Switching focus to in-app purchases — how to transform and diversify your revenue streams
How games developer Ilyon optimized their studios and titles for in-app purchases (IAP) monetization
Founded in 2014, Ilyon is a well-established mobile game developer that has grown rapidly in recent years. Leaping from 10 employees in 2016 to 150 in 2019, the company has a history of developing casual games with engaging gameplay and strong themes that appeal to millions of players worldwide.
This article will briefly examine how Ilyon has successfully moved from relying primarily on an ad monetization business model to developing its own in-app purchase (IAP) monetization strategies — focusing on the changes it made on a company level, such as team restructure, to changes in its game design and monetization.
Our story begins at the end of 2018 when Ilyon decided to focus on diversifying its monetization strategy. With the support of the Google Play Business Development team, Ilyon was ready to make some significant changes to achieve its goal of revenue diversification. Working alongside the Google Play team, Ilyon has been optimizing its older games while also launching its first IAP-focused title — Cube Rush Adventure. This resulted in a fantastic 100% growth in its YoY IAP revenue, and it was subsequently acquired by Miniclip in early 2020. We hope that by the end of this article you will have found several insights you can bring to your own studio or game!
We’ve also just published a highly recommended Play Academy learning path on games business fundamentals, which explores these topics further.
What were the key business changes?
Ilyon made some big changes which positively impacted several of its titles and the structure of the company itself. We will be exploring some of these structural changes as well as elements of the development of Cube Rush Adventure, a Tap-2 masterpiece that was built from the ground up with an IAP-focused Hybrid Monetization strategy (Ads alongside IAP) in mind.
Team structure
Following discussions with our team, Ilyon decided in early 2019 to “…[change] the organizational structure to [have a] dedicated studio for each game, allowing deeper focus on IAP monetization and economy” [Yonatan Erez, Ilyon CEO].
This change enabled teams including product, development, game design, marketing, and art design to gain a deeper understanding of their assigned title and to invest all their talents, experiences, and resources in a defined game. This proved critical for a game which has a focus on IAP monetization strategy as it involves much more sophisticated work on core loops, mechanics and how each aspect affects its outcome.
User engagement & retention
Content quantity
A successful game benefits from having long-term retention of players. When players stick to a game long enough and are highly engaged with it, there is a higher chance that they could potentially be converted into paying users. With good game and monetization designs, once players convert and begin to pay, they are likely to continue doing so until they churn — so from the very beginning, Ilyon was keen to design Cube Rush Adventure as a game that players could not bear to leave.
Ilyon focused on the fact that Tap-2 players are motivated by the mental challenge of completing puzzle levels and that they enjoy doing so in a rich and thematic world. Similar to other casual games, the core game loop of Tap-2 games is fairly straightforward — players complete levels and advance in a story. Moreover, each individual level has a fairly short gameplay.
As a result, Ilyon had to think about different aspects of game content in order to ensure long term retention and ongoing engagement of its players. The core game consists of around 2000 levels, which ensures there is plenty of content to keep people busy — and to keep the game fresh and interesting, Ilyon regularly introduces new and different game elements throughout the main story.
Content variety
While an extensive and varied story experience could engage and retain many players, there could be other reasons why players would still churn out of a game. To mitigate this, Ilyon created additional content related features to vary the players’ gameplay experiences with the core game loop.
Seasonal Levels, for example, are a new series of time-limited content features that provide players with different seasonal gameplay levels. While these seasonal levels do not run indefinitely, they attract players with new and novel challenges which resonate with their life beyond the game. Players will also look forward to upcoming calendar events which builds anticipation and excitement for them to continue playing.
Game monetization
Player segmentation
Ilyon built Cube Rush Adventure with a Hybrid Monetization strategy in mind by amplifying its existing expertise in ad monetization with a new focus on IAPs. To accomplish this, it began segmenting players into different cohorts based on players’ behaviors to provide them with bespoke player experiences. This segmentation is flexible and can change overtime. Overall, it ensures players are given the best individual gaming and monetization experiences which in return means they are more likely to convert into paying users.
Level balancing
Gameplay is essentially about making decisions and these decisions must have an impact on the course of the game to engage a player. A decision should either bring players closer to their rewards, i.e. winning the game or take a toll on their winning prospect. It is crucial for Ilyon to balance the difficulty levels of Cube Rush Adventure to ensure its players can make these decisions fairly and meaningfully. Ilyon achieves through working out the patterns which resulted in better engagement and monetization, tweaking different elements of the game to minimize churn, and subsequently modifying player experience in line with their segmentation.
Monetization tactics
Finally, great UI communicates the look and feel of a game and is key to engaging players. Ilyon continuously tests different UI elements to ensure Cube Rush Adventure provides players with an intuitive interface and balanced design to motivate them to continue playing the game and potentially convert to paying gamers in order to complete their levels.
As an example, a simple change of certain level icons, e.g. using either a ‘Hard’ or ‘Extreme’ label for different players have an impact on their spending behavior as it affects how they perceive the level, and what Boosters they need to purchase to win a game.
Separately, Ilyon optimizes its in-game storefront assets for revenue generation by taking players’ behaviors into consideration. For example, Ilyon introduces Starter Packs specifically to new players who have yet to make their first purchase in the game.
Through all the changes made to the game (including the introduction of new types of content), Ilyon kept its focus on entertaining Cube Rush Adventure players for a long period of time while working on other elements e.g. optimizing the monetization of different user segments through Hybrid Monetization, delicate balancing, improvement of level progression, and better in-game storefront design. Cube Rush Adventure is a great example of getting this balance between engagement and monetization right.
Roundup
All of these changes introduced by Ilyon were highly beneficial to all parties involved. In particular, it has seen an increase in both advertisements and IAP Revenue which allowed it to expand and develop its business on other fronts. Following this growth, Ilyon was subsequently acquired by Miniclip.
I hope this article has been helpful and provided some insights that you can apply to your titles. If you’d like to explore these topics further, the Games Business Fundamentals learning path on the Play Academy goes much deeper into each of these topics, so would be the best place to start!
Additional Resources:
The learnings from Ilyon’s transformation are part of the inspiration for our latest Play Academy Learning Path. Check out the links below to learn how to bring these results to your studio!
Course 1: Understand player motivation
- Learn how to understand and use the fundamental reasons why people engage with your game.
Course 2: Basics of core game loop design
- Using your understanding of player motivations, build your game around what players love to do.
Course 3: Basics of in-game economy design
- Monitor the flow of assets within the in-game economy, and understand how player actions impact revenue
Course 4: Monitor Key Performance Indicators
- Determine your core, engagement and economy metrics and build KPI trees to visualize how they impact each other.
Course 5: Map and monitor your game’s economy
- Apply your understanding of your game’s economy to build scalable KPI trees that give control and insight over the entire economy.
Course 6: Monetization tactics for mobile games
- Understand the options and benefits involved with diverse revenue streams and apply several techniques to optimize your monetization.
Course 7: Price discrimination and merchandising in mobile games
- Learn to apply further pricing strategies involving audience segmentation, the merchandising matrix and behavioral economics
What do you think?
Do you have thoughts on diversifying revenue streams for apps and games? Let us know in the comments below or tweet using #AskPlayDev and we’ll reply from @GooglePlayDev, where we regularly share news and tips on how to be successful on Google Play.
