在行動裝置程式環境下的新數位商業行銷 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程 International MBA Program College of Commerce National Chengchi University. 碩士論文政治. 大. 立Master’s Thesis. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. 在行動裝置程式環境下的新數位商業行銷 er. io. New digital environment marketing, in a business of mobile. n. a device l C applicationn i v hengchi U. Student: Filip Lahoda Advisor: Professor Jack Wu. 中華民國（104）年（07）月 July 2015.

(2) 在行動裝置程式環境下的新數位商業行銷 New digital environment marketing, in a business of mobile device application. 政治大Student: Filip Lahoda Advisor: Jack Wu. 研究生：侯斐立指導教授：吳文傑立. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 國立政治大學. y. Nat. 商學院國際經營管理英語碩士學位學程. n. er. io. al. sit. 碩士論文. C. A Thesis. i n U. v. h e n g c hMBA i Program Submitted to International National Chengchi University in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master in Business Administration 中華民國（104）年（07）月 July 2015.

(3) Abstract New digital environment marketing, in a business of mobile device application By Filip Lahoda The aim of this thesis is to formulate a business of a mobile app producing company, while focusing on some key concepts crucial for this kind of business. Especially the new digital. 政治大. environment marketing, freemium monetization concept supporting features and application. 立. features for effective customer retention and payment incentives.. ‧ 國. 學. How is the concept of new digital environment marketing understood in this thesis? New. ‧. digital environment is seen as the environment created by the mobile device applications, their distribution channels, social media, their users and some of the other online products.. n. er. io. al. sit. y. Nat. Special attention is dedicated to the social media marketing,. i n U. v. Freemium monetization concept is a key element of income for many successful application. Ch. engchi. developers and same it shall be in the case of discussed business. These purchases have to be set in such way, that the benefit provided to the user would be a sufficient motivation for him to realize the purchase, while not discouraging the use of application by those who does not pay.. The customer retention is being examined in the environment of mobile device rpg game. The principles and features discussed in this relation are generally applicable.. Keywords: marketing, social, media, application, game.. i.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Mobile application business ................................................................................................. 1. 2. Market research .................................................................................................................... 2. 2.1. Mobile games market research ........................................................................................ 6. 政治大. 2.2. Profile of average mobile gamer ................................................................................... 10. 立. 2.2.1. Age of an average gamer ...................................................................................... 13. ‧ 國. 學. 2.3. Market leaders ............................................................................................................... 15. ‧. io. sit. y. Nat. 3. Business opportunity .......................................................................................................... 18. n. al. er. 4. Game concept ...................................................................................................................... 26. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 4.1. On adventure ................................................................................................................. 27. 4.2. In the field ...................................................................................................................... 28. 4.3. Home and town .............................................................................................................. 28. 4.4. Friendly to use ............................................................................................................... 29. 5. Organizational structure and operation ........................................................................... 30. 5.1. Realization team ............................................................................................................ 30. ii.

(5) 5.1.1. Marketing and creative director/CEO................................................................... 30 5.1.2. IT director – this is a core employee. ................................................................... 30 5.1.3. Three members coding team................................................................................. 30 5.1.4. Five graphic designers .......................................................................................... 31 5.1.5. Sound .................................................................................................................... 31. 政治大. 5.2. Office ............................................................................................................................. 31. 立. ‧ 國. 學. 6. Marketing ............................................................................................................................ 32. ‧. 6.1. General concept ............................................................................................................. 32. Nat. er. io. sit. y. 6.2. Location ......................................................................................................................... 33. 6.3. Positioning ..................................................................................................................... 35. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 6.3.1. Company positioning............................................................................................ 35 6.3.2. Product positioning ............................................................................................... 35. 6.4. Target customer ............................................................................................................. 36. 6.5. Competitors ................................................................................................................... 37. 6.6. Pricing strategy ............................................................................................................. 38. 6.7. Social media utilization ................................................................................................. 41. iii.

(6) 6.7.1. Facebook page management ................................................................................. 41 6.7.2. Types of Facebook posts....................................................................................... 46 6.7.3. Frequency of Facebook posts ............................................................................... 48 6.7.4. Facebook advertising management ...................................................................... 49 6.7.5. Streamers .............................................................................................................. 50. 政治大. 6.8. Other forms of advertising............................................................................................. 51. 立. ‧ 國. 學. 7. Costs and sources of revenue ............................................................................................. 52. ‧. 7.1. Main costs ...................................................................................................................... 52. sit. y. Nat. 7.1.1. Coding team compensation .................................................................................. 52. n. al. er. io. 7.1.2. Graphics and animation ........................................................................................ 53. Ch. i n U. v. 7.1.3. Sound effects ........................................................................................................ 53. engchi. 7.1.4. Marketing ............................................................................................................. 54 7.1.5. Wage of the tech director ...................................................................................... 54. 7.2. Ways to cover costs and make revenue .......................................................................... 55 7.2.1. Revenue from in app purchases and advertisement.............................................. 55 7.2.2. Crowdfunding through a way of presale .............................................................. 56 7.2.3. Taipei Municipal Self-Government Ordinance for Industrial Development ........ 57. iv.

(7) Reference ................................................................................................................................. 60. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(8) List of Figures and Tables Figure 1 – Mobile app store downloads worldwide ............................................................... 2 Figure 2 – Global Mobile Apps Sector Revenue .................................................................... 3 Figure 3 - Non-gaming apps in the top grossing charts, Apple app store ............................ 5 Figure 4 – Gamers gender ratio ............................................................................................ 10. 政治大. Figure 5 – Gender and age of game players ......................................................................... 11. 立. Figure 6 – Clash of Clans vs Candy Crush Age/Gender ..................................................... 14. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 7 - Top ten grossing iOS mobile gaming apps .......................................................... 15. ‧. Figure 8 - Parallel Kingdom .................................................................................................. 22. Nat. io. sit. y. Figure 9 - Ingress .................................................................................................................... 23. er. Figure 10 - Tourality ............................................................................................................... 24. al. n. v i n Cgamers Figure 11 – Reasons why mobile 39 U h e npurchase.............................................................. i h gc Figure 12 – Post frequency and effectiveness of day of week ............................................. 42 Figure 13 – Post frequency and effectiveness by time of day ............................................. 42 Figure 14 - Post frequency and effectiveness by time of day on average........................... 43 Figure 15 – Average interactions with / without picture ..................................................... 44 Figure 16 - Post frequency per word count .......................................................................... 44 Figure 17 - Post frequency and effectiveness per hashtag use ............................................ 45. vi.

(9) Figure 18 - Post frequency and effectiveness per exclamation mark use .......................... 45 Figure 19 – Relative response score by Facebook post frequency ..................................... 49. Table 1 – App stores comparison 1 .......................................................................................... 4 Table 2 - App stores comparison 2 .......................................................................................... 4. 政治大. Table 3 – Where people play the most .................................................................................. 19. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vii. i n U. v.

(10) 1. Mobile application business The smart mobile device market (smartphones and tablets) has very large proportions (currently about 2 billion users and has many attractive features for the producers of products inseparably connected with this market, that is mobile applications. Mobile applications distribution platforms are the embodiment of these features. These platforms (Google play, App store,. 治政 Amazon Appstore or Windows phone store for example) 大 present a large potential for the 立 ‧ 國. 學. distribution of a product. Through these platforms it is possible to reach large customer pool, represented by the users of smart devices. This possible benefit of this distribution coverage is. ‧. not something certain to occur, but I believe it is something worthy of reaching for. Thanks to. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. these newly developed distribution channels the application developers and publishers are able. i n U. v. to reach beyond countries’ geographical borders and countries’ legal systems, which for most. Ch. engchi. types of businesses is usually a difficult task to accomplish.. Thanks to this, it is not necessary to set up a local branch in a respective country, not even a marketing one, because to a significant extent, marketing can be done through online channels. It is not necessary to pay local lawyers to help us set up our business in the new country, whose market we are planning to enter.. 1.

(11) 2. Market research How does the situation at the mobile application market appear today? From the data collected by Gartner, Inc. (world's leading information technology research company) it can be seen that the growth in terms of number of downloads of apps still continues to increase and is expected to continue increase in the next years.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Figure 1 – Mobile app store downloads worldwide. 2. i n U. v.

(12) Since most of the downloaded apps are free and since the apps market is not monolithic, it is necessary to examine it from the point of revenue and respective app sector. These data can be observed from the following graph prepared by Digi-Capital, using Gartner, Inc. data.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 2 – Global Mobile Apps Sector Revenue. Although Digi-Capital believes that the ratio will shift in the future, the largest share of the apps revenue is being generated by the game sector and this will remain true even in the next years. 3.

(13) The mobile app economy is predicted to reach 143 billion USD in the year 2016 (predictions vary, but the size remains large).. In the terms of number of users, apps and developers, the abovementioned situation looks like in the following way:. 政治大. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. n. Table 1 – App stores comparison 1. Ch. engchi. Table 2 - App stores comparison 2. 4. i n U. v.

(14) All these data has to be seen in the light of large number of apps being created in very amateur way, released without any chance for a real success. These apps then blow up the total number of apps out there and distort the average values. Nevertheless, the apps are now counted in millions and behind them stands an army of developers. This not only create very competitive environment, but also overloads the distribution and marketing channels.. 治政 Next thing that can be observed is, that the gaming sector 大of the app market not only generates 立 ‧ 國. 學. the largest revenue, but without a doubt is as much competitive. Same findings have been stated in the App Annie Index: Market Q3 2014 report. 9 of top 10 grossing apps throughout 2014. ‧. were games, and only 1 was a non-gaming app. 9 of top 10 grossing apps throughout 2014 were. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. games, and only 1 was a non-gaming app. Some reports estimate that games stand behind 75% of income on the App Store.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 3 - Non-gaming apps in the top grossing charts, Apple app store 5.

(15) The next market research will therefore focus on the game sector, with the aim to map the current situation and find a business opportunity therein.. 2.1. Mobile games market research. The total revenue produced by the mobile games in 2014 was roughly 21 billion USD and is. 政治大. expected to reach 28 billion this year. That makes it about one third of 75 billion worldwide. 立. interactive entertainment market. In report called 2015, published by Newzoo (global market. ‧ 國. 學. research firm with a primary focus on games), it can be seen, that the mobile games market. ‧. has become the biggest one and surpassed the previous leader – console games market.. Nat. io. sit. y. Apple's revenues from mobile games alone are estimated to be around 4 billion USD for the. er. last year, which is approximately double of what was estimated for Nintendo, one of the. al. n. v i n C hindustry. Thus, theUmobile gaming has become one of the biggest players in the console games engchi most important sectors in the gaming industry as well and publishers and developers are already realizing this new fact. New gaming giants have grown on the mobile games market and some of the old giants are now turning their eyes in its direction.. Acording to Joost van Dreunen, co-founder and CEO of SuperData Research, the entry of big players has also changed the competitive environment on the market in question. Audiences now expect higher quality games and marketing budgets have started to balloon. This 6.

(16) increased competition is also reflected in a fact, that 80% of 1.2 million apps available on the App Store got no downloads at all. The average amount that people spend on mobile games is already falling behind on the cost of production. This makes sense, since disposable income is not infinite and mobile games compete for attention and wallet share with other platforms, such as the new home consoles and various other forms of entertainment. This can be seen as. 政治大. a sign of a possible market saturation. As can be observed from The Quarterly Global Games. 立. Market Updates, from Newzoo the total value of mobile games continue to grow. Newzoo. ‧ 國. 學. believes it is not only because of fast developing markets like India, but also thanks to. ‧. continuous growth of markets like North America and Asia, which were expected by some. y. Nat. n. er. io. al. sit. analysts to have already entered the stage of saturation.. i n U. v. Looking back, we may call 2014 a year of high-speed evolution in mobile and social games. Ch. engchi. that have penetrated into the mass culture so deeply that almost every each of the hundreds of millions of web-connected smartphone holders is a gamer now. Games have become the core revenue-generating product on the leading mobile platforms and Facebook. There is no doubt that, in the nearby future, the ever growing game content consumption and the rising cost of user engagement will encourage game developers and publishers to invent new creative ways to promote their games and retain their users (Renatus Media, LLC, 2014).. 7.

(17) As can be seen from the figure 1 and as it can be observed from various game market analyses, users are used to not pay for the applications they install, as 90% of revenue from the game apps in 2014 was generated by free-to-play games (based on App Store data). This reflect a trend in the applications market in general. According to Swrve, an international mobile device marketing company) this revenue comes from a very small fraction of the users, since. 政治大. only 2.2% of players of free-to-play game ever pay for one of the games paid features, around. 立. 0.15 percent of players of mobile games contribute 50 percent of all of the in-app purchases. ‧ 國. 學. generated in free-to-play games and 46% of the total revenue comes from just 0.22% of the. ‧. total amount of mobile users. Since vast majority of players has adopted a habit not to pay for. y. Nat. er. io. sit. the game content, it is very important for the developers and publishers to attract and retain the players who fall into the “paying” category. That is a hard task to accomplish, since the. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. users have a large selection to choose from and can find many similar interchangeable app games.. There is no other way how to make revenue out of these users other than through in-app advertising. Other way of monetizing these players was presented by Ninja Metrics chief executive Dmitri Williams, that is, by getting these non-payers to influence other players to pay. In his speech at Casual Connect Europe show, Williams refers to these players as “social. 8.

(18) whales” because they have an outsized impact on player behavior. Whale is a term used for big spenders in relation to in-app purchases.. Reynolds said that only 1.5 percent of active players surveyed in January actually made a purchase in that month. About 50 percent of revenue comes from the top 10 percent of the players who do make purchases. Expressed as a percentage of players, this group of big. 治政 spenders represents just 0.15 percent of the total. It 大 makes sense for game companies to 立 ‧ 國. 學. identify these spenders and target them with incentives, but they shouldn’t be the sole target of campaigns. The problem is the whales or high rollers can only be seen in retrospect, so it is. ‧. necessary target a wider group and the high roller can be found there, Reynolds said.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 9. i n U. v.

(19) 2.2. Profile of average mobile gamer. Based on the data from Statista (one of the leading statistics companies on the internet) the word wide mobile games user gender distribution as it was measured in second quarter of 2014 was 58 percent men and 42 percent women, as can be seen at figure bellow:. 政治大. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Figure 4 – Gamers gender ratio. 10. i n U. v.

(20) The age distribution can differ, based on the region. According to SuperData research made in 2014 in the United States, the female gamers dominated the male gamers 57 percent to 43 percent. In the gaming industry in general in United States it was male 52 percent and female 48 percent (source: Entertainment software association, 2014). The SuperData research also states, that 48 percent of female gamers play games both on mobile devices and consoles.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 5 – Gender and age of game players. This seem to signify, that there is about the same proportion of males and females playing games and also that there is now more women than in the past, who have become part of the. 11.

(21) general computer audience and are not playing games only as a diversion while they are traveling in a bus, but are also playing games as a hobby in their free time.. But the mobile games market isn’t monolithic and so these data should be viewed in the right context. In this case I agree with conclusions of Denniss Cimeca, GamesBeat, 2013, that the abovementioned data are the result of a research, which puts all kinds of games on all kinds of. 治政 platforms and analyze them together like that. That can大 result in misleading picture about our 立 ‧ 國. 學. target customer in connection to the game genre we are intending to produce. For everyone who considers himself as a part of the core game industry must feel as obvious, that this it is. ‧. dominated by men. As a core gaming industry we can understand the part of games market. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. which doesn’t include games which are only electronic form of other pastime, like Sudoku on. i n U. v. mobile phone. The group of users who download this kind of games I consider strongly. Ch. engchi. distinct from the people who play both on their phone and console for example. The definition of core gaming industry could be made even more specific and lead to more types of games being excluded (those of purely logical or purely match 3 nature), but that is not necessary at this point. For this business plan, it will be taken into consideration that the game market isn’t uniform and the game developer has to assess on to which group his target customer falls in.. 12.

(22) 2.2.1. Age of an average gamer. Another important observation from the Entertainment software association report is, that females over the age of 18 represent the most numerous group of gamers across the United States - 36 percent, followed by the second biggest group created by middle-aged men – 35 percent. Surprising finding was, that the group of teenage men only stood for 17 percent.. 治政 Again, these information has to be viewed as a general大 data, true when the game industry is 立 ‧ 國. 學. examined as one whole. Average age of a gamer based on the ESA data is 31 years.. ‧. In any case, it is necessary to reflect on the fact, that the number of female gamers have risen. Nat. io. sit. y. in the past years and now they create significant part of the gaming industry, in some context. er. a crucial part, and therefore this group should not be ignored during the game development. al. n. v i n and marketing. After all, as haveCbeen by ESA in the abovementioned report, women h estated ngchi U have been found to spend 30 percent more on in-app purchases than men and their average playing session is ⅓ longer as compared to those of men. Also women tend to stay with the game they are playing for a longer period of time, which can be seen as a sign of their higher loyalty.. The age of the players also varies based on the game category, same as the gender does. It can be seen in the following figure created by Newzoo, which compares two of the top ten 13.

(23) grossing games on the mobile platform, each representing a different genre – Candy Crush Saga is an advanced version of a match 3 type game with online and social elements and Clash of clans is a strategy game which combines the elements of building strategy, combat strategy and online gameplay.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 6 – Clash of Clans vs Candy Crush Age/Gender. Here it can be observed, that while Candy Crush Saga is mostly played by female players, Clash of Clans is crushingly dominated by the male audience.. 14.

(24) 2.3. Market leaders. The last year, the match 3 games and slots games did their best. The fastest growth after their release was achieved by Candy Crush Soda Saga (match 3 game) and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff (city building game). 8 of top 10 grossing games were published in 2013 or earlier though. Here is the top ten grossing iOS mobile gaming apps as of October 2014 ranked by daily revenue in USD.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. Figure 7 - Top ten grossing iOS mobile gaming apps 15. v.

(25) As for android, following are the top 10 grossing games on Google play in the beginning of 2014: 1. Candy Crush Saga (free), 2. Clash of Clans (free), 3. Knights & Dragons (free), 4. Pet Rescue Saga (free), 5. Castle Clash (free), 6. Top Eleven (free), 7. The Simpsons (free), 8. Jelly Splash (free), 9. The Hobbit Kingdoms (free), 10. Crime City (free). Even later, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff didn’t make it to the top 10 on android, but its game type is. 政治大. represented there by The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which is almost identical in the terms of. 立. gameplay. It can be observed that both platforms have been conquered by Candy Crush Saga. ‧ 國. 學. (later joined by follow up Candy Crush Soda Saga) and Clash of Clans. Both top ten charts. ‧. also include The Simpsons and Pet Rescue Saga.. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. Why are these games so successful? The assessment which appears to be the most accurate. i n U. v. was presented by Stuart Dredge, who in an article for The Guardian identified the key success. Ch. engchi. elements to be easy accessibility, the games are very polished (which can’t be said about vast majority of the mobile games), they are playable in short sessions, and allow to make players friends a factor without using a real-time multiplayer.. 16.

(26) The abovementioned cocktail is mixed together with psychological features of the microtransactions and their clever integration in the game mechanics. The final product is then based on catchy gameplay which get the players hooked up and creates an urge to spend money in seemingly small and affordable transactions.. It might be the case, that the gamers who have no previous experience with the core gaming. 治政 are more likely to underestimate the concept of microtransactions 大 and be willing to accept the 立 ‧ 國. 學. rules of it. It is because those who have already experienced playing high quality games on consoles or PC are not so easily willing to accept concept of a game where they have to keep. ‧. paying for content, which have been opened to them from the beginning on other platform. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. and in a higher quality. I assume there is a group of users, who are not satisfied with the turn. i n U. v. the current mobile gaming industry is taking and who would prefer different concept of a game monetization.. Ch. engchi. 17.

(27) 3. Business opportunity When we analyze the top games at the mobile market, we can find that in the sector of popular genres like building/combat strategies and match 3 games, strong competitors who have large funds at their disposal have settled in their positions and have risen the quality bar relatively high. That works as an entry barrier and even though it is possible to find ways how. 治政 to copy, criticize and improve their concept, it would require 大 large initial investment in order 立 ‧ 國. 學. to stand up to these big players. Therefore, for the purposes of finding our place in the mobile gaming industry, we will go by a slightly risky way of least resistance and try to discover. ‧. a sector, in which the competitors haven’t yet fortified themselves. To find this sector, it is. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. necessary to examine not only the sectors of the game market, but also the nature of the. i n U. v. mobile device itself, especially smartphone, and find its advantages and limitations. Then the. Ch. engchi. captivating features of a game have to be determined and put together in an affordable way.. Smartphone is the key platform for the mobile games and therefore it will be the device for which the product, which is the subject of this business plan, will be developed. Characteristic features of smartphone are mobility, connectivity (especially access to the internet), integrated global positioning system sensor (gps), touch display, simple (often one button) mechanical control features and currently also relatively high performance of processor and graphic card.. 18.

(28) These features and their mutual combination present special opportunities and limitations. Mobility allows the users to play games at anyplace and anytime, since people typically bring their phone with them at all occasions. It would be reasonable to assume, that number one place where the mobile games are played is outside, while commuting or waiting, but even though substantial part of the gameplay takes places during that time, research shows that the. 政治大. situation isn’t exactly in the way one might expect.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Survey done by company PopCap (developer of successful games such as Plants vs Zombies) shows that most common place where people play games is home on a couch.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Table 3 – Where people play the most. 19. i n U. v.

(29) Another survey, conducted by mobile entertainment portal MocoSpace shows, that 96 percent of the respondents play mobile games at home once a day at minimum and 53 percent of them replied they play in bed. 83 percent play games while waiting for a meeting, 72 percent while commuting. 52 percent of users play more than one hour a day, 32 percent over three hours. EA mobile and Miniclip surveys came up with similar results, home being the most frequent place for playing.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Touchscreen of a smartphone is a suitable control for many types of games, like match 3, strategic games, searching and adventure games, rhythm games, certain types of RPGs and. ‧. so on. These controls though aren’t suitable for a gameplay which demands high level of. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. precisions or have complex controls which has to be used in combination, like first person shooters or some other types of action games.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Connectivity of smartphone allows the mobile game to be played in an online mode, where the user can play together with other players and the game uses the data from the publishers’ server, which helps to prevent game piracy and has other benefits for the publisher, especially in the field of advertising and data collecting.. Global positioning system sensor/other position locating feature then allows the user to be located on a map and his location in the real world can be subsequently used by the app, 20.

(30) turned into a location in the game world and possibly related to the location of the other players at the time.. Among the top games listed above, there is none which would integrate gps location or other way of user position determining technology as a key gameplay element and therefore next shall be conducted a research among the group of location based games, in order to determine. 治政 whether this kind of feature is already fully utilized by the 大developers of mobile games. 立 ‧ 國. 學. Through research, a group of location based games which most frequently receive attention. ‧. has been identified. These games are Parallel Kingdom MMO and other games using the. io. sit. y. Nat. common title “parallel”, Global Outbreak, Life is Crime, Tourality, Ingress, Shadow Cities,. er. Please Stay Calm, Geosocials. GPS Tycoon. TrailHit and Turf Wars. Then there is a group of. al. n. v i n ghost or zombie hunting games, C which camera picture and lays a gameplay layer over it. h euse ngchi U Combination of both was used in the marketing campaign in a form of a game made by Ubisoft and used as buzz creating tool for advertising of Ubisofts new game Operation Splinter Cell Revelation.. Upon inspecting the abovementioned games it is possible to observe, that all of them basically use position locating only in order to use the real world map as a game map, typically to be used for a conquest type strategic gameplay (see figure below) and player duels. Some of the 21.

(31) games include other features, like real movement used as a game movement or gps based gateways.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 8 - Parallel Kingdom. The most far was the location based concept taken by the game Ingress by Google, which puts together conquest of map based gateways, story elements, real life movement across the game field and RPG style character development. There are some other examples of the game which use real world movement as a gameplay movement, but they are doing it in a way. 22.

(32) which I see as not very interesting for the player. Their concept is not right, because they keep the gameplay on the screen (where isn’t much to be seen anyway), instead of using the mobile device as a link between the real world and the one in the game. Ingress is slightly brighter example but still walks the old way of location based games, with its computer generated empty world and meaningless competition between two groups of players, only based on the. 政治大. attractiveness of defending your own neighborhood and being able to fight for your cause in. 立. the free moments you have in the city (see figure below).. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Figure 9 - Ingress. 23. i n U. v.

(33) Another game called Tourality got near to the use of gps concept which shall be used by our game. Tourality uses gps locations and has the players compete between each other in reaching these spots. A feature which Tourality has in common with our game is, that users can create their own games using the Tourality platform and share these with the others. Tourality though is a game Tourality missing a game concept. Chasing gps points. 政治大. discriminates the users with lower stamina and if you don’t want to compete in sport. 立. performance, is pointless. Could serve as a park game for children of school age.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Figure 10 - Tourality. 24. i n U. v.

(34) All the presented games create a picture from which it seems, that their creators don’t understand that the use of location based features isn’t a magical elixir which people drink and are amused. It is a tool, which needs to be meaningfully integrated into a wider, well designed game concept. In some cases if not all it seems, that the location based gameplay was used as a supplement of a missing idea for a game. That is because a location based game. 政治大. shouldn’t be a “location based game”. It needs to be a game which incorporates location. 立. tracking elements into its solid structure as one of its key features. That is where I see an. ‧ 國. 學. untouched sector of the mobile gaming. This is where the business opportunity arise.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 25. i n U. v.

(35) 4. Game concept Strength of our product is its unique concept and the depth of the gameplay built around it. The members of the gaming community will want to try this new type of experience and the design of the game will be made to hook them up before they finish their “playthrough” out of curiosity”.. 立. 政治大. The gameplay will consist of five key parts, which are rpg style character development and. ‧ 國. 學. equipment collecting, gps points based adventures, building, combat and character. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. related.. ‧. management. Adventures and combat will be location based and building will be location. v. n. These game elements will be designed in order to activate psychological effect related to. Ch. engchi. i n U. leveling up, hoarding, building, inter player competition, locality related competition, exploration, gambling and real time related game management. These psychological effect have proven to be strong factors of player engagement throughout the gaming history.. The abovementioned five elements will be incorporated into three interface layers of the game: on adventure, in the field, home and town, each serving separate purpose and all working together.. 26.

(36) 4.1. On adventure. On the town map selected by player, there will be a number of location based point, defined by gps coordinates which will work as quests beginnings. Upon clicking on such a point, the player will be able to display basic information about the quest. In players’ fixed home location, player will be able to equip equipment available to him, limited by weight and size.. 治政 To begin quest, player will have to reach the location大 of the starting point, where the next 立 ‧ 國. 學. information and storyline will be provided to him. The quest shall consist from additional location based checkpoints, known or unknown to the player. If the checkpoint is unknown,. ‧. player will be given a hits on how to find it. The smartphone of the player will work as. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. a navigation device. The player will not see the map with the checkpoints, but the checkpoint. i n U. v. coordinates will be known to the players’ smartphone. As the player moves on the defined. Ch. engchi. game field or as he is following clues, upon arriving to the checkpoint or in its vicinity, the phone will perform preprogramed action (for example display an in game encounter).. The successful completion of quest is the best source of experience, currency or items and is the core of the gameplay. In the beginning it will be allowed for players to quickly level up in order to activate the psychology of satisfaction from quick improvements to the players in game persona.. 27.

(37) In the beginning, there will be only quests released by the developer available to players. Later, an editing tool will be offered to the community. Players then will be able to choose, from which source they want to display the adventure location points. The creators from the community will be able to sell their adventures through and in-game transactions and developer shall be taking a percentage from every such realized transaction.. 4.2. In the field. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. In the field section of the game stands for players’ movement in the real world with his. ‧. position location turned on. For this movement player receive experience and can engage in. Nat. io. sit. y. interaction with other players, especially in combat. On the territory of a competing town or. n. al. er. section, players can attempt to sabotage towns building efforts and damage towns resources.. 4.3. Home and town. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Here player can engage in the building of the characters home or participate in towns mutual efforts. At home player can also assign character to do variety of activities (for example training, rest) while the player is offline. These assignments have limited time and character has to be reassigned by player who is thus pushed to reconnect to the game several times during the day. 28.

(38) 4.4. Friendly to use. The game will have a mid-high level of complexity and therefore it would be necessary to pay special attention to the help and tutorial section of the game to prevent loss of players who get easily confused and discouraged by other than simple games. Therefore the game tutorial will have to start from making a “simple to use game” first impression. A tab “what can I do now”. 治政 will be always present in the early stages of the game. 大立 ‧ 國. 學. To prevent a problem characteristic to the games who use internet connection during the. ‧. gameplay, that is quick draining of battery, a battery saving mode might be allowed in the. io. sit. y. Nat. options. This mode in cooperation with users’ activity will allow in the field movement by. n. al. er. consequent logins in a reasonable time horizon (therefore will avoid constant connection to. Ch. the internet and battery consumption.. engchi. 29. i n U. v.

(39) 5. Organizational structure and operation 5.1. Realization team 5.1.1. Marketing and creative director/CEO. In the initial phase creates game content and performs all of the marketing activities. Also carries out the duties of company’s CEO.. 立. 政治大. 5.1.2. IT director – this is a core employee.. ‧ 國. 學. He needs to have advanced knowledge of coding in respective programing language and also. ‧. knowledge of how to operate the server.. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. He should have more than 3 projects behind him already, ie: about 3 years of experience in the game programing field.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. He is going to supervise the work progress of the programming team, evaluate their work and help evaluate the financial compensation of the programing team in the beginning of the cooperation. Next to this he will be in charge of the server operation.. 5.1.3. Three members coding team. The whole team or its members will be selected based on their previous work on indie games.. 30.

(40) Marketing and creative director will create a database of independent games from young teams which correspond with required programing level and then in cooperation with the IT director carries out the choice.. They will be paid either by the project or in case the company would be successful in receiving a government support to cover the employee’s salary, this team can be moved to the company’s payroll.. 政治大. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 5.1.4. Five graphic designers. ‧. Three animators and one background and one UI artist All of them will be contractors,. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. supervised, organized and chosen by Marketing and creative director.. 5.1.5. Sound. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Sounds will be supplied by a contractor.. 5.2. Office. Office shall be located in a shared office complex, where a room for two people will be rented and the meeting rooms will be shared with other companies. Here will be the workplace of both directors. The rest of the team will work in their own facilities.. 31.

(41) 6. Marketing 6.1. General concept. The marketing concept on the general level aims for maximum effectivity while keeping the cost down at the same time. This strategy then reflects the realities of the target customer segment and puts them in perspective of the power of different types of communication media.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Thanks to the nature of our product and predicted behavior of our customer, we will try to. ‧. make the best use of social media for our marketing purposes, especially Facebook. During. Nat. io. sit. y. the last years, Facebook has achieved 15 million of active users per month in Taiwan, which. er. approximately corresponds with 65 percent of the country. Such a penetration can be. al. n. v i n and puts C Taiwan h e ningthec hleading i U position in Asia. Since our target. considered very high. customer (see below) is already a player of social/casual game and therefore is using some kind of social media application, it is reasonable to assume, that vast majority of our target customers are Facebook users which makes this communication channel a suitable marketing tool for our purposes.. The marketing approach which we will be using will strive to avoid too wide spread and only reach the target audience. The aim will be to stir the waters of mobile gaming community and 32.

(42) initiate word of mouth style awareness spread, mainly through social media. Therefore the most general marketing channel will be Facebook advertising. Other channels will be directly related to the gaming community. These channels will be cooperation with game video streamers and participation at relevant game or comic expos.. 6.2. Location. 政治大. 立. There are two types of demands on location, both originating from the nature of the project in. ‧ 國. 學. development. The first type of demands is connected with introduction of the product at the. ‧. time of its introduction to the market. The second type of demands is connected with the. Nat. al. er. io. sit. y. development of the product itself.. v. n. The initial introduction of the game shall be done on a limited territory, in order for the. Ch. engchi. i n U. development team to be able to provide meaningful and non-generic location based game experience. In order to do this and also to have an opportunity to generate big enough revenue a place with high density of population is needed. Ownership of smartphones and other mobile devices has to be on a high level among this population, same as the use of mobile internet services and their territorial coverage. Economic environment has to be in favor of producing sufficient revenue. A high number of gamers among the population is desired.. 33.

(43) Taipei is a city with 7th highest density in the world and Taiwan is among top 20 countries with highest density of population. If we look at this data while we take the empty mountainous areas in the central Taiwan into consideration, we can assume that the population density in Taiwanese cities is on a sufficient enough level.. Thanks to Taiwan being one of the bastions of technological production, even having own. 治政 smartphone producing companies and taking the economic 大 development level of Taiwan into 立 ‧ 國. 學. the account, it is reasonable to assume that ownership of smartphone is widely spread and vast majority of citizens own one.. ‧. Nat. n. al. Ch. engchi. er. io. with a good coverage and high usage of mobile internet.. sit. y. Taiwan is one of the world leaders in WIFI coverage and mobile network is well developed. i n U. v. In terms of revenue, based on data collected by Newzoo, Taiwan has ranked 32nd in terms of mobile games revenue globally and ranked 5th and 6th on google play in the last two years. Based on the same data there is 9 million Taiwanese gamers, who play social / casual games (out of total 9,6 million). Therefore Taiwan qualifies as a country where sufficient revenue can be generated.. 34.

(44) The demands falling under the second type are enough of qualified workers or suppliers at the market and affordability of their services. Since the average graduate salary in Taiwan is somewhere around 25,000 NTD and education level can be considered as high (with big popularity of technical majors) Taiwan qualifies also from these two viewpoints, which differentiates it against countries such as Japan or South Korea, where the cost of development would be higher.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 6.3. Positioning. 6.3.1. Company positioning. ‧. Nat. io. sit. y. A game developer who is innovative and offers gaming adventure of the highest quality,. er. packaged in a product which on the level of game design steps down from the established. al. n. v i n C h being inferior toUthe games of traditional platforms. unofficial conception of mobile games engchi 6.3.2. Product positioning. A game which brings revolutionary utilization of the position locating technology incorporated in mobile devices and at the same time offers a polished, in-depth game experience without trying to cash in on every step of the player.. 35.

(45) 6.4. Target customer. In the wider perspective, our game targets the proportion of the nine and half million Taiwanese gamer, which plays social games and not only casual games like simple match 3 or slots. In the more narrow perspective that is for the purposes of our initial marketing efforts, we will target customer who is:. 立. Between 13 and 35 years old (younger children in Taiwan do not have enough. 學. ‧ 國. . 政治大. freedom of independent movement. People below 35 are most likely to engage in the. ‧. location based gaming, because this group includes most of independent users. Nat. sit. io. Player of preferably roleplaying games in any form, or player of mobile strategic. n. al. er. . y. (students and young, unmarried customers of productive age without children).. combat games or AVG.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. . Both male and female. . Living in Taipei and consequently in Taizhong, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Yilan and Keelung.. . Both students and working. 36.

(46) Increased level of interest can be expected from the geocaching community, but this community will not be target of our main marketing campaigns, because it would distort the targets specification.. 6.5. Competitors. 政治大. Since our game is bringing fresh gaming concept to the market, our competitors shall be. 立. classified as indirect (not diminishing their strength) and divided into three groups.. ‧ 國. 學. The group which can be considered close to our product shall consist of those competitors,. ‧. whose products are the most advanced in the direction in which our game is using the position. y. Nat. n. al. er. io representative is Ingress.. sit. location. This group is not very numerous and its typical and also most dangerous. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The second group consists of mobile social games which target same group of the customers and therefore might gain the customer preference before us. This group includes some strong players such as King or Supercell, the developers of the markets top hits.. Competitors such as King or Supercell we don’t choose intentionally, but they still fall in the circle of our indirect competitors, due to the nature of some of the features of our games, which cannot be removed from the game concept in order to differentiate it more, because. 37.

(47) that would damage its long term monetization concept. During the product advertising, the game features which are distinctive the most shall be emphasized. This way we will achieve both differentiation and long term engagement of the players.. The third group of indirect competitors includes the developers of games with some comparable features for other platforms, such as PC or game consoles.. 6.6. Pricing strategy. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The pricing strategy will be Freemium. The game will be downloadable for free and determined. ‧. content, capable of captivating the user and activating all the desired psychological effects will. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. also be accessible for free. Paid features are going to be extended gameplay, unlock new content. v. n. and customize avatar. On a smaller scale which will not threaten the gameplay balance also. Ch. engchi. i n U. progress quicker and enhance character. Some of the features of lower importance will be possible to unlock by a small ad minigame. Thanks to the originality and special features of the game, higher than average percentage of users is expected to be willing to make an in app purchase, because opposite from the usual approach, paying for extended gameplay or content will open new features of already playable game (not only make the game playable). The condition of success in this case, is getting the players hooked up by the free to play content.. 38.

(48) 立. 政治大. Nat. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 11 – Reasons why mobile gamers purchase. er. The data presented in Figure 11 shall serve as a basis for the in app pricing, although adjusted. al. n. v i n Ctheh features being purchased. by the specifics and importance of The strategies used throughout engchi U the pricing shall be “best deal”, “prices ending by number 9” and so called “anchoring”. The “best deal” strategy is based on offering a purchase, which is not reasonable to buy and which we don’t really intend to sell. The purpose of this offer is to make another purchase appear as a better deal, than it would without the relatively useless offer. Since research has shown, that prices ending by number 9 outperform not only rounded up-higher prices, but can also outperform lower prices, this strategy will be reflected in. 39.

(49) the pricing of the game as well. Anchoring will then present a premium offer, which will serve as a price-value benchmark, in order to make the other deals appear better. The sale of the premium offer will not be a target. The target revenue from in app purchases per user shall be 55 NTD, from one time payments for extended gameplay and unlocking of additional content. The key characteristic of in app. 政治大. purchases is that they stack up. Therefore each payment should be set in a manner which makes. 立. it feel as insignificant as possible, while still producing significant revenue.. ‧ 國. 學. In accordance with the abovementioned strategies, the prices were set in the following way:. er. io. Progress quicker / Enhance character. - 19 NTD. n. Ch. Progress + Enhance bundle good deal. sit. Nat. - 29 NTD. y. - 75 NTD. Extended gameplay / Unlock new content. al. ‧. Anchor premium bundle + bonus item. i n U. e n g c h- 29i NTD. Progress/Enhance + Customize bundle good deal - 19 NTD - 9 NTD. Customize an avatar. 40. v.

(50) 6.7. Social media utilization 6.7.1. Facebook page management. Facebook page shall serve as a form of a base, where the product aware people will be able to find information about the game and in the prerelease stage follow the development news. The concept of the page shall serve the purpose of “capturing” and retaining the users upon. 治政 the page inspection, raising their engagement in the game, 大 initiating positive word of mouth 立 ‧ 國. 學. spread of game awareness, motivating the current users to be actively engaging new users in the game or sharing the posts of the game page and receiving high number of likes and. ‧. comments to the individual posts, in order for these posts to be displayed on the wall of. sit. y. Nat. io. er. friends of the already following users.. al. n. v i n The text or message of the post C should a form which maximizes the engagement by the h ehave ngchi U followers. Based on TrackMaven analysis of 5,804 Facebook pages with at least 1,000 page likes (altogether 1,578,006 posts was analyzed) a set of criteria for Facebook posts can be devised.. A post should be posted between 5 pm and 1 am and weekend days should be included in the posting schedule.. 41.

(51) 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 12 – Post frequency and effectiveness of day of week. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 13 – Post frequency and effectiveness by time of day 42.

(52) 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 14 - Post frequency and effectiveness by time of day on average. ‧. Nat. io. sit. y. Post should be either image, or include between 80 and 89 words (this is disputed by Jeff. er. Bullas study which suggests that short, 40 character posts receive 86 percent more. al. n. v i n C h posts). ResearchUof Track Maven tells us, that posts engagement than differently written engchi which include a picture receive 37 percent more interactions. Dan Ariely, psychology and behavioral economics professor explains the popularity of longer posts by a tendency of people to connect their preference with things they have put their energy in. Thus the popularity of longer posts can be connected with the emergence of the button “continue reading” if the text is long enough. Also, according to the data from study, hash tags should be used in the post text along with exclamation marks, if the context allows it (one or two. 43.

(53) hashtags have proven to be more effective than three or four).. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. Figure 15 – Average interactions with / without picture. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. Figure 16 - Post frequency per word count. 44. i n U. v.

(54) 立. 政治大. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Figure 17 - Post frequency and effectiveness per hashtag use. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Figure 18 - Post frequency and effectiveness per exclamation mark use 45.

(55) 6.7.2. Types of Facebook posts. The types of posts will differ in the prerelease phase and after the game release.. In the prerelease phase the posts will be mapping the progress in the game development in order to keep expectations of the interested users alive, but in the first place, the prerelease. 政治大. posts will be introducing the special features of the game, especially those features with the. 立. potential to create a buzz. Third type of posts in the prerelease phase will be supporting the. ‧ 國. 學. crowdfunding activities, i.e. publish the bonus features which can be gained in exchange for. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. supporters.. ‧. the financial support and publish words of thanks and so calls to arms for undecided. v. n. The psychological position of pleads for support will be in the sphere of exchange, not. Ch. engchi. i n U. begging. We are offering long desired style of gameplay (at least for part of the community) and we are asking for their help to make our common dream come true. Other psychological momentum shall be the picture of our company, as a Taiwanese representative on the world battlefield of mobile apps and ITC in general, which is a vessel for young entrepreneurs.. After the release of the game, the objective of the posts will be to keep page followers watching the pages posts instead of hiding it, keep players engaged in the game and motivate. 46.

(56) in-app purchases, acquire marketing data and user suggestions and support of new installs. Asking questions is the key to the engagement of the users.. Posts of following kinds shall be used:. . Game events and new content publishing.. . Storyline related posts (in order to support the engagement of players in the game. 立. 政治大. world as well as presenting them with a post content which has connection to their. ‧ 國. 學. interest. If post is interesting for the page followers, it will increase attention for the. ‧. following posts.. Sharing-encouraging posts (in exchange for the in-game currency).. . Game issues discussion / bug discussion / improvement suggestions (this kind of post. er. io. sit. y. Nat. . al. n. v i n C h free creative ideas, generates engagement, collects e n g c h i U works as a customer survey and displays care for the customers and game community. . Contests and quizzes with in-game prizes (for example name a NPC character based on picture).. . Helpful gameplay tips and hints. . General gaming, topic related news. . Funny and interesting screenshot from the game. 47.

(57) . Results of game events and inter-town competition. 6.7.3. Frequency of Facebook posts. The frequency of Facebook posts needs to be set in a way which will be a compromise in our target of maintaining a managed relationship with our customers, while at the same time not. 政治大. bothering them and spamming posts on their Facebook wall. Therefore the chosen strategy for. 立. post frequency shall be 5 or 7 posts a week, while boosting up each posts. This way the. ‧ 國. 學. effectivity of the message transfer will be increased and at the same time the risk of bothering. ‧. the followers will be decreased.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 48. i n U. v.

(58) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Figure 19 – Relative response score by Facebook post frequency. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 6.7.4. Facebook advertising management. The Facebook itself shall be promoted in other marketing activities that is in the streamed videos, on expos, on promo materials and in the app itself. The engaged users will also tend to find the Facebook page on their own.. Therefore, the advertising campaign on Facebook shall be oriented on app install, the. 49.

(59) specifications shall be selected in a way corresponding with the defined target customer and product and the funds used shall be spent monthly beginning at the time of app release and starting at 40.000 NTD a month. After the initial month, the effectivity of the Facebook campaign shall be evaluated and adjusted accordingly. Lacking revenue in the first months though would not be a reason for a cut marketing expenses as it would only be a shot into our own lines.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 6.7.5. Streamers. ‧. Streamers are social media creative users, who film themselves while playing a game and. Nat. io. sit. y. simultaneously making a commentary on the game. Some of these streamers have very large. er. followers base and therefore are perfect for game marketing. For illustration number of. al. n. v i n C h on streaming game viewers of Twitch, a website focused e n g c h i U videos, has exceeds 600 million / month.. It is a common practice that the positive commentary is secured thanks to payment from the side of developer. It is also necessary to wisely choose the streamer to cooperate with, based on the type of game he is usually playing and therefore his audience expects him to stream and is interested in. Otherwise the effect of this marketing action would possibly be noticeably lowered. 50.

(60) 6.8. Other forms of advertising. As the remaining form of advertising our game will be participation in game expos and other relevant events. Expenses related to this activity are expected to be rent of booth at expo, promotional materials costs and other related costs. This way it is possible to get into direct contact with the gaming community and gather support especially in the game development phase.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 51. i n U. v.

(61) 7. Costs and sources of revenue 7.1. Main costs 7.1.1. Coding team compensation. The coding part of the game development will have three main difficulties, which will be increasing the difficulty along with the time necessary for finishing and therefore will be. 治政 increasing the cost of this service. The first challenge 大 is to create a basic shell of the game, 立 ‧ 國. 學. which would serve as a core, to which the other parts of the game are stuck on, along with an interface for addition of location related parts of the game. This shall allow easy addition of. ‧. new location based game parts from the side of developer and from the side of users.. io. sit. y. Nat. er. Next important part of the development is coding the online features of the game, which shall. al. n. v i n C server. be run in connection with our own a feature makes the coding significantly more U h e nSuch i h gc complicated but is necessary for successful monetization of the game and prevention of pirate attacks on the gameplay or release of free pirate version of the game. Therefore it is necessary to make this investment into both server and coding.. The rest of the coding will be dedicated to the remaining game features, like integration of graphics, user interface and programing of the game environment and mechanics.. 52.

(62) Coding team will be compensated on a bases of project in 4 separate payments, based on progress of their work and quality evaluation by the IT director. The project timeline is estimated to be set to 5 months, after consultation with the IT director. The division of the payments shall be 15 percent in the beginning, 20 percent after one month, 20 percent after three months and 45 percent at the end of the project. Penalties for delay in the progress shall be stipulated.. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 7.1.2. Graphics and animation. ‧. For graphics and animation we will be using live 2D software from Cybernoids. This is. Nat. io. sit. y. a software development kit for app/game developers and is provided based on free license,. er. which changes to the payed one after the business surpasses the revenue adequate to 10. al. n. v i n C hhelp us avoid 3DUmodeling and ease big part of the million Japanese Yen. This would engchi animation.. 7.1.3. Sound effects. In the beginning the game will only include basic package of simple sound and simple music. It will also not be dubbed and instead of speech, only simple emotional sounds will be recorded to accompany written text.. 53.

(63) 7.1.4. Marketing. Marketing expenses will mainly consist of payments for social media advertisements, cost of promotional materials, expenditures related to participation on gaming and comic related exhibitions and events and expenditures related with arranging and managing game reviews by the streamers.. 立. 政治大. 7.1.5. Wage of the tech director. ‧ 國. 學. After consultation with an experienced mobile game development company owner in Taiwan. ‧. the forecast of the abovementioned costs is following:. - 500,000 NTD. n. al. er. io. Server. sit. y. Nat. Coding team compensation. Ch. - 200,000 NTD. engchi. Graphics and animation. - 250,000 NTD. Sound effects. - 30,000 NTD. Marketing Facebook. - 200,000 NTD. Marketing Promo. - 40,000 NTD. Marketing exhibitions. - 50,000 NTD. Marketing streamers. - 50,000 NTD. 54. i n U. v.

(64) IT director. - 50,000* NTD / month + 2,5 percent share on profit. Shared office space. - 10,000 NTD / month. 7.2. Ways to cover costs and make revenue 7.2.1. Revenue from in app purchases and advertisement. Acording to Newzoo, Taiwan has over 9 million players of social/casual games and over time. 治政 moves on 5th/6th spot at google play in terms of revenue. 大That makes the potential source of 立 ‧ 國. 學. revenue appear in relatively good shape. Since our game app will be of social nature and since the research shows that Taiwanese don’t hold back with their spending (as 80 percent of the. ‧. revenue on google app store originated from games), it isn’t irrational to believe, that. sit. y. Nat. io. al. n. large paying audience.. er. well-made social style game focused on Taiwanese demographics and geography can find. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Intuitively it can be felt that the group of potential users is large, but to precisely forecast revenue of an app depends on being able to forecast the number of downloads and retention rate of the game app, which is not very well possible. Otherwise top players like Zynga wouldn’t have to be closing offices and laying off employees.. 55.

(65) Potential solution for this problem is to invest first in the simple app which would simulate the “adventure” part of gameplay and have a target group of users do a “playthrough”. Then do a marketing survey among these players.. Direct comparison with the competitors isn’t possible at this moment, as our game will only focus on Taiwanese audience upon its release, while the competitors distribute worldwide.. 治政 Also, the competitors from the field of location based games 大 use different model of gameplay, 立 ‧ 國. 學. which makes the comparison even less relevant. Nevertheless for the purpose of illustration, the strongest player Ingress has exceeded 5 million downloads, followed by Parallel Kingdom. ‧. with one million.. io. sit. y. Nat. er. Game will be based on so called freemium monetization model. Therefore the game will be free. al. n. v i n to download and basic part of theCcontent be accessible also for free, but part of the game U h e nwill i h gc content will be opened only for paying players. In some cases, the content will be possible to unlock by going through in game advertisement, set based on model effective cost per mille.. 7.2.2. Crowdfunding through a way of presale. In case of successful creation of buzz on the Taiwanese gaming scene, there is a good chance of large community support in a form of prerelease shopping for bonus feature of the game,. 56.

(66) available only to those who have supported the game development in this way. These features will give the owners an accelerated start in the game and so they will be among the first to seize the leading positions in the game world. Typically these features will have a form of character, skill or equipment.. A Taiwanese gaming company I have visited is currently developing a game which isn’t. 治政 revolutionary in any way and has managed to raise over 500.000 大 NTD before its release, thanks 立 ‧ 國. 學. to a great marketing skill of the developer. I believe with our game design, we have a chance to raise the same or higher.. ‧. Nat. al. er. io. sit. y. 7.2.3. Taipei Municipal Self-Government Ordinance for Industrial Development. v. n. This is a system through which Taipei Government provides grants for SMEs located in Taipei. Ch. engchi. i n U. City, with new investment project which is innovative or has character or potential. There are no limitations of capital or industrial field. The relevant subsidies for the purposes of this business plan would be: New hired employee’s payroll and rental subsidy for providing for the assets located within the city. R&D subsidy and Interest payments subsidy are a possible choice to make.. 57.

(67) Based on the respective regulation, incentives are available, on application, for new investment or each time capital increase for the expansion of a small and medium enterprise meeting one of the following conditions:. 1. With an investment of 1 million NTD or above directly related to facilities or technologies for innovation, or improvement of management or services. 2.. 治政 Investment project deemed, on review, to be innovative, 大 or to have character or potential 立 ‧ 國. 學. for development.. As described above in the section about game design, it is in place to believe, that this project. ‧. would be assessed as one which is innovative and has a potential for further development.. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. The rental subsidy may be provided for renting private property within Taipei city which is. i n U. v. directly used for the investment project. The amount of this subsidy depends on the investment. Ch. engchi. amount and the rental price on market. The subsidy is up to 50 percent of the rental costs, duration up to five years and totally under 5,000,000 NTD. The City Government may offer subsidies for interest payments for two years, up to 2.5 percentage points of the annual interest. The subsidy shall be limited to one per project, up to 50 million NTD.. 58.

(68) To encourage industrial innovation and research and development, the City Government offers, on application, subsidies to investors for development of new technology, innovative service model or brands establishment. The subsidy shall be limited to one per project, the total amount shall not exceed 50 percent of the overall project budget, up to 5 million NTD.. 政治大. 1. In order to stimulate industrial cluster, investors and other organization or institution or. 立. cooperation can apply for subsidies if it’s related to innovative nurture and incubator.. ‧ 國. 學. The subsidy shall be limited to one per project, the total amount not to exceed. ‧. 3 million NTD.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. 2. In order to motivate entrepreneur to start business, investor can apply for subsidies if it’s innovative, creative or having potential. The subsidy shall be limited to one per project,. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. the total amount not to exceed 50 percent of the overall project budget, up to 1 million NTD.. 59.

(69) Reference Joost van Dreunen, Superdata, 2015, New Develop columnist and Superdata CEO Joost van Dreunen discusses changes in the mobile market Ievgen Leonov, 2014, Mobile and Social Gaming Industry: 2014 Highlights, published by Renatus Media, LLC. 治政 Dan Pearson, 2014, Report: Mobile to become gaming's大 biggest market by 2015, published at 立 ‧ 國. 學. gamesindustry.biz. eMarketer, 2014, Smartphone Users Worldwide Will Total 1.75 Billion in 2014. ‧. Tristan Louis, 2013, How much does the average app make?. sit. y. Nat. io. al. n. gamasutra.com. er. Ievgen Leonov, 2014, Trends and next steps for mobile games industry in 2015, published at. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Dean Takahashi, 2014, Only 0.15 percent of mobile gamers account for 50 percent of all in-game revenue (exclusive), published at venturebeat.com Denniss Cimeca, GamesBeat, 2013, The gender inequality in core gaming is worse than you think, published at venturebeat.com Newzoo, 2013, Newzoo data Jeff Grubb, 2014, Gaming advocacy group: The average gamer is 31, and most play on a. 60.

(70) console, published at venturebeat.com Bertil Hansen, 2014, Top 20 Google play store top grossing games has only one paid game, published at androidfact.com Stuart Dredge, The Guardian, 2014, Why is Candy Crush Saga so popular?, published at theguardian.com. 政治大. Steven Tweedie, Business Insider, 2014, Why 'Clash Of Clans' Is So Incredibly Popular,. 立. According To A Guy Who Plays 16 Hours A Day,. ‧ 國. 學. Russel Holly, 2015, Clash of Clans for Android: What is it, and why is it so popular?. ‧. Mark Masters, 2014, What Made Clash of Clans so Insanely Successful and What Can We. sit. n. al. er. io. Pop Cap, 2012, survey. y. Nat. Learn from It?. MocoSpace, 2012, survey. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Newzoo, 2014, Infographic: The Taiwan Games Market App Anie, 2013, Google Play: Top countries in Q3 2013 Taipei Times, 2014, Taiwan likes Facebook, has highest penetration Sabel Harris, 2014, 5 data driven ways to get your facebook post seen Kevan Lee, 2014, how to create manage facebook business page. 61.

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