Charugin Vadim, Lead Game Designer
Pixonic, 16.10.2018
How We Developed
and Tested our Hypotheses
War Robots Events:
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Events in our understanding
In-game events
Time limited
Unique experience
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Pros
Paying Users DAU
Increase player base
Increase player
engagement
Increase purchase count
Opportunity
for experiments
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Cons
Recovery
Addiction and fatigue
Strict release schedules
Unexpected problems and bugs
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Why we created our first event
Understanding the need
Enough content in game
Wanted to try new things
Store featuring
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First event - Halloween 2016
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Number of fights per day per person
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Start time and duration
Same time on all platforms
Not very long
Start before weekend and finish after weekend
03 Dec 10 Dec 17 Dec 24 Dec 31 Dec 07 Jan 14 Jan 21 Jan 28 Jan
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Optimal time for WR event: 17-18 days starting on Thursday
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New store icon
New visuals
Additional tasks
New paint job system
Increase maximum
clan size
New game mode
A/B tests
What we did in our events
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New store icon
Shows that something unique is going on
Use only for large events
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New visuals for maps
Causes negative reaction
if left for a long time
More maps = longer
to develop and test
Shows that an event
is on
Provokes discussion
in the community
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New
visuals for main screen and UI
Minimal map changes, focus on hangar and pop-ups
Main difficulty is maintaining good performance
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New paint job system
~6% of all currency spent in-game
(more on iOS, less on Android)
Main objective: testing players’ interest
In demand by a small part of audience
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Increase maximum clan size
Planned as a feature for competitive clans.
Makes it easier for a clan to get higher position in ranking. More players = more activity
Used by a small number of players
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Number of fights per day per person
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Additional tasks: 1st iteration
Questline for the whole event
Tasks are divided into parts with main reward at the end of each part
Evaluated complexity using similar metrics from past events
Start End
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Additional tasks: conclusions
% of players, who completed all tasks was as expected, but the funnel was uneven
Redistribution of rewards within the chain helped
High paying group complete more tasks on average
Received/completed quests
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Additional tasks: 2nd iteration
Players who started too late had no chance
to complete everything
Tasks for a limited time instead of questline
Smaller rewards, easier tasks
Increased the number of people
who received rewards up to 20 times
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New game modes
Adds gameplay variety
Allows players to find “their own” mode
Excellent additional activity for the event
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Unranked mode with pre-installed robots
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New game mode: Skirmish
Most players are level 30
Increased DAU / WAU by 5%
Slightly increases interest in new content
Most interesting type - with unique
gameplay
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A/B test: popups
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23,2% 40,0%
46,9%
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A/B test: popups, Android results
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A/B test: popups, results
Best result: stylized icons
Colored pictures are probably not suitable for our game style
Players could make hasty conclusions and not follow the link
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A/B test: push notifications
Standard notifications (Event starts; going on; near end)
Gifts
New quests
New “WR Royale” event
New map
Special offers
Everything in one notification
New topic each time
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push notifications, results
Best result: new topic each time
All notifications with Emoji were better than the control group
The more diverse — the better
Text should be as short as possible
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Regional Events
Will it be interesting for players?
Will it be interesting for players outside target audience?
Will players play more on the weekdays?
25 Sep 27 Sep 29 Sep 01 Oct 03 Oct 05 Oct 07 Oct
Number of fights per day per person