quarrel | how to make a game

How to make a single-player premium PC game circa 1990:

Make a fun game.
Put it in a box.
Pick a price.
Set it on a shelf.
Advertise it in magazines.

How to make a single-player free-to-play mobile game circa 2012:

Game

Make a fun game.

Storage and Recording

Provide cloud-based savegame storage & retrieval. Allow identity to be based on Facebook, Apple Game Center, or email account, at the player’s choice.

Have Achievements. Track them on a global server.

Track the player’s top score on a global leaderboard.

Include one-button shortcuts on the title screen for players to send email, SMS messages, Facebook posts, and Tweets that they’re playing your game.

Metrics

Monitor and record all following events, including their exact times and the player’s level at that moment. Upload this data every few minutes. If no data connection is available, accumulate this data until one is.

game installation, including which advertising affiliate’s link was followed to the game’s download page
each time the game is launched
each time the game is closed (or a per-minute heartbeat if this cannot be captured)
all button presses
each tutorial message presented, and how long before it’s dismissed
each achievement earned
each goal/quest/mission completed
each level won, lost, or abandoned, including score (and cause of failure, if applicable)
each ship upgrade / character level-up / item purchase
each real money transaction

Purchases

Allow in-app purchases (IAPs).

Allow purchases of $50, $100, or more. Their existence makes players more likely to make intermediate-value purchases such as $10 or $20, and it enables the rare player who wants to spend triple-digit amounts to do so easily.

Highlight one item as “most popular”, “hot choice”, or some other phrase that implies other players purchase that item significantly more often than others. (This claim need not be factual.)

Make larger purchases more cost-efficient. Express this fact explicitly. Do so in terms of how much additional goods the customer will receive and not how much money he’ll save.

Bad: $1 buys 100 Chips. $10 buys 1,000 Chips.
Good: $1 buys 100 Chips. $10 buys 1,250 Chips.
Better: $1 buys 100 Chips. $10 buys 1,250 Chips — you save $2.50!
Best: $1 buys 100 Chips. $10 buys 1,000 Chips + 250 Chips FREE!

Separate the expenditure of real money from the resulting game benefits by as many conceptual steps as possible.

Bad: Spend $1 for 10 extra lives.
Good: Spend $1 for X microtransaction points. Spend X/10 microtransaction points for an extra life.
Better: Spend $1 for X microtransaction points. Spend X/2 microtransaction points for a pack of 5 shield charges. Spend a shield charge for an extra life.

Do not use the word “buy”. Instead use words like “get”, “gain”, “unlock”, etc.

Do not show prices anywhere but the purchase screen.

Make it possible to get to the “spend real money” page in a single click from anywhere.

Do not disable game options that the player cannot currently afford. Instead, let the player attempt to use them, then take the player to the “spend real money” page to make up the difference.

Make bundles of IAP items available for discounted purchase. Include at least the following bundle types:

A new player bundle, available only while the player is low-level.
A daily or weekly bundle, available in a predictable repeating cycle.
An encouragement bundle, available to players who have never made an IAP or who have stopped playing the game regularly.

In all cases, make it clear that the bundle is only available for a limited time. In all cases, include an exclusive item available nowhere except in that bundle.

Marketing & Notifications

Include ads for your company’s other games. Use information gathered from the player’s Facebook registration and that of his friends to tailor which ads you show.

Send the player emails about sales in this game, about your other games, and about new game launches. Encourage players to provide you with email info by offering rewards for doing so.

Remind players to rate your app. Have a button in your game that leads directly to the rating page. If not prohibited by market policy, reward players who give the maximum rating.

Have the ability to put some IAP items on sale for specific subsets of player, as well as the ability to notify just them of the deal. You must have the ability to select these players based on metrics.

Add temporary holiday-related seasonal bonus content.