What is a good price threshold for game passes?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

This past weekend I started an ad campaign for my game ( DigiDroid ) and I ended up getting decent attention and play-throughs to my game, but at the END of it not a single person had spent Robux on any of the weapons and skills available in the game.

Now I’m wondering if I was simply asking too much ( 100 to 120 RB for permanent weapons ), or if maybe I shouldn’t be gatekeeping any ‘fun’ stuff behind a paywall, or at least until such time the game gets traction and consistent number of players in-game at all times.

My ad ended up costing me about 10 Robux per play, and I’m really think of making half the things I monetized FREE and charging 10 Robux each for the other items. At least in that way the game isn’t greedy. And if the player can’t spend a dime, they are still useful in terms of sustaining a minimum threshold of persons, even if they are for the most part disadvantaged targets. :smiley:

I am curious what everyone else’s experience has been? What is your pricing strategy?

I have decided not be discouraged and try learn from my first game. I do believe I may have ‘more things going on’ than is suitable for a mobile phone (and which starts to slow down on a 3 year old iPad), but otherwise runs fine on a PC with an RTX 3080 Ti. My next game will be more light-weight.

I’m also thinking I need to shoot for more independent and casual play, as opposed to team play. Roblox is multiplayer by design, but watching my 7-year old play, I never see what I’d consider organized team play, or ‘guild’ play. I feel like I designed DigiDroid for 12 and 14 year olds, when I should have made something easier and less demanding. My kid wants to cry when he catches fire or gets electrocuted by the robots or cut in half; maybe its too hard? I’m supressing laughter every time it happens, and thinking Haha it worked! :smiley: But maybe its not good for retention.

#2

You’re definitely not alone in questioning your pricing strategy, as quite a lot of game developers seem to also face this challenge! I’ll try and answer some of your questions below:

Item Pricing

The idea of offering some content for free, while charging lower prices can also become a great approach to your game. This way, you can still keep the game accessible to your audience without seeming “greedy”. Additionally, your current permanent item prices (100-120 robux) might be a bit too high, especially when your players are not fully invested in the game yet.

So in general, a lower cost of 10-50 robux would be much more viable. By lowering the cost, this would help your audience feel less hesitant to spend, even if they’re still not commited in the long term. Just like other games, you could also consider adding temporary boosts or one-time-use items which can give players a reason to spend small amounts on a regular basis.

Gameplay and Player Retention

It’s understandable that your 7-year-old is frustrated by the challenge, but there’s a chance that the difficulty might be deterring other players as well…

Casual players tend to stick around longer if they feel like they’re making progress, even if they’re not winning every time. If the difficulty is too high, players might get frustrated and leave. By pointing that out, I suggest that you create “levels” in your game for new or casual players. Even in multiplayer games, you might want to include a more relaxed mode where players can explore or try out different things without feeling too stressed about failure.

Overall, a lower price point and more accessible content can help keep the player base engaged and avoid feeling too ‘pay-to-win.’ Hopefully, this helps, and best of luck with your future updates! :four_leaf_clover:

1 Like
#3

Getting people to spend Robux is very hard. Less than 1% of people might spend money, and even then, its very game dependant how much Revenue your game will make. A simulator/grindy game might easily make thousands of robux off players wanted to boost their progress, whereas other games might struggle to sell just 500 robux worth of items to their paying playrs.

Generally, there are some things that sell well:

  • Direct Powerups (such as simular powerups, buying more cash, buying abilities)
  • Highly Desirable Cosmetics (cosmetics that are very overtly desirable by everyone that is playing, yet no one has unless they pay) Fortnite is a perfect example of this, or Car games selling cars

Things that dont sell well

  • Weak powerups / random power up items / Its not clear how the player might benefit from it
  • Undesirable cosmetics (player doesnt stand out, player doesnt desire it much for whatever reason) Call of Duty is a good example of this, you cant even See your character, so whats the point of buying a skin
1 Like
#4

I think you’re right. I structured my game as such there are free melee weapons that spawn in the zone, but my ranged ones are paywalled as game passes, i.e. you buy a flame thrower for 120 RB and you keep it forever. The value to the player may not be clear, and without a way to trial it, they don’t bite.

I think I need to make ALL weapons available on join, limited to maybe 10 charges (that refresh on death/respawn). And then offer generous charge packs as developer products for 10 to 20 RB. Beyond that, maybe have a single game pass for unlimited ammo, all weapons, 499 RB. If they play and enjoy the game enough they’ll do the math and buy the pass.

I’m not trying to be greedy, I just want the game to break even so I’m not buying gift cards from Costco :smiley:

1 Like
#5

Making a succesful game (Engagement, Retention, Monetization) is extremely difficult and the exception to the rule. Spending on ads is a useless endeavour in itself, it will only get a small amount of players and revenue back from what was spent. The point of running ads is to try to get onto Automated Sorts, which themselves basically take over as the “advertising”, which you need good numbers to do

1 Like
#6

Tried the game because I was curious. Personally, I think the buying extra ammo is a great idea, the one issue I could see is if a player needs more ammo mid fight, they aren’t going to be able speed run the cash shop if they are being shot at. Could be a better idea to sell some one time use “starter boost kits” that can be purchased at the team’s spawn before heading into battle that basically apply one of each of those stat powerups you have scattered around the map.

There are a few non monetized issues I noticed with the game as well, first off, no kid is going to read that instructions box. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good info in there, but lets just say there’s a reason why most games you get at Gamestop nowadays don’t come with physical manuals anymore. (yes I notice the irony of my statement) My suggestions for that is to either make a tutorial of some kind, or a “museum” area with the powerups as exhibits, with a billboard stating how to win, and how to get points. If you MUST stick with a rule book, add some pictures, put in a background that contrasts with the text, and make the font size at least 20 point. Also I recommend placing the rules where a player can see it when they first spawn in.

The other big thing I noticed is that its pretty hard to find the crystals if you don’t know what you are looking for. Even the smartest players can be a bit dumb when it comes to finding their way in game, and this one isn’t an exception. It took me at least 20 minutes based off of the game timer to figure out the crystals were hidden in those rooms. Putting them out in the open, or at least making the rooms they are in have transparent walls would help a lot. The beams on top however, those are a good touch. I especially like how they hurt you if you walk over them, it makes the crystals feel more powerful and worth fighting over.

One more note about the crystals is that there isn’t a really good indicator of how much they help your score. I mean sure it adds points, but humans aren’t very good at processing what a score of 48940 means. Our monkey brains start tapping out around the number 12 or so, sometimes earlier. We mentally know 3257 is bigger than 2469 but we don’t really comprehend the difference. One tried and true method to combat this is by using visual measurements such as a bar that shrinks or grows based on its value, or slices in a pie chart if you feel creative.

Overall though, once you get past my bias against flashy fps battle arena games, there’s a lot of good here. The animations for when you get hit are well above ROBLOX standards, and the decals, while a bit too noisy for my taste, are well done and fit pretty well together to make a neon streaked dystopian battle arena. The map, while a bit large, is exciting and filled with a variety of unique obstacles.

Best of luck on your ventures!

1 Like
#7

Holy frick I accidentally wrote an essay. oops.

1 Like
#8

Hey I really appreciate the feedback

I agree with your suggestions. I’m also concerned that it doesn’t play well on phones and my UI isn’t scaling correctly on tablets.

I’m not happy with the Game Rules mechanic myself, I’ll definitely re-think how that works. The weapons and skills in the are kind of already in an exhibit ( once you enter your team base ) but I probably could do more to show HOW they work. I just assumed since they were free the player would just pick them up and see what they do. I might just default them all into the players inventory and skip having the player pick them up.

It’s true the crystals are more or less “gated” to make you fight / avoid the security droids … I will try to make them more obvious and accessible. And I’ll make an XP popup or roll-up indicator somewhere on the display so you can see what everything is worth.

At this point I’ve removed all my game passes and replaced them with a single developer product ( Ammo Pack 500 ) for 10 RB. It can’t get much cheaper lol. The game allows you to collect ammo from power-ups scattered around the playfield, but caps your free ammo at 30. The ‘bought ammo’ is like your reserve ammo that only gets spent when you run out of collected ammo. I think the player does need to run short at some point, in a fire-fight, to realize the value of the ammo pack. The player can certainly play for free just off power-ups, (and failing that, the melee weapons only use energy.)

My goal was to try make the game somewhat of an obby with a lot of vertical levels and hops, (but also provide ladder and teleporter access to most places). Plus you can fly but its rather difficult to control. I’m wondering if you played long enough to leave the arena and discover you’re on a round planetoid in space. Or waited for the floor to collapse and reveal the volcano / smelting operation?

It was my first game, so I’m not sure what to expect. It takes inspiration from BladeRunner, Tron, the planet Mustafar and an old Commodore 64 game called Impossible Mission. I know the cyber punk theme is not for everyone, I was just trying to create a sensory overload for short attention spans. I wanted a million things going on. I’ll fix some things and run another ad campaign this weekend and see how it goes.

#9

In my opinion, this is great for a first game, and I’ll admit I haven’t left the arena, to see the space stuff, but yeah the volcano area is pretty cool. I like how its less safe than the main arena in the sense there is lava and more NPC enemies, but there’s teleport pads to get back up. It’s much more interesting than just killing a player for missing a jump, as it gives them a chance to recover.

1 Like