The Battle Pass — How to get it right

The battle pass — these days it seems like everyone wants one. DOTA 2 were the first to try it in 2013, but it really exploded onto the scene with the Fortnite battle pass: the ‘skins’ and V-bucks sent tweens into a frenzy all over the western hemisphere. The massive success of Fortnite and the battle pass inevitably led to interest from the rest of the free-to-play world, mobile in particular, and it wasn’t long until battle passes appeared in Apex Legends, Gardenscapes, Call of Duty, Archero, Rocket League and more. It reminds me of a scene in Toy Story (if you know me personally you’ll know I quote this movie all the time):

“If you don’t have one, GET ONE.” — Woody et al, 1995.

You may be thinking this could be just the thing your game needs, but hold on there champ, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s easy to be drawn in by the allure of potentially higher revenues, but the battle pass is shockingly misunderstood and the nuances that make for successful implementations are almost ubiquitously overlooked. So let’s slow down for a moment and take a deep dive into the battle pass recipe for success, what you should be doing to implement it, and when you should avoid it.

Fortnite vs Archero:

Take a look at the Fortnite implementation for example; the catalyst for industry wide adoption. It not only works as an excellent monetisation/conversion mechanic, but a fantastic and clever retention/engagement mechanic too. Let’s drill down into this particular implementation — because it’s probably the most well known, and easily the best implementation of a battle pass out there. As we go, let’s compare the Fortnite battle pass to the one found in Archero, and demonstrate why the former is clearly better than the latter.

Boosting Conversions:

One thing that is generally well understood about the battle pass is that it can boost conversions significantly. As a player progresses up the free tiers of the battle pass, they earn free rewards and also unlock premium tier rewards that are only accessed by buying the battle pass. It creates a progressively better and better value proposition to the user the more that they play; the player has already earned the rewards, they just need to pay to unlock them. It’s a similar idea to the ‘Piggy bank’ monetisation mechanic; the more you play, the more attractive the IAP becomes. Most product/designer folk are well aware of this, but I really want to explore the nuances that many of them miss.

At level one, the paid tier of the Fortnite battle pass offers the most when compared to any other battle pass level at approximately $20 to $35 value. The real-money cost of the battle pass is $9.50. This means that if the player buys the battle pass at level 1 they are still rewarded with an immediate return between 2x and 4x value. This first battle pass tier usually includes two unique skins (purely cosmetic avatars) which cannot be obtained via any other means. These skins will never be available again after this battle pass expires: they cannot be purchased or earned in any other way or at any other time. This is an important point:

the most significant perks you’re offering in your battle pass must be unique and available only for the duration of this pass, in order to maximise perceived value and exclusivity.

A player who ‘completes’ the Fortnite battle pass before the season ends will receive a 48x value return on their $9.50 purchase, netting the player approximately $450 worth of swag (is swag still a word kids use?). This is a staggering value offer that dwarfs pretty much any other battle pass out there.

https://dscarter95.github.io/medium_data_viz/archero_fn_cumulative_value.html

Compare this to Archero, whose Pass costs $4.99 and the value of the first pass level is ~$7.20, or approximately 1.4x value for the first level. It’s just not as enticing right from the get-go. Instead of rewarding a purchaser with value up front, Archero opts to reward them with an Epic Item for reaching the end of the pass. Without this final boost the Archero pass would be worth significantly less overall (roughly 30% less). The total value of the Archero pass is roughly $150, and so it provides much less value (30x initial purchase) compared to the Fortnite pass (48x initial purchase) when completed. This is largely due to the Archero pass being much shorter in duration (23 levels, new season every 14 days) compared to Fortnite’s pass (100 levels, 10 weeks approx.).

Couple that with the fact that all of the items in the Archero pass are obtainable through free-to-play means, and you have a recipe for quite a disappointing purchase. There are no exclusive cosmetics here, and you can bet that Archero’s pass next season will look very similar to the current season. The rewards from this pass are ephemeral consumables, whereas in Fortnite’s pass the rewards are unique and permanent. Players should feel like they have received something special for buying the pass, instead Archero’s pass is peddling convenience items minus the convenience (you still need to grind through the pass to unlock them). The player’s perceived utility of the rewards included in these consumables-based battle passes decreases over time, as they progress further and the number of consumables required to upgrade their character/buildings/weapons also increases. So the battle pass becomes less and less of a worthwhile option for them. This is important because it requires you to think a few months ahead, maybe 12 months or longer, whether or not your battle pass will still offer value to your players. If the answer is “No” then you will need another IAP which is just as valuable to players on Day180 as it is on Day1. Cosmetics are almost completely invulnerable to this ‘shrinking utility’ since they aren’t used to progress, and no two cosmetics are the same. See below for a hypothetical example of consumables utility decay in a character upgrade economy, pay close attention to the green line:

https://dscarter95.github.io/medium_data_viz/utility_decay.html

In my opinion this is a really significant difference between the two passes, but a player’s interpretation of reward value (especially cosmetics) is something that’s extremely difficult to measure. Even so, I’m in no doubt that the conversion rate of the Archero pass is significantly lower as a result. This is something I saw on a previous project with a gacha-based character upgrade economy: late-game conversion rate was lower than early game.

In the Fortnite Pass the skins and cosmetics themselves also act as an incentive for conversions. Players are reminded of this persistently: simply wearing a skin turns every player into a walking billboard for the primary form of in-game monetisation. Before each game begins there is a short ‘lobby time’ where players explore a much smaller island, which forces them close to the 99 other players, and crucially the skins they are wearing. It’s common to see players show off their dances, emotes, or building skills, and gather round other players to admire their cool rare cosmetics. This short waiting time is a 30 second ad of sorts for the in-game cosmetics, many of which are only available in the battle pass for a limited time, remember.

While Archero does have a multiplayer mode, it doesn’t have such strong social elements baked into the game, so the opportunities to show off cosmetics are greatly reduced. The duos mode is only made available after completing the first 3 chapters, which can take some time and the reality is that most players would have churned by that point. It’s also limited to one other player that you share your lobby code with, which reduces opportunities to show off or to see new cosmetics.

Another social element in the Fortnite pass which boosts conversions is the Party Assist. This allows party members to contribute towards completing your challenges which grant substantial battle pass XP. The social element at play here is reciprocity: it benefits both players to buy the battle pass, play together and progress together. Archero’s duos mode is roughly equivalent, offering gems, gold and XP for playing with friends. But Archero makes a point of stating that enemies killed in duos mode do not contribute to battle pass progress. This robs the Archero pass of the opportunity to maximise not only conversions, but retention and engagement too, by deliberately removing incentives for social play which could have synergised well with the battle pass.

Finally, Fortnite maximises conversions by coupling battle pass releases to their major update cadence. Every Season is paired with a new battle pass, and at the start of every new Season there is a huge update with content galore. It has built a reputation for itself with outstanding production quality wow-factor events that draw in the crowds, players new and old, just as the new battle pass launches. A prime example would be the Chapter 2 Black Hole event which made headlines globally. The timing of the events is no coincidence, and drives massive numbers of conversions for the battle pass.

The marquee events and the battle pass feed back into each other. One would be less effective without the other, and this touches on the most significant drawback of the battle pass/update pairing: it is an extremely content hungry cycle. If you don’t have the LiveOps and Art capabilities to keep churning out huge updates with new content then your battle pass won’t hit it’s potential. As a result Archero doesn’t have such a strong LiveOps cycle compared to Fortnite (of course it doesn’t, who does?), but it could and should improve on its LiveOps offerings, and time these with new battle pass releases for maximum effect.

Boosting Retention and Engagement:

During the ~70 day wait in between major updates in Fortnite, it’s the job of the battle pass to keep those players around. It does so in two ways:

1. Retention — players want to extract as much value as possible from their purchase, so keep playing to progress through the pass to achieve this.
2. Engagement — players return to play more often: to play with friends and give them XP boosts, to claim the regular battle pass milestone rewards, due to daily and weekly challenges boosting battle pass progression.

The most obvious thing to mention is that purchasing the battle pass itself has a retention effect, similar to a sunk-cost fallacy. Users who make a purchase retain about 2 to 3 times longer than their non-spending counterparts. These users are encouraged to retain, and play to acquire as many of the cosmetics/items that they have paid to unlock, extracting as much value as possible from their purchase. Fortnite reinforces and enables this thinking — by including a total of 1500 VBucks within the battle pass, enough to recover the initial cost of 950 VBucks, plus some more to spend in the Item Shop. The Archero pass has no equivalent.

In Fortnite it’s only required that the player reach roughly level 60 in the battle pass to have earned back 1000 VBucks. This creates an unspoken ‘VBucks Profit’ rule of the Fortnite battle pass: it’s possible to make a single purchase of 1000 VBucks ($10) and use this to buy every subsequent battle pass, just by playing regularly and putting the earned VBucks into next season’s pass. This makes a first time purchase extremely tempting. It also works as both a conversion gimmick and retention incentive: once you’ve made the purchase, you’re even more determined to play and exploit this fact as much as you can! Few players manage this in reality, and more often than not they’ll spend the VBucks they earned before the next pass is released.

Cosmetics and rewards are laid out along the Fortnite pass in such a way as to maximise engagement and retention, similar to pacing in a typical story-driven game. Notice in the plot below the regularly spaced peaks and troughs.

https://dscarter95.github.io/medium_data_viz/fortnite-free-paid.html

This places regular high-value rewards just on the horizon, encouraging the player to keep going. This isn’t just for spenders either, but the free tier of the Fortnite battle pass also spaces out rewards at regular intervals. Where the paid tier attempts to keep players incentivised and engaged with a rollercoaster of high and low value rewards, the free tier instead focuses rewards much earlier on. The first free rewards occur frequently, gradually decreasing in frequency and then also decreasing in value beyond level 53. By this point the battle pass is focused on converting these users, and rightly so; conversion rate in the days following D7 is about 30% higher than before D7. Couple this with the nature of the battle pass increasing in value the more a player plays, and you have a perfect recipe for boosting conversion rate, and retention. We can thus describe the Fortnite battle pass in two phases for free-to-play users:

1. Engagement focus up to level 53.
2. Conversion focus from then on.

Archero’s battle pass follows a similar pattern of reward peaks and troughs, but with fewer levels, and instead opts to reward free players with a continuous stream of low-value rewards. Overall, free users can acquire roughly $15 worth of gifts from the Archero pass, whereas the Fortnite pass rewards free players with $64 worth. Keep in mind that these passes last for different durations, so Archero actually offers free players roughly $1 of stuff per day, whereas Fortnite offers $0.90 per day. Still, the Fortnite offerings feel more significant since they are lasting and unique compared to the consumables Archero offers.

https://dscarter95.github.io/medium_data_viz/archero-free-paid.html

The Fortnite daily assignments and weekly challenges act in a similar way, providing measurable goals that grant XP and help the player progress to the next big reward in the battle pass. New assignments are given daily, providing short-term goals for players to focus on, and can include almost any in game action such as: eating apples 3 times in a specific location, or eliminating players in different areas of the map. Challenges provide mid-term goals and are released in stages throughout the season. A key point here is that many of these challenges aren’t related to skill, example: you don’t need to be great at FPS games to land at Lonely Lodge and do a dance, this makes battle pass progress accessible to all. To make it even more accessible Fortnite offers the ‘Party Assist’ function. Rewarding social activity is an effective retention strategy: if all of your friends are playing and helping each other out, it becomes more enjoyable for you to play too! Including social elements is a powerful KPI boosting tool in any Designer’s toolbox, especially when social interactions aid progress. For these social features to be impactful they must be embedded into the game design from the beginning, and not shoehorned in at a later date.

Drawbacks and Pitfalls:

As mentioned earlier, probably the most significant drawback of the battle pass monetisation system is how insanely content-hungry it is. You (or your studio) simply may not have the resources necessary to create and maintain a successful implementation like this. It may not be feasible for you to invest the time and resources into significant social features and events, which are signatures of a successful cosmetics driven battle pass. Even major studios often don’t have the resources to run LiveOps, and that’s before considering the additional art resources needed for exclusive cosmetics. As a result, you may be tempted to go down the route of tweaking the battle pass into a subscription-style IAP which provides bonuses akin to a VIP mechanic, like boosters and extra gacha pulls. Be warned, this approach often leads to cannibalisation and a reduction in revenue, and does not provide long term utility as discussed earlier. Remember:

In order to make your battle pass as successful as possible, it should include items exclusive to that battle pass

The economies in these games were not built around a battle pass, but an extended character/item gacha grind. While this design decision is not a problem in itself, it is almost completely incompatible with a battle pass which offers the same rewards that the gacha does. The Archero battle pass (and others like it) are focused on less compelling convenience items, limited or no cosmetics, and limited or no ‘social rewards’. By implementing a battle pass which gives players more of the same for a lower price, you will only cannibalise your other IAPs, which is exactly what has happened to several top-grossing mobile games that have tried this. In the best case you will see no increase in revenues with a poorly implemented pass, and a decrease in revenue in the worst case. But when done right some games have seen increases in revenues of 27%. This puts into perspective how important it really is to understand the nuance of the monetisation methods you consider for your game, and whether or not a battle pass is appropriate for the kind of game you have built (or want to build). It also highlights how, when done properly, a battle pass can significantly boost revenues and player engagement.

Another significant drawback to be aware of is that with cosmetics based economies there is naturally limited depth and therefore lower spend potential from individuals (or ‘whales’). Battles Passes rely heavily on high conversion rate but have lower ARPPU, so depending on the genre or type of game you are making it might make more sense to disregard broad appeal and higher conversion rate — in favour of depth and focus on your most dedicated players and unlocking their spend potential. In a cosmetics economy your spend depth is mostly limited by your cosmetics output, putting a significant strain on your Art resources. In this scenario, even your most dedicated customers cannot buy more than the limited number of skins, so coupling a cosmetics based battle pass with another, deeper form of in-game monetisation would be a smart move. Remember, this should not have any overlap with your battle pass offering.

Summary:

Let’s condense all that we’ve learned during this deep dive:

1. Offer amazing rewards for the very first level of your battle pass, make purchasers feel great right away.
2. Fill it with exclusive items and varied cosmetics, not available via any other means.
3. Offer unique items with each pass to introduce time exclusivity.
4. Offer crazy total value for the entire pass, to the tune of 30x to 50x, to maximise conversions.
5. Be generous with your free rewards, be even more generous with your paid ones.
6. Make it last, 30 days should really be your minimum to maximise value and retention.
7. Make your paid pass valuable to players at all stages, early game and end game.
8. Give players maximum opportunity to show off their cosmetics to friends and in matchmaking.
9. Reward social play by providing boosts when playing with paid tier friends. Make rewards reciprocal.
10. Tie new battle pass launches to your major LiveOps events.
11. Pace free and paid rewards to encourage engagement. Always give the player an implicit ‘next big objective’.
12. Focus big value free rewards early, to engage and retain F2P players, then taper free rewards off to encourage conversion later on.
13. Consider offering hard currency in the free and paid tiers.
14. Give the player explicit bite-sized goals with challenges and missions that contribute to battle pass progress.
15. Make challenges accessible, non-skill based.
16. Offer additional quests/challenges/missions as part of the paid tier to enable more progression, and squeeze more hours out of the pass.
17. Don’t make consumables the primary rewards.
18. Don’t cannibalise your other IAPs.
19. Consider pairing a battle pass with another deeper form of monetisation to lift the spend cap of your most dedicated players, such as separate cosmetics.

In the end, a battle pass, when done right, should offer the player superb value and an enhanced experience when playing your game. To achieve this you should design your battle pass around your core game at an early stage, but when that is not possible it should be designed to complement your existing features for maximum effect. I hope this article has gone some way towards helping you understand how that could be done in your game! :)