Chapter 10 (1/2)

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

Qiu Hengyang didn’t mind. After the laughter from the audience died down, he continued, ”As for the last question, the ad space at the top of the gameover screen!

“Many entry-level video game designers share a common shortcoming: not paying enough attention to the profit model, completely disregarding it at the start of the design process.

1“For example, Hunter Island, the game in second place. It is a relatively mature adventure game. However, the designer hasn’t thought of the profit model, which I think is a shame.

“It’s not that you’ll succeed after silently finishing a game design. Just like directing a movie, even if you get good reviews, if the seats to your movies are completely empty, that wouldn’t be success!

“If you haven’t considered the profit model, you can only put your game on the market and sell it for some standard price.

“Let’s say that a game like Hunter Island sells for ten RMB. So far there’s three hundred and thirty recommendations. Say that eighty percent of the three hundred and thirty are willing to pay, a pretty generous estimate, then the profit of Hunter Island would be two thousand six hundred and forty RMB.

“On the other hand, if FlappyBird also based its profits from purchases, I can guarantee you that it’ll fail badly!

“Obviously the designer has thought of this, making it free to pay and profiting through ads. This was an excellent move and suits the game’s special characteristics very well.

“The total time you guys spent playing was three hundred and forty-nine hours. Lets say that on average each run lasts for ten seconds, a generous estimate, and most probably don’t even last for three seconds.

“That works out to one hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred and ten deaths, meaning that within the hour of testing, this game has shown a hundred and twenty thousand ads!

“Moreover, the reasoning behind the ad placement is quite explicit. As the players who like games like FlappyBird are definitely mobile gamers, and more intensive users at that, it means the players that stay are the more patient players!

“Therefore, if I was the designer of another mobile game, I would consider buying this ad space. Let’s say one in every thirty people engages with the ads in FlappyBird and one in every ten of those would make a purchase. Therefore, if I bought the adspace, I would’ve gotten four hundred eighteen and eight-tenths purchases.

“If every purchase was ten RMB, the profit I get from buying the adspace is 4,188 RMB. I would be willing to invest at least three thousand RMB for the ad space… already surpassing Hunter Island!

“There’s another point of note! Hunter Island uses a single-purchase model. The number of players who like these types of games are already small in the first place, and they certainly wouldn’t buy it a second time, meaning that the profit over time decreases.

1“As for FlappyBird, because it spreads like an infectious disease, its user base could experience explosive growth. Moreover, the adspace can be changed on a fixed-time basis. I’ll buy it this month, and next month will be bought by someone else, this way the future profit is guaranteed to a certain extent.

“Therefore, the gap in profitability of FlappyBird and Hunter Island is actually massive!

“The above points are why I think a game like FlappyBird could succeed. Most importantly, the author managed to combine all the points, basically making the best decision for every single aspect. That’s what’s most surprising to me!

1“To be honest, if you gave me six megabytes of resources to make a game that has a higher profitability than FlappyBird, I don’t know what else to say than… I can’t do it!