How does DISNEY SORCERER'S ARENA retain, engage and monetize?

[Music] hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer top disease you know inspector so in the enough inspector we play free-to-play mobile games and have a look at the in-game economy have a look at some of the retention mechanics and just really how how the game kind of sets itself up in terms of keeping players retained and engaged in the game how it rewards them for doing that and how it also tries to encourage them to spend real money and kind of what they get for that real money so that's the kind of the process of what we're doing I'm not doing a game review I'm not really going into too much detail about how the game works just so you know that okay so this game is the new game from Glu Mobile it is a Disney sorcerers arena spinning soft launch for quite a few months now so I've been playing this during the soft launch period you can see it I'm top left I'm player level 28 so that's not massively powerful but I've started to unlock a few kind of characters and started to do

some stuff so haven't have a reason why dear how it all works so it's always good to kind of start off a new session and kind of see kinda what's going on here so it's easy for him the most interesting thing I think about this game is obviously it's Disney characters which have a great appeal from you know you know I guess everyone knows Disney characters now Mickey Mouse how how old icky mouse is now velocity then you come a younger generations and still no Mickey Mouse and what kind of new thing coming through frozen all that sort of stuff so is it it's Disney is it kind of great brand from that point of view and since it come appeals to everyone but that also froze up some problems I think in that you know what is the kind of cool audience for this you know and this game should say it is a turn-based squad RPG kind of game and so this is very much focused as these games tend to be on the hero character so we can see here these are the hero characters I have unlocked this being a Disney game this having loads of characters we can see this is this is the strongest part of the game by far so have all these

characters you can see I've only unlocked 13 of 66 I should say I'm not paid any money in the game so I just been playing for free and you can see I've unlocked these characters and a nice little animations here it is Sulley and we can see now he's leveled up so he's now level three he's so he's three stars and level level 28 and his level is obviously relates to my level as a gate as a player his star promotion relates to how many of the kind of shards or the cars whatever description you use you get so you can see here I need to collect thirty more in order to level him up so we can see here I can spend some various different currencies so there's the club exchange this is what it starts to get confusing already there's multiple currencies as a club exchange there's the premium exchange so that that's the hard currency so I could spend a hundred and fifty you know hard currency gems I can go in and I could do an auto battle so in many ways this game kind of takes

the classic model so it's not really doing anything very different in terms of the kind of gameplay in the meta game from games that we've seen over the last few years notably kind of I guess Star Wars Galaxies of Heroes marble strike force I'm quite a lot of those type of kind of squad RPG games so if I in this case I have already completed you know this battle here this is the B it is the to be grand campaign I've already three started which means I can then kind of like kind of miner or harvest it again just using the the energy I've got so this talk about confusing there are two different sorts of energy we can see here there's purple energy and there's yellow energy is different kind of gameplay modes you use that for but I can go in here and I can choose number battle so I can basically use up all my energy so I'm going to use its eight energy units per battle and I'm gonna use up all 80 I can only I can do 11 and that's gonna take my energy out to zero so I can hit that auto win we can see here I've got these quickly all these things are affected six of those scully

kind of shards and a whole bunch of other kind of currency so I could be equally go and click three more could spend my hard currency 150 gems so when we go back to skully now we can see I've collected nine of the things I still kind of long way to go to level him up obviously you need more of those kind of a character shards points whatever as you get on so through the character so you get so it's always interesting I think you play these games what characters they give you for free at the start so Sully obviously pretty well known from Monsters Inc although actually you know you kind of forget now that says quite a few years ago now they have Ariel little mermaid is an interesting one to choose you know what we think of as a real battle character but I've actually done quite a good job of her Trident she's quite powerful and go through obviously Buzz Lightyear everyone is Buzz Lightyear we have Damona who I don't really know you also notice that these are heroes and villains so very much again like the Star Wars kind of all the superhero kind

of games you have they have a light or dark side in Star Wars heroes or villains in this game you can in some of the modes you have to just use heroes in some just fill in some you can mix them up Mickey Mouse this is not kind of thing here where we can have different costumes i we can go and obviously this is like another monetization sort of thing so you get the basic Mickey Mouse and if you want to go and collect a hundred of those you know you're going through here it's items are not via pre-registration rewards so so another kind of thing I should have done and not all characters have multiple uniforms but this one those are adding yeah they're kind of prints and I did about 25 of those though there was a big big limited time event doing soft launch on those so I'd collected 25 of those but um obviously I know a few more so we can kind of go through Captain Hook yeah think about yeah obviously some of them are better now and then others and often people have their own kind of kind of favorites

I guess you know Jax calendar one favorite I would think but you need to collect 80 of his tokens I've exactly 13 so I mean you can kind of we can see how this goes all the way down here so who we got the so probably my favorite one stitch but any any stitch taken soon so that's kind of the basic I think for me the basic kind of a driver will be the most places there are certain characters they will want to unlock and they will you know either pay money or grind out in order to to get a get it Jesse aura or a zorg zarg improv okay so we get a lot these pop-ups so I would say this game is is pretty aggressively monetized let me that in a bad way I just mean there are some games where you kind of have to go and find what you can do with money you have to go and find the store and you know there's always all free play mobile games you can spend you know large amounts of money if you want to

and this game is quite aggressively more this game is designed in a way that that if you really want to go faster you have to spend money so I don't mean aggressive monetization in a moral sense you might have a moral view on whether that's good or bad I don't have that but there is a lot of these kind of pop-ups and there is a lot of monetization in here so go to the store this store is is busy so they we have so we have well go into the pass holder stuff in a minute but we have here his Ian's life litter he's I believe from the one of the latest Pixar films and I can't remember name of it at the moment but you can see here you know to unlock him this is a time limited 10/10 day time limited 14 $15 I mean the Canadian App Store actually so it's very different to the US dollar and we have these other characters so these are all from the autumn woods as the film isn't it so yeah to spend 110 Canadian dollars buying unlocking all those characters there's a moon own bundle at the moment

so these are pretty you know I don't think many people are gonna kind of go go go for that you know many many people have spent $100 over hundred dollars but I'm looking those things if you've really into the game and you got hundred dollars to spend opposite obviously you know you but this is the only the high level of the store so we go down here and we going into this is a chest so you can see here we've got like a loot box going on here we can see here off he is a loot boxes randomized so we've got these if I'm going to spend 3600 these gems which is a lot how much is that gonna cost me I don't got enough so I need to buy some more so we can go to the gem store now so 3600 is where I was so that's like I would need to spend kind of 31 bucks Canadian bucks in order to get those as I was saying fairly expensive and there's all these other kind of things that it's very complicated so we have different chests for differ the different of these kind of kind of offers except the different says there's

the moon land of chest here and got almost chests here and we have on what's coins as well so so there's multiple layers of monetization depending on what you want in some ways this is confusing in some ways I guess if you just want the moon land stuff it's kind of makes it clearer kind of what your game that in other ways it is you know it's kind of a classic and retailing thing that the more the more currencies you have the more ways to the develop hazards controlling you know what they're useful another kind of store thing here so this is a first-time bonus once it's very simple eight dollars eight canadian dollars and i get a whole bunch of gems actually pretty good deal i get one hundred and fifty five free effectively pass holder stuff we'll look at pass all the stuff effectively it's about the battle pass we have a kind of a more standard kind of chest thing here so in the ultimate chest again we come see some drop rates here but this is random I don't know I'm gonna get and then we have some funny have some free ones here so I can open like a free chest so one is every day so I got some Sheriff of

Nottingham odds it and tokens there and some other kind of currency and there's a four-hour one as well you don't get so much just get something simple there so yeah tiny cinder broom this is like an item so we can see here you know there's quite a complex thing going on here we have characters and you have items I could I could watch an ad so I could watch ten ads a day and get some extra kind of bonus stuff in there all random so that's pretty complicated store wise there's a lot to do pretty much every time you press on something you get a kind of pop up all through the games just launched so it so they giving you this fish percent bonus thing this is actually if you think you gonna play this game kind of low low cost in that posters like this at the start the game actually pretty useful because they give you a really big boost you know the further year under the game the less these items will become useful helps I see here so there's this kind of there's not done as a store this is done as an

exchange you can exchange things I mean this is kind of a store in a way but yeah I can buy some think about tokens or you know for all this you can just see this is this is actually this is the most complicated kind of kind of in-game economy for one of these games I've seen and that's kind of interesting combining it with the Disney franchise because per se although the Disney franchise kind of plays very young and very old you kind of want to play I suppose to an older generation who have credit cards and and gonna spend money really unless you think pester powers gonna be very very powerful in this game but this kind of UI in everything is actually fairly complicated I would think for small children to kind of navigate I mean I've played with my children there and you have to read they don't we know what's going on they like puzzle like you they want to see Buzz Lightyear but the game side of a is a bit complex for them in terms of the gameplay so we have you know daily quests so you know there's a lot going on here in terms of

you know anything you do you basically get some I mean it's at least rewards worth anything who knows I mean I'm leveling up slowly I'm getting all these all these items even though I've been playing the game quite a lot I don't know all these things do so those kind of things all these things I can do to get more rewards so listen the final thing I guess Pass Holder season so effectively this game has a battle pass which is you know a very popular monetization mechanic now thanks to fortnight you know lots of games now have battle Potter's know what's the point of a battle pass so about applause is a limited edition kind of reward system that there anytime you play the game you can I get some rewards it's time limited not so they do this every month or not so we've got actually so we've got to see at the top there this day 5:35 gonna 35 days 19 hours left in this kind of pass holder season still season one and as I do things in the game I can unlock rewards but if I

actually become a gold past Gold Pass holders season 1 player I get these extra award so and level 1 I would get I would get mmm one in token I reckon one but if I was a gold holder I would also get 550 thousand gold coins but in order to become a gold holder goodness lost myself no come on the UI is a bit all over the place and now have to kind of find out back where I was going yeah so in order to upgrade so it's gonna ended lost until the first of May I will receive access to all season one pass holder gold quests and rewards and I will it get actually get some additional bonuses and quest every week and if I've purchased that that's gonna cost me there's not too bad fifteen dollars to gain access to that and if I think I'm gonna play this game a lot then that probably makes sense and

that's kind of where battle passes pass passes kind of work that they they kind of monetize players a bit more heavily than they would otherwise do so so someone starting this game may spend like five dollars you know getting the basic just think how it works yes spent five dollars what do I get this is kind of asking them to spend fifteen dollars here and this is a game complicated you have a next to it you have the part hold of gold plus booster so now we're doubling our price up to three thirty one dollars you not going to do that one here so we come see these bonuses we're gonna get pass holder experience and always you know tokens and stuff for them so it's a way of kind of monetizing people in a way that isn't committing and diamond diving them in terms of getting them to spend more and more and more and do more and more in app purchases it's kind of like a sort of like a once a month thing but equal if you'll get into the game and you want to play the game there's really sensible to buy a pass holder a pass because that really boost you and that's going to boost you for the next you know kind of

a month or so so it's a way if you have a game that has a kind of fairly broad audience it's a way of kind of monetizing people who wouldn't otherwise spend very much or anything at all whether it doesn't work for all games oh this is the kind of problem and and I'm normally you have to wait until you come you have to wait and see kind of what your audience is like and how they're monetizing already so it's kind of interesting that they've launched with this this Pass Holder mechanic in now see the game has been your soft launch for a long time so they must have some good metrics on that but it's a little bit of a surprise I think that they've they've gone for this on top of all the other monetization stuff they've got just looking what the Inbox you know you can see them it's very much for a while and in terms of like the the actual kind of modes so it is vast amounts of modems this is you know at our endurance so it's kind of like like an endless battle thing we have the source was tournament so this is playing other players we're gonna play a game but you can gonna you know if this I set my defense let's have a look yes that's my defensive team so

other other players can play against them the AI will control my my moves there's someone has challenged things so this is you know another mode where you can upgrade materials limited time event so the moment we were on the scene a lot of retailing around onwards and then and move LAN and this is the old one the yes there's a few Aladdin one and a Incredibles one Club dungeon no you have to you know is it Alliance structure so they join a club and then there's a dungeon for that Club conquest I mean I know I know Club so they know what's going on there and then on top of that you have all this so this is the basic mode where you have a grand campaign where you can mix up kind of heroes and villains you have the Heroes campaign you have the villains campaign you have the PvP arena flying other people so this is a very deeply featured game I think the the interesting thing will be how well this very complicated kind of

retention model and I think it is a fairly good retention model because every time you come in you kind of get rewarded this stuff so it's very you know you can't come in like loads of stuff the problem kind of is it's so complicated you're not really entirely sure what all the stuff I mean I'm not okay I'm not entirely sure what all the stuff I'm getting is and how useful is so you're kind of a little bit kind of confused by all this kind of blinding and reward structure maybe you can I think my biggest concern I guess is how well this very complicated game design meta game economy kind of design is is matched to the the basic condition the character licenses and I mean I'm not getting honest I don't know that but that would be my if the game works really well I think that will it will be because they have kind of worked out what their audiences and they've kind of character that they kind of chosen kind of fit fit potential high spenders the game doesn't work I think you'll be because it attracts a younger audience who don't have the money in order to kind of

monetize in a way that you know maybe like Star Wars is probably a little bit different in the sense and that it has a more kind of middle-aged sort of audits even though it doesn't attract a lot of young good we've got anyway that is the energy inspector and thanks for watching this video and I have any comments please put in the comments box but otherwise hope to see you again soon [Music]