Name: Pet Society (http://apps.facebook.com/petsociety/)
Developer: Playfish
Monthly active users: 10,873,931 (Facebook, 5/4/2009)
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What works:
Constant reminders of payment options
Pet Society constantly affords users the opportunity to obtain coins through either direct payments or offers. Strategically placed underneath the user’s coin total in the top left corner of the game’s main window is an “add coins” button, which means that no matter where the users are in the game– in a store, at home, visiting another player’s home, etc.– at any given point, they are only one click away from being able to purchase coins.
As well, there are posters displayed in stores throughout the town advertising the game’s offers option, enticing new users who perhaps don’t yet know about this method of obtaining virtual currency.
Prices that help integrate users into the game’s full experience
A reasonable pricing and rewards system also allows users to enjoy the full experience of the game without having to buy coins or do offers. Thanks to a daily lottery that awards the user a variable amount of coins (50-100) just for launching the app, a 20-coin reward for visiting a friend, and a racing game that awards 30 coins for first place (with the opportunity to race up to 10 times a day), a user can earn hundreds of coins in one day just by playing. And while many of the items in the game have a high price tag (1400 coins for a basic sofa, 15000 coins for a luxury bed), many are affordable to the new or low-key player (400 coins for a loveseat, nicely designed floor and wall options at 500 coins or less). The only truly necessary item in the game is food, and most food items cost under 50 coins (with a number of items even under 10 coins).
Trophies motivate users to play and buy more
The trophy system provides feasible goals for the user, encouraging play and even purchases as with the receipt of a trophy also comes game points and coins.
Continually adding in new items
Most stores have a section of “New Arrivals” or “This Week’s Specials”. By consistently providing new items to the users, the game remains fresh and interesting and gives the users reasons to come back.
Pet Society's pricing on virtual goods allows its users to get into the game without having to pay for more currency.
What could be better:
Keep the players within the game
When attempting to purchase coins or complete offers, you’re taken to an outside site that loads in the same window/tab you had the game in– meaning, if you change your mind, in order to return to the game, you have to go back to Facebook and relaunch the app. Though it seems a minor inconvenience on the user, ideally, a game should strive to keep the user in the game as long as possible.
In contrast to this, another promotional ad Playfish has running throughout the game is for one in which the user can enter weekly draws (free coins being the prize) just by becoming a Facebook fan of Playfish. Upon clicking on this promotion, the user is instantly taken to the Playfish fan page, but in a new window/tab– meaning the users can return at any time to the game exactly as they left it. Simple, fast, convenient.
More social interaction
Additionally, the game could integrate more social incentives. Presently, there isn’t a whole lot to motivate a user to meet other players or encourage friends to add the app and create their own pet. There are trophies awarded for completing a specific number of “social visits” (25/100/300), but the visits are counted cumulatively, which means a user could have only 5 friends but still get the first trophy after 5 days of visits, and then only need 75 more visits to get the second trophy.
At the cafe, a user can meet strangers’ pets at random (who can also count toward the social visits count) but is limited to only 9 interactions, which makes it slightly more difficult to socialize within the game and make new friends– though, again, there just isn’t much incentive for a user to make new friends in the first place.
One motivation behind having a larger circle of friends is popularity– users like showing off how popular they are. A banner (similar to the one which displays a user’s friends in order of how many points each friend has accumulated in the game) displaying the most popular (based on total friends) players in the game would push users to want to grow their friend count so as to show up in the top 7.
Alternatively, there could be a banner or list displaying players who have obtained the highest number of trophies– or users could be allowed to vote on each other’s homes, and the banner could display the top-voted upon homes. These two options are more lucrative, as many of the trophies can only be obtained through purchases (e.g. “Spend 10,000 coins in a store” or “Buy 15 hats”) and the homes that get the most positive votes are the ones that have the most upgrades and purchases (e.g. flooring and wallpaper designs, furniture and electronics). If users want to make it to the top of those lists, they have to do it by frequently spending large amounts of coins– which means either buying them directly or completing more offers.
A banner similar to this but used to display the Top Players in the game could stimulate users to help grow the game and make more purchases.
What to take away:
- Make sure that your game keeps your players within it as much as possible, for as long as possible. By sending them outside of your game, you risk the chance of them not returning. If you must send them out, try to do so in a separate window or tab in order to make their return to the game (precisely as they left it) as easy as possible.
- Ease your players into the idea of purchasing virtual items. By rewarding simple game play with enough virtual currency to allow them to make small purchases, you get them used to the whole experience and increase the odds that they will eventually purchase something much more expensive that requires them to either make a direct payment or complete offers.
- Remember that you are working in the social sphere. A game that is fun and engaging and nothing more is fine if it’s just a game– but a social game needs to emphasize (duh) social interaction. By encouraging your users to increase their in-game interactions, you can increase the viral growth of the game and (through competition) increase virtual sales.
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