revenue because their goal is to pursue a profit. Therefore, the business model is an essential aim of making a video game.

 

First of all, there is a selling package, the most common method, by the types of the BM. Even a decade ago, it was the most important BM for the games. I still vividly remember that my heart pounded with excitement because of a newly-launched packaged game walking through the entire Yongsan Electronics Market. This kind of BM is straightforward. Profits come from the finished product. Developers just need to consider how to make a game fun. The rest depends on the matter of a form of promotion in the distribution.

 

Secondly, there is pay-to-play, sometimes pay-for-play, which was widely used by classic arcade games in an amusement arcade—it's rare to find them these days. Players need to insert coins to play a game and have to put other ones to continue the game. Game developers need to consider a couple of details for this type of BM, unlike packaged games. One is about a promotional video-like in-game advertising. Images on arcade screens during players' absence have to catch a passing potential user's eyes. To do that, developers should regard it as the most important element because its game has to be survived beating many other games in the arcade. The other is a game balance. Unlike packaged games, the owner of pay-for-play gaming machines could suffer losses if a user plays a game for hours. He/She needs to enhance profitability leading as many as users to insert coins in a short period of time. However, if it's impossible for the players to reach the objective and win, they won't enjoy the game again because the game doesn't provide a continuing motivation to play. Still, a fighting game is the exception. In the close-combat based game, players fight each other with their game characters until they defeat their actual opponents and they don't blame the machine—game balance—even if they lose. Accordingly, it was the most popular genre in the arcade for quite a while. The fight game was a profitable product that contributed greatly to the arcade business because players rarely complained about putting coins many times in such a short time. Summing up, proper balance, well-made promotional video clips, and fun factors are the core elements of the pay-to-play game business model.

 

I will talk about how to build a secure business model in Part 2. Let me finish Part 1 with the most famous line "To be continued" of the fighting game; a player being knocked down by the opponent could able to continue the fight within a ten-second count if the player inserted an extra coin in.

 

To be continued in Part 2

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui

 

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] The economics of video game

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

The economics of video game

 

Recently I watched the movie Spotlight. I like the film for its own sake, however, I am a big fan of Rachel McAdams, the heroine of the movie. She is well known for her role in the film About Time. She participated in an animated feature film as a voice actress at the end of last year. That was The Little Prince. I loved its beautiful images and her unforgettable voice acting as well.

 

I don't want to evaluate the animated film or talk about my favorite actress. I'd like to discuss the famous saying “Tame me!" by the fox in the great novel by french writer Saint-Exupéry.

 

The line from the novel has a couple of different meanings. One of the most-talked-about connotations is about cognition. Being tamed by someone means that one becomes one of a kind for him or her. Since the little prince tamed the fox, the fox became the only fox in the world for the prince not like a hundred thousand other foxes. The experience teaches the little prince that unique rose living in the Asteroid B 612—the name of the asteroid that is the home of the little prince—is the one for him not like five thousand roses in one garden.

 

The other meaning of the line is about scarcity. Our perception makes differences and scarcity is built around the differences. Thousands of ordinary roses in the garden, which haven't been tamed by the little prince, don't have something special for him. The easy accessibility to the roses depreciates their value. People who live near world-famous tourist attractions would not thrill watching the magnificent sceneries.

On the contrary, the limited accessibility makes people forgive to get closer to something. It's not easy for someone to make him/her mind to go to Antarctica to see penguins although he/she loves the short-legged flightless birds so much. Likewise, most average people usually give up easily to buy an unaffordable 20-carat diamond ring.

 

Recently, I played some newly released video games with a lack of accessibility. Balanced in-game virtual goods including items, characters, etc. are very critical for the accessibility to the game by users. The users would feel that a high-powered item or character, despite their advantages, are of no value to them due to their easy accessibility. But by comparison, they would easily forgive to have an extremely rare item or character. The balance of in-game virtual goods is closely bound up with paying user rate (PUR), retention, and average revenue per user (ARPU), etc. in most newly-released in-app purchase games. Now, game developers need to study economics for the virtual-world economy, if they want their items and characters, which themselves have made, to be tamed by users.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 [A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity] Handshake and acid rain

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Handshake and acid rain

 

We shake hands with many people in life. But most of us don't know where it is derived from. It was a sign of peace showing that neither person was carrying a sword to attack each other. Most readers of this column probably know the term "acid rain" and use the word sometimes. However, a minority of people know that rainfall is acidic. The normal rainfall is slightly acidic compared to acid rain or acid deposition, which is a strong acid, because of the presence of dissolved carbonic acid. We often see the results of somethings forgetting about the true meaning of them.

 

What about in the video games? We can often see games lost their original purpose. While playing recently released role-playing games, users frequently have quests to kill giant monsters. In the majority of cases, it's killing the giant ones. The idea of a giant monster was originated from a trickery boss monster shown specific parts of the body on the screen when video games couldn't take up so much storage space. Most of them were dragon-like segmented monsters. Without drawing additional animations, developers only had to adjust their joint position to animate those monsters. It helped to shrink the size of the game and the super-size boss monsters have continuously developed thanks to great efficiency. After the capacity-related hardware problem being fixed, the mammoth monster was the symbol of strength. Especially, an overpowering boss monster in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) could be killed only by group play or cooperative attack of a guild or clan. The mission of this kind was used to induce cooperation among players and users' active participation in a community, and the boss monster was faithful to its role. It also was a great motivator for a solo-playing user to improve his proficiency going through an ordeal wisely and overcoming the deficiency. Even a player, who had the highest level of character in a certain stage, couldn't kill a boss monster without his amazing control, and it was like training to goes to a higher difficulty level. However, as developers haven't earnestly thought about the necessity of the giant boss monster, it was demoted to the gigantic and flamboyant outer figure. And a user doesn't need to spend a few hours or several days to clear the biggest enemy because it is not a huge barrier anymore.

 

Of course, the massive and magnificent monster is a nice visual figure. However, it is nothing more than an unessential accessory in a game without its clear purpose or intention. There are too many pretty-pretty games these days. It seems that I am talking only about the boss monster, however, I'd like to say that I'm waiting for playing a not-fancy-but-fun game touching me.

 

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

(http://www.khgames.co.kr)

 

Translation by Kim Ki-hui