⚔️ App Stores vs Web Stores | Skill Tree #41
⚔️ App Stores vs Web Stores | Skill Tree #41
Content: 1) How Games Can Bring Players to Their Web Store 2) Eudaimonic Player Interaction 3) Top 5 Lessons Learned After Decades Designing Blockbuster RPGs
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Highlights
New regulations open opportunities for games to run their own web stores to save on fees, offer loyalty programs, and provide better payment experiences (e.g. local payment methods). But players need to be incentivized via deep discounts or exclusive items. For core and casino games that’s easier than for casual games
Eudaimonic game design takes a different approach to game development, putting emotional experiences at the centre rather than optimizing for entertainment and accessibility. This might lead to completely new ways of game input and how players interact with games
🏪 How Games Can Bring Players to Their Web Store 🔗
Web stores are alternatives to app stores and allow apps to build a direct relationship with their users, set up loyalty/VIP programs, set prices with complete freedom, add plugins like local payment methods, and pay lower fees. On top, they aren’t subject to Google and Apple’s data collection policies, so developers can collect more granular user data.
But players need to be incentivized to make the switch, mostly by exclusive offers and deep discounts.
Casual games face 2 challenges which result in limited incentives for users to switch
Lack the cross-platform playerbase of core (RPGs, Shooters) → harder to drive interactions from other platforms.
Casual games also often have a lower variety of items offered and therefore less potential to drive users to the web store via exclusive items.
Lack the high-spending playerbase of casino which can be incentivized via VIP programs to use the web store, like for example Zynga and Playtika successfully showed. Core games have to target a braoder user base with their IAPs.
Instead, casual games have to incentivize players by providing discounts on standard items, supported by loyalty rewards. Candy Crush, for example, was on a good path but restricted acccessibility too much and closed their web store in February this year.
Another promising Go-To-Market for 1st-party stores is having a browser version/PWA app of a game with an integrated store (e.g. Playtika which now does 25% of their revenue through their store). New EU regulation gives hope that this will become easier by allowing developers to provide links within their apps on the two main app stores. However, uncertainty remains in other jurisdictions like the US.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Deduction Duel.
Deduction Duel is a small side project I’m building - a hub for mind-game minigames played through Telegram
🧠 Eudaimonic Player Interaction: A Reflection on Input Diegesis and Meaning 🔗
Games like The Last of Us have become experiences of emotional challenges and moral dilemmas. These so-called eudaimonic experiences are associated with accomplishing personal goals, need fulfillment, lasting meaning, and self-reflection.
An important factor and research area for shaping these experiences are game input and interaction by the player. But most of the research so far has been about exploring new ways of interacting with games and their value for entertainment, accessibility, and productivity - not about their effect on eudaimonic player experiences.
Examples of research areas
How game input fits game narratives
Diegetic interaction elements (player actions are integrated and exist within the game world, such as rolling the joystick to spin a wheel)
New controllers not focused on ergonomics and convenience but new ways of interactions (e.g. integrate the way we touch, look, hear, taste, and smell within the actions we perform in games) to create more immersive experiences. VR/AR could serve as a driver for these new interaction models.
👨🏫 Top 5 Lessons Learned After Decades Designing Blockbuster RPGs 🔗
Mark Otero, game lead for RPGs like Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and now CEO of web3 game studio Azra Games, shares his 5 most invaluable lessons.
Lesson #1: Seek to quell boredom. Build something you’re passionate about and that players immersive themselves into.
Lesson #2: Balance your Kirk and Picard when leading your team. Provide guidance but let team members explore their own creativity. Guidance is especially important towards the end of game development to hit deadlines.
Lesson #3: Seize opportunities - when you’re passionate about something, try it.
Lesson #4: Take care of your people and they’ll build great things. For that, you first need to start with an intriguing vision.
Lesson #5: Look towards the future. Business models change, genres change, technology changes. You have to go with the times to stay relevant.