Developing Further: How I would Monetise and Expand my game, Karma
Link to Previous Article: https://hannahvardey.medium.com/karma-a-proof-of-concept-e228dcdb3098
Video Link: https://tinyurl.com/vc8xetxr
Karma is a free-to-play casual mobile game where the overall goal of the player is to collect capsule toys (gachas). There are a defined number of collectable gachas, but as there is a large element of randomness in which toy the player ends up with, it will take a while for the player to collect them all, giving lots of opportunity for engagement and monetisation. The game uses a karma system based on how ethical or unethical player choices are to determine which items a player might receive. The player earns Yen (¥) to purchase these toys through a series of tasks and choices that the player makes as they explore the map, which represents a small Japanese village or neighbourhood. The neighbourhood has a consistent cast of characters with whom the player can build relationships, and there is always a convenience store.
There are three capsule toy machines by the convenience store, which is where the player goes to interact with the shopkeeper and collect the newspapers for delivery, as well as taking care of other optional tasks such as buying groceries for an old lady. The first, called the Bronze Gacha Machine, only contains Common items, and a single gacha can be purchased at random for ¥200, which a player can easily earn in a day. The second, which is called the Silver Gacha Machine, contains a variety of Common and Uncommon items, and costs ¥500. This takes longer to earn, and players will have to save their earnings for a couple of days in order to purchase one of these. Finally, there is the Gold Gacha Machine. A collectable from this machine costs ¥1500, and contains only Uncommon and Rare items. When buying from a Silver or Gold machine, the player can choose to spend their Platinum coins, which can be purchased via bundles sold in the in-app store, to increase their chances of getting an Uncommon or Rare item. Increasing your karma levels also increases your chances of getting these items, while decreasing your karma levels decreases your chances of getting rare items, although it does add the possibility of winning a secret item (as detailed below)
The player’s inventory contains several distinct sections. In addition to the sections for Common, Uncommon and Rare items, there are also sections for special items which are given for completing certain tasks or maintaining streaks. Finally, a certain category of collectables can be purchased directly with Platinum coins.
Players are encouraged to check in daily through streak rewards. There are three types of daily rewards a player can earn. The first is Daily Streaks, which give the player ¥50 every day they log in, with a Platinum Coin on every tenth day. This resets every time a player fails to log in to the app.
The second is the Daily Task Streak. This involves the player completing at least two tasks every day. The first, as demonstrated in the prototype, is always the Newspaper Round. This consists of delivering newspapers to the mailboxes scattered around the map within a certain time limit. This task involves jump puzzles, which vary in complexity from day to day as the positions of the mailboxes change. The layout of the buildings and landmarks also changes every time the player logs in, to avoid the puzzles becoming boring. When the player returns to collect their reward after the newspaper delivery round, the shopkeeper will drop a hint as to other tasks that might be available that day, although these can also be found by exploration and talking to the various NPCs and might include finding and returning a lost wallet, buying groceries for an old woman, or delivering messages or gifts between NPCs. If the player fails to complete the task within the allotted time, they will be offered the option to restart the task by watching a short advert or paying a Platinum coin.
At the end of a week of completing the Daily Tasks, the player will have a Wooden Trophy added to their inventory. After another 10 days, a Bronze Trophy is awarded, then fifteen days later a Silver Trophy, and so on through Gold and Platinum.
The final streak is the Good Karma Streak. Completing a five day run with only positive karma unlocks a secret Angel collectable, which is part of a set of five. There are two Common, two Uncommon and one Rare Angel collectable, and as you continue a Good Karma Streak, you unlock the new Angels which get added to the pool of potential gachas you can receive. There is no negative karma streak visible to the player, so as to encourage making ethical and positive choices. However, knowing that inevitably players will want to see what happens when they get negative karma, there is an additional Devil collectable which gets added to the pool of Uncommon items only on days where the player makes an unethical choice such as robbing the homeless man or stealing the contents of a lost wallet.
If a player breaks any of the above streaks, and returns within the next day or two, they are offered the option on their next log in to watch a short advert or pay a Platinum coin to repair their streak.
There will be two primary revenue streams from the game. The first will be advertisements. Karma will include both interstitial and rewarded ads. The interstitial ads will appear after the user logs in but before he can collect his Daily Streak reward. They will also appear during transitional moments such as when the player presses the Pause or Inventory button, as well as during the wait while the user finds out which gacha toy he has won.
The rewarded ads, as detailed above, are shown when a player fails to complete a task within the given time limit, or on their first login after breaking a streak of more than a week. They offer the promise of another chance in exchange for watching a short ad. Additionally, there will be occasional Special Events for players who have been playing regularly but are showing signs of tapering off their app usage. These will offer a free use of one of the Gacha machines (Bronze for fairly new players, Silver for players who have played for a few weeks and Gold for players who have been in the game for a long time) in exchange for watching a relevant ad.
The other method will be in-app purchases, primarily of Platinum Coins, which have a number of uses in-game, from paying for a higher chance of getting a Rare item to reskinning the environment, to repairing streaks, to removing ads for the day. Players can also pay a fixed fee of £2.99 to remove ads, although they will only be offered this option on their fifth login.
The game will use analytics to determine what type of ads to show to players. Players who spend a lot of money in-game will not be shown ads from direct competitors, as that would potentially direct their spending towards another game. New players will also not see competitior’s adverts, instead being offered non-game ads or ads from games of different genres. However, established players who spend a lot of time in the game without spending on Platinum Coins will be offered these types of adverts, as they are likely to both click through to the competitor’s game, thus generating revenue, and to return to Karma.
Additionally, Karma will track the player’s failure rate on certain tasks as well as how often they decide to watch an ad to retry the task upon failure to help determine an appropriate level of difficulty for the average player. If a specific player retries a task several times, the difficulty will also be reduced significantly upon the next attempt to ensure player retention. The level of engagement with optional tasks will also be tracked, enabling us to determine which types of tasks appeal most to players.
In summary, Karma is a free-to-play mobile game with built in advertising as well as in-app purchases. The game engages players with a narrative involving ethical choices, interesting characters with whom the player can build relationships, puzzles to engage the player’s motor skills, and an element of chance which makes collecting the gachas, which is the ultimate goal of the game, much more exciting. It utilises various daily streaks to maintain player interest, and introduces Special Events for players who are on the verge of leaving.
Appendix
Here, you can see a mid-poly Japanese-style mailbox modelled in Maya, textured in Substance Painter and imported into Unreal Engine to replace the simple mailboxes I previously made out of primitives:
I am also in the process of creating a second asset — the gacha machine itself. However, I have not managed to complete work on texturing or animation.
Bibliography
Watts, J., 2021. How to Monetize Free-to-Play Games in the Age of Ads. [online] deltadna.com. Available at: <https://deltadna.com/blog/monetization-age-ads/> [Accessed 19 April 2021].