How to make another farm and not screw up?

What for?

To begin with, it is worth asking the question: “Why make ANOTHER farm?”.

When the question arises which new project to do, there are always pros and cons to the two main questions: will it be something completely new or something using existing developments and experience.

“Ugh, the farm is so boring again” is the most frequent phrase I’ve heard from both new employees and outsiders.

In fact, it’s not boring at all (if you want to make money on this project) and very difficult.

Almost every game developer has a stage when he wants to create something innovative. This is, in general, age-related. Every project that does not contain genre patterns of existing games runs a great risk of being misunderstood by the general mass of players. And making a game for hundreds of people (developers and their friends) is not about money. There are exceptions, but they rather confirm the rules.

Almost all successful modern products (read, in the top grossing) are based on the mechanics of successful games released earlier or on other platforms or even already in the top.

For example, the wonderful Clash of Clans contains all the coolest things that were in Galaxy Life, which had previously performed well in the browser and Facebook. The thundering Angry Birds was based on the mechanics of the very popular flash game Crush the Castle. I don’t think I’m exaggerating much if I say that half of all the “genres” on mobile platforms came from different flash games from portals like Kongregate or Armor Games (those that are pohardkorn).

Crush the Castle

Hence the conclusion: before coming up with something new, it is worth looking at the aggregator portals first. There probably already exists a similar prototype, by the popularity of which you can evaluate the success of the chosen mechanics.

The market has quite formed itself. The probability of a new niche is extremely small.

Many do not believe… And every day tens of thousands of “innovative” products are poured into stores… And what is the result? 90% of applications do not recoup the funds and resources invested in them.

The chance of success of a product that is understandable to players is many times higher. Therefore, a new project should have clearly defined features of a “genre” or a successful combination of several genres. Since I have more experience in creating successful farms than in games of other genres, I will talk about the farm.

The farm is difficult

Making games is not easy (although interesting), and making games for a highly competitive niche is extremely difficult. The farm is not much simpler than a 3D shooter or space strategy, although the scale of the game is usually smaller.

Now there are dozens of decent farms on the market (not to mention the titanic Hay Day). For this reason, I suggest that before starting development, think about the following questions:

• How will the player be able to find your game?
• What can you offer the player to install your game – despite the fact that, most likely, he already has several farms from competitors?
• How can you surprise him so that he comes back the next day?
• How can you intrigue him so that he loses your game for a week?

I even take out of brackets what he has to pay you. The main thing is that he at least stays.

The market is extremely demanding on the quality of the product.

3 years ago, it was possible to release a farm without quests and everyone was happy.

For example, 3 years ago we released our first farm – a Magic one. Then it was decided to go out in the basic functionality for the experiment. There were no quests, no achievements, no Facebook login in the game. Only planting-collecting plants. And users not only played it, but also willingly paid.

Magic Farm

2 years ago, a game without viral mechanisms could quite well grow on traffic from the catalog.

There wasn’t even an invitation from friends, let alone something more complicated. And still the project in the App Store had from 1000 to 3000 organic installations per day. There was only a catalog and word of mouth.

For comparison, now 300 installations per day as organic after the release and before the launch of traffic (App Store) is already wonderful.

1 year ago, it was enough for players to put hard currency items in the store to be sure that they would be bought.

Now a modern game that plans to become profitable simply needs a whole fan of various mechanics, marketing support, active management of the gaming community and support – but even this may not be enough to pay off the product.

And with the growth of requirements, the price also increases … If six months ago it was possible to make a game for $ 200 thousand (as our CEO Yuri Pomortsev pointed out in his interview earlier), now the price tag of $ 400-500 thousand seems very optimistic (taking into account marketing).

It should also be borne in mind that the development of the project is not a quick thing, and, at best, only in a year the project will come off the stocks. And by that time, the requirements will grow even more.

What is the current situation?

So, what can we say about the situation with farms now.

To be successful, they must have a number of striking distinctive features.

The game should be as clear and intuitive as possible.

For example, in our most recent Farmdale project, a player can perform almost every action in two or even three ways.

You can plant a plant from the store, you can tap on the bed, you can drag and drop, you can tap, you can swipe.

You can spin the Wheel of Fortune by pressing the button, or you can physically spin it.

Farmdale

The game should not cause the slightest negative feelings, including the gradually dying concept of pay wall. It is necessary to monetize the player more subtly, without causing him to feel “I am being bred”. Ideally, he himself should pay as a sign of gratitude to the developers and/or with a great desire.

At Farmdale, we have practically abandoned the mechanics of plant wilting. The negative emotions that players received when entering the game later than the required time led to the fact that they simply refused to return at some point. And the cancellation of this led to the fact that the number of players who crossed the level 20 barrier (3 game session) increased by 50%.

For exactly the same reason, in all our projects, we refused to reset the daily bonus (if the player missed a day, there is no rollback in the chain) and similar mechanics.

In addition to all of the above, the game must contain at least a basic set of mechanics for playing with friends and competitions.

What to do?

First of all, to determine the USP – the main competitive advantages. You have to offer the player a game experience that is many times better than the competition. And, of course, this experience should have exactly the taste that the player expects to feel. You should also clearly focus the game on what exactly is best for you. It can be a story, unique mechanics, more interesting interaction with friends, interspersed mechanics from other genres, etc.

Of course, it’s a whole art to assemble a project so that everything is harmoniously connected and pleasant to the players. The main thing is not to create a cadaver (and there are enough of them), which is stuffed with incongruous mechanics, various functions that look nothing alone, but together terrify with complexity. In this regard, it is much more correct to start development with a strong basis of 1-2 functions and an absolutely clear game cycle.

It is necessary to closely monitor the competing games. Constantly analyze and evaluate their decisions, think about what they are caused by. For example, you can and should read player reviews of competing projects.

As soon as possible, release the game in a soft lunch and start receiving feedback from players, analyze statistics.

Farmdale

I have already written about the benefits of dialogue with players, but I will emphasize once again that this is necessary.

Maintaining a positive attitude in the players greatly facilitates both working with them and developing the game.

Do not rush to release the project. The more favorable you look at the start, the more players you will have after the release. But, of course, everything should be in moderation. A soft lunch stretched over a year is also unlikely to lead to anything good.

For example, in the retention Farmdale soft lunch there was 25% of 1 day and 10% of 7 days.

For three months we collected statistics, error logs. The project has been heavily optimized, a number of mechanics and content have been added.

After the release to the world, retention became 35% 1 day and 15% 7 days.

Separately, it should be noted the importance of the technical part. Many people believe that if the audience is children’s and women’s, then there is no need for high server capacities. This is not quite true. Even though, on average, the audience of farms is more loyal than pvp shooters, I repeat once again – this niche is highly competitive.

In order for your game to have normal organic installations, the version size should be no more than 50 megabytes.

People are used to fast loading of the game, stability, the ability to play from a phone and tablet at the same time. And when it comes to payments, everything should be more reliable than in a Swiss bank.