transformice: from small flash game to 60 million players ММО
TRANSCRIPT
The Story of Transformice :The 60 million players indie game
Mélanie Christin - Atelier 801
[email protected] - @Melibellule
Who are we?● Working for Ankama on
their major MMORPG
● We want to make a game on our own
First concept art● The concept comes from a real life experience
First prototype
Splasher art
Launching : May 1st 2010● Launching on a French video games forum >
● Instant success!
● SomethingAwful (Goons) forums find us
● English translation
All the video game websites pick it up!
Scaling up
● Our server melted under the demand, but we can’t afford more
● Ads!
● Donate button > didn’t work that much (3000€ in 2 years)
2010 : 11 000€ 47€/day
Founding our own studio!● We resign from Ankama one year later (April 2011)
● Playerbase doubles
● Translation in all languages: exotic country
distribution
2011 : From 150,000 to 300,000 visitors/day
● Ads perform REALLY well!
2011 : 103,000€ 280€/day + pre-loader: 55,000$
● Hiring our first employee!
But suddenly...
We got banned from Google Adsense.
… Oops.
Getting back on our feet● Google pays 60 days later > 13 500€ gone
● No way to contact Google
● We stop paying ourselves for 6 months
● Replacing with other ad networks
Until finally...We get unbanned in February 2012.
Why?
Shifting economic models● New ad banner doesn’t pay enough
● We don’t want to rely on ads anymore
We decide to go Free-to-Play
● Six months of development
● Choosing price points
● Re-drawing 200 items
… Success!● More than 250,000€ generated the first month, 1M€ by the end of 2012
● Hiring 8 new people and moving to bigger office
Tackling year 2013● We’ve seen too big, flirting with break-even
● Reactivating ad banners in November 2013
2014 : Getting better● We stop giving hats for free during events = better monetization
2014 : 929,025€ Benefit: 40,309€
2015: Steam!● Releasing on Steam on January the 30th
● New articles
● 1M downloads
● 800 000+ new accounts
● 100 000$ net
What Went Right● Physics
● Real Time Multiplayer
● Accessibility
● Localization
● Two-people Team
● Graphics
● Players’ Feedback
What Went Wrong● Two-people Team
● Read small characters
● Hiring too fast
● Disregard mobile
● Monetization… we had no idea what we were doing
