VPN is a character customisation action game where you take control of your very own Viking, Pirate, or Ninja and send them on fun and exciting adventures. Earn money by completing various [quests] to customise your character just the way you want. Challenge your friends to a duel. Work together with your fellow adventurers to conquer new lands. Do you think you have what it takes to become the best?
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What works:
Numerous, varied components of the game maximize user engagement
As with many other games, there comes a point in VPN where your avatar has to take a break in order to recoup some vital quality– here, either energy or health. The impatient user can eliminate this wait time by purchasing items that award replenishment, but for users who can’t afford these items (or who simply don’t want to buy them just yet, or perhaps even aren’t aware of this solution), patience is the key.
The blue box in the lower right hand corner indicates how long it will be before an increment of energy will be gained, which can be anywhere between 3 and 20 minutes.
Typically, the user who chooses to wait must find something to do to pass the time. If the time period is short enough and the game designed to encourage such, this can easily be accomplished by visiting other users in the game and interacting with them or their environments (such as in Farm Town or Pet Society). If it’s longer, however, users will often turn to external sites for preoccupation, which leaves open the risk of users failing to come back.
In VPN, however, users are provided with outlets for distraction that keep them firmly within the game, such as:
- Multiple avatars/adventures: a single user can create up to three avatars (one per character type), and thus can switch effortlessly between adventures at any moment. If a ninja quest looks like it’s going to be on hold for another 15 minutes, the user can start completing viking quests instead.
- Mini-games that also provide rewards: users can play VPN-themed arcade games that each have their own goals and rewards (e.g., win a special item for achieving a particular high score). By the time a user finishes playing a mini-game or two, their avatar is bound to have regained full vitality.
“Fame” points = reward system for users who help VPN acquire more users
Fame in VPN won't make you live forever, but it will allow you to purchase exclusive items that indicate just how famous you are.
Getting active users to rein in other new users is never an easy feature to work into a game– on the one hand, the developer doesn’t want to make this necessary to play or succeed in the game; on the other hand, this method brings in users who have $0 in acquisition cost.
What VPN did was treat this feature the same way as they did purchasing Meteor credits, VPN’s high-level currency: You don’t have to do it in order to have fun in the game, but if you do, you’ll be rewarded with cool stuff that the other users can’t access.
Fame points are required to purchase certain items, so users swayed by the idea of status and exclusivity will be more prone to encouraging friends to sign up through their invitations. Additionally, users get more Fame points whenever their friends level up (and can even be rewarded with Meteor credits whenever a friend purchases them), giving users incentive to keep their friends active within the game.
What could be better:
Opportunities for social interaction could be more prevalent
The major incentive for a user to buy premium items– clothes or accessories for an avatar, unique hairstyles or avatar features, furniture for an avatar’s home, etc.– is to express identity and status. The motivation to express these things, however, is to stand out from or show off to other users in the game, so if there’s never any (or only highly limited) chance for social interaction, users lose interest in buying premium items and fail to see the appeal of purchasing Meteor credits.
Taverns are graphical chat rooms where users can meet and interact with others... provided others show up, or even know about the Taverns in the first place.
Currently, in VPN, opportunities for social interaction are limited. The only way to make new friends is in the chat room, which is not quickly or easily accessible in the game, and then once you have friends, there’s isn’t much you can do with them. The site (see above introductory description) claims you can “challenge your friends to a duel”, but the only thing you can challenge any other user to do is play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, from which winning garners nothing.
What to keep in mind:
Design the game as best you can to keep users in the game
The Internet fosters and nurtures a short attention span in users that constantly requires stimulation; if users are at a lull in your game and cannot do anything further in their own environment for a considerable amount of time, try to let your game provide them with other things to do that will keep them from automatically switching to a new window– and if it can’t, then make whatever it is they’re waiting for valuable enough that they will be motivated to come back to your game to reap that reward.
Give your current users incentives to both attract and retain new ones
New users who sign up through their friends are worth their weight in silver. New users who then continue to come back to the game and stay active are worth their weight in gold.
If the virtual goods you’re monetizing have only social value, don’t let your game skimp on social features
Users love to show off and customize their avatars and will happily spend the money to do so– as long as there are others around to witness and be impressed by these efforts. Games which want to focus monetization on virtual goods that only enhance identity need to have a solid implementation of community interaction within the game; without a community, who can users hope to impress– and why then should they try? If a tree grows taller in a forest and there’s no one around to notice, the change is hardly remarkable.
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Name: Vikings, Pirates, Ninjas (http://apps.facebook.com/vpnwars/)
Monthly active users: 179,220 (Facebook, 6/26/09)
Developed by: Meteor Games (http://www.meteorgames.com/)
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