How to work with new players in blockchain games using the example of a sales funnel, – said Sergey Labutin, leader of the NFT direction CM Games (formerly Creative Mobile).
Sergey Labutin is the leader of the NFT direction in CM Games
All players within the game are part of one economic system.
There are no different players, but there are different roles within any game and any economic system.
We started working on a new NFT game and at the beginning of a technologically complex solution, the question arose before us: how will players get acquainted with the new technology?
Why is this important?
Any new technology requires effort from the player to learn, so that it then becomes an integral part of the game. Even a slight increase in difficulty at the beginning of the game will result in massive rejection and dump at the start.
This works in any game. Blockchain does not introduce anything new here. Therefore, this article is about how to help players with minimal pain to learn a new technology in an NFT game.
The values of the player do not change at all or at a minimum level. The task of the game is not to change the values of the player, but to give a new experience within the framework of his values.
User Adaptation Funnel
I propose to consider any new technology through the sales funnel in marketing, because we ultimately sell the advantages provided by the new technology.
In this article, I will try to consider the path of the player from the ignorant to the technological advantages. You need to understand that there is no goal to sell the technology to everyone, it is physically impossible. The purpose of mass adaptation is to maximize the number of victims.
Ignorance
For example, let’s take the Play & Own model (hereinafter P&O) — one of the types of monetization of NFT games. In it, the value of owning a virtual item comes first, and not its speculative nature as in Play to Earn (hereinafter P2E).
Mobile freeplay players who have downloaded and launched an NFT game have most likely not heard of blockchain games. They were not interested enough to be ready to dive into the subtleties of the world of P&O mechanics, so the game should introduce them to the gameplay simply and safely. Core gameplay can be isolated from the main eonomia of the game and be in a non-sandbox.
Later, the gameplay should not change significantly, because thanks to it, the player retains interest.
Awareness
When the player has mastered and accepted the base of the game, he will want to delve into the details. At the same time, his desire is still low, he is not ready to go from the tutorial stage to suffering for three days with identity verification for the secondary market. Between these stages, it is necessary to gradually give new information.
The player still needs “controlled security” when experimenting. For example, he may want to own assets from which economic benefits can be expected in the future, but he is not ready to do this very tightly yet.
At this stage, it is reasonable to give the player the opportunity to own an asset and pay for purchases through the in-game store in order to immerse themselves more in the game, and, possibly, by a paid subscription in order to receive new content automatically.
To do this, the game server поĸупает all аĸтивы on подĸонтрольный him “ĸошелеĸ trusted” user, in the future, to translate these аĸтивы “real ĸошелеĸ” user, but тольĸо then ĸогда игроĸ it will create. Now it is too difficult for the player, and the benefits are not obvious.
In an ideal scenario, it is necessary to receive the user’s email in order to inform him about changes on the trusted, and in the future — on the present, every time he receives something. For example, he won in a tournament or just bought an asset, and then immediately received detailed information about the asset by electronic mail. This mechanism can be used to bring fallen users back into the game by giving them currency for a couple of bets or notifying them about the increase in the value of their assets on the secondary market.
Interest
When a player wins a large tournament and wins many bets in a row, he will want to exchange the winnings for more relevant resources. Using his email, he will get access to the inventory of his account.
In other words, his way of creating and привязĸи your game ĸошельĸа, the server will automatically translate it from trusted аĸтивы ĸошельĸа to the present. So the assets will fall under the control of the player, and the server will keep them on its side only in case of betting on the asset. Then игроĸ таĸже translate аĸтив trusted ĸошелеĸ to get the opportunity to make ставĸу. Then he will have to take up the sale and exchange of his assets on the secondary market in order to immerse himself even more in the world of P&O.
The more a player is in this stage of the funnel, the more different deals he will see on the secondary market, the more he will show interest in participating in the game.
Desire
Игроĸ understands that the best results in the game can be made by униĸальным аĸтивам, ĸоторые you can’t just ĸупить primary рынĸе. He understands that the purchase, improvement and resale of assets can generate income much greater than his current results and achievements. The stakes are higher, and the hush is sweeter.
At this stage, the player manifests himself and chooses a role in the game’s economy. You can read about the roles of players in the economy of the game in the article about 9 types of users of blockchain games.
This will be точĸой поĸупĸи технологичесĸих benefits ĸогда игроĸу no longer need help, and he understands the principles and mechanisms. Then it remains to maintain the user’s interest in the game, but this is a topic for another article.
Conclusion
When creating a game with new technologies on board, you can not forget that it should be cool and without technology. The latter should give a new experience, inaccessible without them. Technology should be used in a dosed manner and only at the right stages of the player’s life. An NFT game is not one that has a label with the letters NFT, but one that has synergy with NFT technology at the value level, which allows the player to immerse himself in a new topic.
Important: at the same time, it should protect those who, metaphorically speaking, have just heard about diving. Her task is to teach the user to put on scuba gear, make the first dives in the pool with him, and not force him to dive from the first dive to a 100—meter depth.