Mangatar is an Italian game company that specializes in social and mobile games development, and is currently an Intel Software Parnter. They stood out with their first game Mangatar Saga, an MMORPG set in the Manga universe. Afterwards, the team launched Dengen Chronicles, an ambitious browser game flavored with Manga inspiration. Sara Taricani, the web and content strategist for Mangatar, provides the lessons they learned from Dengen Chronicles.
Developing For Mobile
In 2011, Andrea Postiglione, Raffaele Gaito, Enrico Rossomando, Michele Criscuolo, and Alfredo Postiglione were inspired to build their own company using the experience they earned in the digital entertainment field. They officially became a company in 2012 under the name Mangatar, and our first game was launched a few months later. We experienced rapid growth, following up our first game Mangatar Saga with Dengen Chronicles around a year later. Then we made the decision to develop a mobile version of Dengen Chronicles for Windows Phone after making the trip to Finland for the exclusive AppCampus, the mobile application accelerator program financed by Nokia and Microsoft and managed by Aalto University in Espoo.
Since Dengen Chronicles is our very first exploration on mobile devices, you can bet we’ve been learning a lot. As with all new explorations of this kind, we equipped ourselves with a whole lot of studies and statistics. In part, we knew what to expect, and yet, in part, we absolutely didn’t know what to expect. As a matter of fact, the gaming realm is extremely unpredictable and challenging: you typically start off your adventure with tons of maps, but once you left your comfort zone to explore the new, you quickly realize that you just have to keep your mind open, your heart humble, and your brain sharp. Although it may seem quite trivial, your attitude makes the difference.
Advantages of Windows Phone
Remarkably enough, the ever-growing Windows Phone platform guarantees multiple advantages to app developers. Furthermore, Windows Phone Store is definitely more interesting in terms of revenue. According to the latest data, Windows Phone developers earn on average $0.23 per download, versus only $0.04 per download on Android. On iOS, the number is closer to $0.24 per download.
That said, we’ve picked the five most important lessons we’ve learned from our three-month experience on Windows Phone so far:
UI First, Then Gameplay
More often than not, users are promptly influenced by UI. The game’s UI stands as a watershed for mobile users who usually are very quick in deciding to keep playing, or just delete the app.
Considering the huge offer of brand new games available every day, the game’s visual elements play a key role. When casual gamers have to deal with too many (and sometimes too polished) game controls, they just run away. They want immediacy; that is to say, the game must be easy to understand and only require a few taps to get started. In comparison, the hardcore gamers instead seek perfection, coherence, and the possibility to manage each and every detail. If they find too much difference between the UI and the game’s characters (as it happened to us), they will feel entitled to enhance their prejudicial hatred towards the mobile.
This makes screenshots very important. When users take a peek at the game’s screenshots, they get a sense of the game. Even before testing the gameplay, users can decide whether or not it’s their kind of game. So be sure to choose the best screenshots.
Gamers’ Behavior Will Surprise You, and Make You Work Really Hard
The same game on different platforms can have different behaviors. As we synced the mobile and web versions, we’ve found some clear differences: there were fewer gaming sessions on web, but they were much longer (up to 10-15 minutes). Mobile had more gaming sessions, but for a much shorter time-frame (1-2 minutes). Since we noticed that attitude, we’ve been working hard to get the best out of the two behaviors and achieve frequent and long sessions on mobile. Through a series of focused modifications over time, we’ve managed to double the duration of mobile sessions.
Gamers’ Behavior Affects Your Revenues
Other differences we noticed involved in-app purchases. We specifically noticed that web users prefer bigger purchases (up to €20 on average). Mobile users instead opt for multiple small purchases (between €1 and €20). This trend was expected as, generally speaking, mobile transactions are smaller than purchases on web. We accordingly tried to better balance the game’s economy itself. Short and sweet, don’t ever underestimate the power of a top-notch user experience and do diversify your strategies.
Email Alerts Vs. Push Notifications: Epic Battle, Easy Winner.
We’ve given users the options to disable both push notifications and emails. Numbers don’t lie: mobile users are less willing to disable push notifications than web users, who just don’t want more emails in their inbox. As minimal as it is, push notification works fine to call users’ attention. You don’t even have to worry about the deadly spam folder.
When the mobile version of our game was about to come out, we had push notifications already in the cradle, so we didn’t have to change design. In fact, push notifications simply replaced email notifications. Admittedly, the mobile version has more notifications. We decided to keep as few emails as possible in order not to bother users.
Feedback is in the Air, Everywhere Gamers Look Around
We absolutely suggest to provide gamers with an easy tool to leave feedback (we are happy UserVoice users). Much to our delight, mobile users are very active with suggestions, compliments, and bugs reports. Keep in mind that each and every feedback is a unique chance to dramatically improve the game. The most important feedback got us to create the option to delete one’s account to start a new saga with a new bloodline, while others made us work to simplify some mechanisms in the deck. Lots of feedback asked for offline matches in addition to PvP fights. Last but not least, the proactive bug reports enabled us to perform an amazing amount of bug fixes, much to the advantage of gamers.
These are just a few of the lessons we have learned so far. Other great lessons are yet to come, and we’re ready to welcome them – and share them with you.
Dengen Chronicles is available in the Windows Phone Store. Currently, the team is working on the Facebook version; the iOS and Android apps will be released within 2014. Feel free to get in touch with them for more details on their Facebook and Twitter.
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