I'm not too familiar with the business side of mobile gaming and so I've been trying to pick up clues from
@thirdtimeian.
I decided to give it a go and come to my own conclusion to see how
@photofinishgame can optimize itself in that market.
I play chess on the Chess App and I pay for the Impulse App, but those are a different genre, imo.
So I wanted to find an app that was closer in nature to PFL.
Last War: Survival had some neat commercials and so it won my attention for 2 weeks. I spent a total of $20 on loot boxes to get a feel for it.
Here are some observations:
⚔️ No real onboarding, but easy to learn
⚔️ Quick, easy 'wins' to begin career and progressively got harder, naturally
⚔️Collecting XP/Coins/Food was fun to click, even if I was only collecting 5 at a time, something about 'doing something while i was on the app' felt good, cool design to have something going at all times 24/7
⚔️Gave me tips to focus on upgrades when I hit some challenges that I couldn't beat
⚔️They created loot boxes that really just let the player pay for time, everything you buy, you can earn over time, but paying for it sped up that process
⚔️ How fast did you want to play? $2 items to $100 items
⚔️They had like 7 different virtual currencies
There are really 2 challenges every company faces:
1) How do you get customers in your store?
2) How do you keep them in your store?
Most PFL community members are focused on #2, because that is all about UX. How to make everything better once you are in the store. That is secondary to getting people in your store, otherwise #2 doesn't matter, but for this tweet, just going to focus on #2.
Here are my thoughts on how PFL could benefit and use some of these mechanics:
🐴New stables need direction, give them a checklist? Win a maiden, check a bloodline tab, watch a graded race, stuff like that, like a scavenger hunt. Let them 'win' things like a free race report or a free breeding report or come up with other looty like items that players can earn by doing things in the platform. Maybe unlock different silks, or the ability to do custom silks. More time in the platform snooping around = more good times for players.
🐴The new claiming and allowance leaderboards are brilliant and exactly what i would recommend as part 2, it gives the players playing direction, for those who arent competing for the majors.
🐴I had no problem forking over $2 and $5 and $10 and $3 for different loot boxes and to be honest, I was hooked, I would have kept buying more and playing more, I even felt an urge to buy the $100 loot box, but I had to remind myself this was for research only. If PFL is going to appeal to the masses, we need the vast majority of races to be <$5 and I think they've done a great job moving in that direction. The crypto sphere is so detached from reality and the sooner we can cater to the app store browser over the twitter browser, the better PFL will be.
🐴I wish there were more 'small' things players could purchase as part of a loot box like atmosphere, and make the ability to purchase right there, from the action, not from the wallet. OH YOU ARE LOW ON SOME CURRENCY, CLICK HERE TO GET MORE. give me the dopamime rush of buying blinders for my horse so i can give him some swag. or make me pay using some other virtual currency i can only earn by completing tasks that isnt redeemable for real money. the more specialization players can inject, the better.
Nothing i mentioned above is groundbreaking, just some observations i came away with from playing a mobile game that probably earns big bucks from people who pay to buy time.