Winning tips for monetizing users & optimizing experience in your game

Around 95 percent of mobile players do not spend money on games. But it’s vital to monetize the games. It is true that people hate to see ads pop up on their screen, and we just cannot sacrifice user experience for this. So, we have to find a way to monetize without sacrificing the user experience.

Three factors are important for every game.

• Understanding: the rules and objectives.
• Usability: how the player achieves these.
• User experience: the “fun” element.

It is necessary to start finding more sources of revenue with minimum efforts and maximum output. Only 5 percent to 7 percent of revenue for games comes from advertising. Now, the question is why users spend in a mobile game. They do so for a number of reasons, such as:

• Unlocking content
• Customizing their in-game avatars

With this in mind, here are some important tactics that can help you monetize your game.

Better advertising models

Advertising should be personalized and relevant. A great advertising experience needs to be created for the user, and the ads should be placed well within the game. It is also important to make sure that a lot of people get the opportunity to see your ads. Don’t hit your users with lots of ads, otherwise you will definitely get bad reviews.

Your advertising approach should plant a seed for further action and drives users to spend money in the game later on — not drive them away.

Deploying in-app purchases

Microtransactions are a common strategy in order to generate high volumes of revenue. Players buy in-app upgrades that improve their character or unlock some hidden treasure for them — or virtual currency for the game.

Freemium developers are not using in-app purchases as a hot strategy. Most of the developers provide regular published content and users love to purchase the new content through in-app purchase options. But when utilizing this strategy it is also very important to maintain a positive user-experience.

Creativity with monetization

It is important to creatively decide on the monetization strategy that whether there should be a freemium app or a paid app. If it is getting difficult to decide on the best model, then it is better to use freemium apps that include in-app purchases.

But don’t sell a paid app that uses mobile ads, as most gamers expect an ad-free experience from the app that they have already purchased.

Responsiveness

It’s necessary that games factor in the comfort of gestures you require from the player. The app should be completely responsive in design. The same iteration must fit and work on devices of all shapes and sizes.

User engagement

Engagement is one of the most important things for any product — especially for games. Without engagement, it’s hard to get returning customers.

Here are some of the ways that can help enhance user experience.

• Process automation: It is important to provide the users with smart defaults while accessing the fill-up forms. It will make it easy for the users to not go through the frustration of typing every single word. Speeding up the decision process of user will help increase the users for the game.
• Color hacks: Icons and images play a major role in understanding the game. Images are used to convey a message faster than the words and everyone is able to understand the language of images and icons.
• Games should fit the player’s lifestyle. It is important to understand the game by giving answers to the following questions before even start development:

1. Who are your players?
2. How much time will they spend in the game?
3. Will they continue playing or take a break?
4. What system configuration will be available?

• Creating a better experience: Players invest their time and problem-solving abilities in the game and it is the duty of the developer of the game to make sure their efforts pay off. The experience should be meaningful to the user. The maneuverability of the game should be more engaging and interactive to create a better user experience.
• Skipping the tutorial: This is one of the best ways to ensure players engage with the game. It’s better to let them jump in and try the game for themselves. Written instructions at the start are the biggest barrier for entry. Instructing the player as they learn the game is the better route to take. It is necessary to provide small but complete information. If the users are interested, they will get motivated themselves.
• Provide iterative experience to the user: The game should provide a renewable experience to the user. If the user loses the game, then it should be an instant effort by him or her to try the game again. Even multidollar games make the mistake of forcing the user to go through the same screens and it creates an anxious period between a player’s loss and the second attempt.

Responsive design and a great user experience is a must for the success for any game. Make use of effective feedback from players — it will definitely provide you with a good direction for your app.

Ketan Parmar is a technical content writer at Yudiz Solutions, an iPhone app development company.