Chapter 10 The Secret of Making Money

Pei Qian's brain worked quickly, and the professional knowledge about game design that he had learned before came in handy at this time.

The secret to making money with pay-to-win games is to first lure players in with a free game, get them hooked, and then slowly force them to grind and pay through various means, so that those who have money will contribute, and those who don't have money will contribute their time, eventually turning the game into a cash cow.

All pay-to-win games basically cannot escape this core: players want to obtain a complete and optimal gaming experience, either by spending time, spending money, or both.

Therefore, for pay-to-win games, all players cannot be simply classified into the same type.

There are ways to play for those who pay, and ways to play for those who don't. The whales who spend tens of thousands of yuan to break through the game's pay ceiling, the mid-tier players who are meticulous and only spend tens or hundreds of yuan, and the purely free players who won't spend a penny no matter how you tempt them, are never the same group of gamers.

So, for game developers, they must be seen as three types of people, and different strategies must be formulated for each.

The secret to making money with pay-to-win games lies in: letting free players run alongside comfortably, inducing mid-tier players to spend as much money as possible, and letting whale players feel a sense of accomplishment from their spending.

There will be many time-consuming gameplay elements in the game, which, to some extent, allow free players to obtain some tokens, or even relatively generous rewards, as long as they spend enough time, so that they can persevere even without recharging, relying on their powerful liver (ability to grind).

Of course, what free players grind for will never be better than what whales pay for, otherwise the game will become the world of studios.

If these free players can achieve results through grinding, they will feel that the game is relatively conscientious, and then they will continue to play it. Whether they become friends with whales in the game or are beaten by whales as punching bags, in short, they all become part of the whales' gaming experience.

As for the mid-tier players, the game company knows that these people have some money to spend, but not much, and their spending is relatively rational. These people often combine grinding and paying; if it's more cost-effective to grind, they grind; if it's more cost-effective to pay, they pay.

Therefore, game companies will regularly offer discounts and promotions. The good things that whales originally bought at full price will be put in gift packs or raffles, just to encourage these mid-tier players to continue spending.

Although they are mid-tier players, if each person spends dozens or hundreds of yuan more each month, it is still an income that cannot be ignored for game companies.

Finally, there are the whale players. Although this group accounts for less than 1% of the player base, they account for the majority of the game company's income. Serving whale players well is the mission of most game companies.

To satisfy whale players, the game's pay depth must be deep enough. If whales can break through the ceiling with tens of thousands of yuan, they will quickly lose interest.

Game companies will constantly launch better characters, weapons, and equipment, and constantly upgrade the goods purchased with money.

And the淘汰 (táotài) – eliminated equipment can be discounted and sold to mid-tier players.

If whales want to stay the strongest, they must continue to spend money.

Fortunately, whales are very wealthy and often don't care about the money. Whales who are willing to spend tens of thousands of yuan on a game mostly don't mind spending tens of thousands more.

Thus, the entire game forms a perfect closed loop. Free players, mid-tier players, and whale players all have their own ways to play, and they can all get their own fun from the game.

Game developers can also continue to take money from everyone, a win-win situation.

Those pay-to-win games that make money hand over fist are basically following this routine.

If you want to make less money, you have to break out of this routine.

Of course, *Ghost General* can also be considered to have broken out of this routine, but it has gone a bit too far and embarked on another crooked path.

*Ghost General* only has a purchase threshold for the game and a lifetime card, which is actually equivalent to turning a pay-to-win gacha mobile game into a buy-to-play game.

Buy-to-play is nothing new in itself, but it stands out among a group of mobile games that force players to grind and pay, so it has become prominent.

The reason is that *Ghost General* did not actually distinguish well between these three different types of players, but put forward a solution that is particularly friendly to most player groups. It is too cost-effective, so it has achieved the effect of "small profits but quick turnover."

Of course, the key is the system's restrictions.

Pei Qian cannot directly set the game to be "completely free," but must make it have a theoretical possibility of making profit, so if there is no in-app purchase, the buy-to-play threshold must be set higher; if you want to enter without a threshold and for free, the in-app purchase pit must be deeper.

This undoubtedly greatly increases the difficulty of losing money.

Pei Qian felt that in order to avoid the tragedy of *Ghost General* from happening again, he must pay attention to two points this time.

First of all, he cannot have a buy-to-play threshold. If he says it's free, it must be truly free, and ordinary players must be able to play all the content without spending a penny. In this way, all those who can freeload will freeload, and there will be no such thing as "small profits but quick turnover."

Secondly, while the in-app purchase pit is deep enough, he must try to dispel players' desire to spend money as much as possible.

The reason why other games like to do gacha is actually to deceive players with the randomness of gacha, making players pay far more than their actual value for some rare heroes and rare props.

If you want to curb players' desire to spend, the gacha system must also be worked on.

Pei Qian quickly had an idea and said to Chang You: "The in-app purchase consumption of *Fitness Battle* will have both a shop and a gacha system."

"All the goods are clearly priced in the shop. At the same time, in the gacha system, the corresponding probabilities are determined according to the degree of rarity, so that players can choose freely."

"The cost performance of the gacha is about 0.8, which means that players spend 100 yuan on the gacha, and on average, they can only draw about 80 yuan worth of things."

"Of course, for some lucky players, it certainly does not meet this expectation."

"While players recharge to get tokens for the gacha, the background will record the amount of each recharge, the gacha results, and the total value of these prizes. Every day from 0:00 to 24:00 is a cycle. If players are not satisfied with the gacha results within this cycle, they can directly apply for a refund through the refund button. The system will automatically deduct the prizes and refund the money, but the price is that players cannot make any recharges for the next three days."

"In addition, all props in the game support obtaining through game tokens."

"The way to get game tokens is to exercise every day, and the amount of calories consumed is the number of tokens obtained. The more calories you consume each day, the more tokens you get."

Pei Qian's design is all to suppress players' desire to spend money as much as possible.

According to the system's requirements, the game's consumption model must match the game's investment. In short, Pei Qian cannot directly set this game to be completely free, and there must be a moderate amount of in-app purchases. If there are no in-app purchases, then a relatively high buy-to-play price must be set.

Pei Qian had already tasted the bitter fruit of pay-to-win games with buy-to-play fees during the *Ghost General* era.

Therefore, Pei Qian wants to produce enough dissuasion for players on the premise that the in-app purchase pool is deep enough!

Relatively speaking, the shop is definitely more cost-effective than gacha.

The reason why many pay-to-win games put all the rare characters and props into the gacha is because the gacha is a bottomless pit. When the drop rate is relatively low, the value that whales pay to obtain a specific character actually far exceeds its actual value.

Of course, many game companies will make the gacha look very worthwhile. If the props drawn from the gacha exceed the direct purchase price according to the actual value, the problem is that the gacha will add a lot of garbage props that are actually useless, so the player still loses.

Pei Qian's routine is to add a gacha system, so that the game's theoretical consumption limit becomes higher, and the game can be set to free. But this gacha system is completely different from the gacha systems of other games. It is an absolutely uneconomical gacha system.

This gacha system has a very low cost performance, and it will publicize the props and values drawn to the players. The key is that if players are not satisfied, they can regret it and refund the money, and give the players a period of calm, and cannot recharge for three days.

In this way, everyone has no interest in the gacha. Whales will only spend a few hundred yuan to buy the props they are interested in; even if mid-tier players spend money on the gacha, they will only not regret it if they draw something they are satisfied with. If they are not satisfied, they can refund the money at any time, so they won't spend much money; free players don't need to say more, they will definitely grind all the time, and buy props by consuming calories, and will never spend a penny.

None of the three player groups will spend a lot of money, how perfect!

Pei Qian admired himself a little, it was simply a genius plan!

Chang You nodded frequently while carefully recording.

He doesn't particularly understand the tricks of pay-to-win games, but seeing President Pei's appearance of strategizing and having everything under control, he obviously still has to unconditionally believe in President Pei.

Anyway, no matter how complex a system President Pei designs, it will definitely succeed, just shout 666 (awesome) from the sidelines!

After settling the game's charging model, Pei Qian looked at Meng Chang, who was still exercising: "How's the publicity plan going? Do you have any ideas?"

Meng Chang came down from the smart fitness clothes-drying rack, and fine beads of sweat had oozed out of his forehead: "I have a little idea!"

He didn't dare to say that he had no idea, what if President Pei asked him to continue practicing?

He felt that President Pei could do such a thing as "torture to extract a confession."

"Okay, then let's stop here for today, off work!" Pei Qian was satisfied and left with Meng Chang.