thomas hartwig, cto, king - managing hypergrowth across all dimensions
DESCRIPTION
Check out the story behind the amazing growth of King in the past few years and what it takes to foster and manage it. More details on: http://2013.howtoweb.co/TRANSCRIPT
How to get to 100 000 000
Players?
4
We create & publish Casual Games
5
Hat trick…n.1 cross-platform
5
The leader in cross-platform games
March2013
March 2012
Mobile
21m
108m
Explosive growth on all platforms
Facebook/ Web
Monthly Unique PlayersRapidly growing number of players
August2013
225m
What’s the Word?
4 Pics 1 Word
Guess Words
What’s the Word?
4 Pics 1 Word
Guess Words
Cat
Sweden
Let’s play: 4 pics and Mobile Success
Candy Crush Saga characteristics
+ =
Fun game format
8 levels!
12
3
4
5
6
78
Let’s Play!
Special for How To Web!
PLAY AND WIN
3
2
1
Level #1
Candy
Candy….yum!
Swedish candy inspiration
“Polkagris”
“Mjölkchocklad”
“Lakrits”
Level 2!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
Level #2
Free(mium)
$0
Freemium Apps rule the World
Our games are Free to Play, for everyone, everywhere
4 categories of virtual goods (next slides)
The Design Vision is that the player can complete the game without paying
~70% of players at the last level in Candy Crush Saga mobile have never
made a payment!
Freemium
Pay to save time
”I want to play now”
Lives
Pay to not ask friends (or FB
connect)”I want to play, but not pester
my friends”
Levels / content
Pay to help with difficult levels
”I am SO close....1 more
move and I beat this level!”
Moves
Pay to increase chance of future
success”I love this
game.”AND/OR
”I want to beat my friends”
Boosters
Level 3!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
Level #3
Accessible
10 years ago…
…people actually read newspapers on the subway.
In 2013? Not so much….
(now it’s also completely normal to take pictures of random people
in the subway)
Not a Dull Moment
Day 2Playing as a habit
- Intuitive touch-screen game play
- Age-less gaming
- “Accidental gamer”
Level 4!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
Level #4
(Cross)platform
Cross Platform
FB - Cross-platform viral user loop
Desktop to mobile
Mobile to app / app store
App to desktop
Game State- Progress
?
Play everywhere
Level 5!
12
3
4
5
6
78
This one is HARD, like level 65 in
Candy
3
2
1
Level #5
DEPTH
Depth in Candy Crush
400+
levels
Depth in Candies
Tools to Create Depth, fast
72
The Team decides…
…what to ship…how to ship
…when to ship…and after…
73
…creates passion
74
…leads to happy people
75
…happy people creates high quality games
Depth
- Lots of levels
- Content depth
- Involve many in design
- No spike: constant growthSee next
slide
What do you mean “No Spike”?
iOS, U.S., Grossing
79
Go Fast…
…and iterate until awesome
80
We release every 2 weeks
Continuous improvements & fast feedback
Level 6!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
Level #6
Social
Social
- Don’t confuse Social with Multiplayer
- Needs to be fun alone……but even MORE fun with
others
- Primarily collaborative, not competitive
Level 7!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
캔디크러쉬사가 Level #7
Universal
What have we changed?
- Localized language and social graph (Not culture)
- Candy Crush = universal gameplay
- Nothing else…we believe that fantastic games have universal appeal
Final level!
12
3
4
5
6
78
3
2
1
Level #8
(Ever)green
Evergreen Gameplay Formats
Evergreen: Match-3 (1 billion hits on Google)
Evergreen: Tetris
Evergreen: Solitaires
Evergreen: Characteristics
- Healthy mix of Skill and Chance
- Healthy mix of simplicity (accessible) and complexity (depth)
- “I’ll play just one more time”
Evergreen Gameplay Formats
Summary of Candy Crush Characteristics
Candy FreemiumAccessibl
eCross-
Platform
Depth Social Universal Evergreen
100,000,000 players
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
