Is it worth developing card games?

    The development of digital card games a year or two ago was considered unpromising in Russia. At least without serious background or financial support. I tried to find data justifying the development of digital TCGs.


    1) Here is the article . The reliability of the data is always in question, well, let's say that this is true.

    This paragraph is interesting:

    " According to the FIKSU Cost Per Loyal User Index, the average cost, for brands who proactively marketed their apps (across all types of app categories, which are generally less expensive than for games), rose from $ 0.94 in March 2011 to $ 1.36 in March 2013, which is an increase of 45%. The Cost Per Install (CPI or Acquisition Cost Per User, the ACPU) for unpaid installs in the gaming world is currently in the $ 1 to $ 8 range.

    Delving into this more deeply, if the Cost Per Install for a free-to-play game is on the low end of this range, at $ 1, and the game has a monthly conversion rate of 5% (which in itself is considered high by many industry observers), that means the Acquisition Cost Per Paying User (ACPPU) is $ 20. In order to break even on the customer acquisition cost alone, the game would have to generate (net of the 30% platfrom share to Apple or Google) an Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) of $ 20
    .

    According to them, it turns out that now the game (in the AppStore, as I understand it) should generate $ 20 from one paying player! This is not even a specific figure, it may differ, but the fact remains - now the cost of attracting a player to the game has grown significantly. Those. when developing a game, you must rely on the player to pay a lot in the game.

    2) Next is this video:

    Excerpt from the description (they really talk about it there, I checked):

    " Forecasted to total $ 2.6 billion in 2012, a growing part of the overall card game market's revenues are earned on mobile, in browsers, and on consoles. Monthly spending of over $ 50 on a collectible month a card games are by Almost absurd OTHER Compared to social and digital is the genres game "

    Ie in ARPPU card games about $ 50. Japanese says that in GREE that's why they switched to card games. This is primarily profitable for money.

    3) Kickstarter campaign, which ended not so long ago: HEX

    Players donated $ 2.2M in fact for the idea of ​​combining MMO and TCG. This is my personal opinion, since the gameplay of the battle is a clone of MTG, even by design.

    Ours also do not lose time on kickstarter, though their appetites are more modest and they come out with a cardboard game, and not digital: Berserk .

    I interpret all this as a trend towards the return of hard and midcore projects to the market.

    Making casual games easier, but the competition in this sector is much higher and it should bring a lot of money in order to recoup the much more expensive promotion services. Is it good or is it bad? It's not the same for everybody. The industry is evolving, and I, as an old-school gamer, enjoy a round in which more hardcore projects appear.

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