TinyCo, developer of Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, published a presentation from her speech at the GDC Next conference, which took place in November 2014 in Los Angeles. In it, the company revealed why it is important for mobile developers to work with the gaming community.
Illustration: Family Guy: The Quest for StuffThe presentation is called “Community – Competitive Advantage”.
What is this advantage? The fact is that, according to TinyCo, a well-functioning community:
- increases retention;
- converts players into paying users;
- helps developers improve the game.
The problem is that it is more difficult to work with the gaming community in the mobile market. Mobile games have shorter sessions, the projects themselves are simpler. Despite the fact that mobile games are played everywhere and always today, despite their transformation from one of the entertainments into a routine (a traditional session on the way home, the tradition of playing something before going to bed) – to rally a community of users playing for five minutes at a time is still a task.
But it’s definitely worth solving!
Players who write to support are more likely to be paying players. If the standard conversion rate in paying, according to TunyCo, is 5%, then among those communicating with support, they are 26%.
Moreover, among those guys who wrote in support at least twice, payers – 51%.
However, this can be explained by the fact that if the user is not a paying player, he will rather prefer to ignore this fact or close the application altogether. Such a luxury cannot be afforded by someone who has already poured in money, and even more so by someone who has already paid more than once. But this is not how TinyCo explains its figures.
However, our remark does not negate the fact that support and working with users as a KM can really be used as a tool for converting non-paying users into paying ones. The effect can reach up to 20%.
However, to maximize efficiency, it is necessary to start working with the community even before the release, insists TinyCo.
The full version of the presentation can be found here.TinyCo is a developer and publisher of mobile games (mainly time managers).
Founded in 2009, based in San Francisco. One of the company’s most popular games is Tiny Monsters.