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PocketGamer.biz1 Aug 2013

Monetizer: Pet Rescue Saga

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Social integration via Facebook is utilized primarily for cross-platform state synchronization and social proof while remaining unobtrusive during initial levels.
02
The onboarding process is intentionally gradual, introducing core mechanics like pet-rescue only after several minutes of play to ensure accessibility for a casual audience.
03
Power-ups, such as the column blaster, are integrated naturally into the gameplay loop as consumable or permanent tools rather than being forced upon the user.
04
King prioritizes long-term user retention over immediate monetization by deferring revenue generation until players are deeply invested in the game's progression.
05
Monetization is restrained during the early game, avoiding aggressive in-app purchase prompts or hard currency barriers to mitigate early user churn.
06
This strategy represents a deliberate trade-off against industry trends that prioritize immediate first-day monetization in favor of building a loyal, long-term player base.

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Transcript

[Music] hello and welcome to pocketgamer.viz's monetizer video this is uh where we look at the first uh kind of 5-10 minutes of new games coming out i have a look at the user experience and the kind of monetization flow that developers are trying to implement so today we're looking at the new game from king which is pet rescue saga so let's uh let's start to stop watching fire it up okay okay there we go so we've got loading screen loaded pretty fast so we've got a straight into play or we can connect with facebook obviously a lot of kings games um all kings games on mobile also i'm syncing with their with facebook so you can sync the game state across both um and also

get your kind of social features across both we'll just go for play at the moment okay so it's kind of interesting to look at a play king is particularly uh obviously has good for a very casual market and it they've said that they kind of come up with a with a tutorial they think is as simple as possible and then they create two or three even simpler steps beforehand because they they're wearing those audiences is so particularly casual so uh it's always worth looking at their um their tutorial process so obviously this one is pretty simple tap on the block and saying kind of remove them now we can do it ourselves you see i'm brilliant at these kind of games [Music]

okay [Music] okay let's keep going okay now flatten the blocks remove large blocks get high scores okay now as many knife blocks we can okay well they can't really see um [Music] oh now if i can feel good even i can finish the second tutorial

okay three stars oh two or three stars yes it's always got this top friend see what my friends are doing can i encourage them it's not really it's just there it's not really kind of forced me to do anything yet so oh what's going on here one of these bits of wood uh [Music] i shouldn't think about this too much really should i just get on it oh must have gone there the column blaster is now charged this is a particular king way of monetizing it doesn't really monetize

with currency in its games it monetizes with items so you have consumable items or some permanent items as well obviously the column blaster is going to be a useful one the column blast whole column that's pretty hopeless too many blocks left failure no okay he's dead again that's weird

minutes and this is actually another interesting thing that we said about king games is they pretty much just leaving just like chomp through the first 30 levels without really anything much being forced in terms of monetization mean even say this kind of social um social aspect it's not really being used very much at the moment but um you get to certain points in their games where to get the next level you have to kind of get invites from three friends or you have to invite three friends or get something from other friends or so um uh it's kind of a good example of a game that would kind of as we kind of look

in in our monetizer kind of column and the kind of some of the techniques we use to kind of uh come up with kind of uh formulas or coefficients for how hard games are monetizing king games it's critical to them because they don't really use currency in the same way as most other free to play games do but um for the first even the first half an hour to an hour they're very light monetization so they don't really force anything on you but um because they get people kind of playing and obviously once you're the the guy at the moment i guess in games is all about kind of retention versus monetization and at what point do you know what where do you focus most of your attention on particularly the start i mean is it when do people first start start monetizing they do that it's kind of interesting because some companies seem to say and it probably depends on the genre that they get their monetization quite early in the process i think um amazon's saying on its platform which it agrees to different platform um it gets the i think it's a sixty percent of people monetizing the first day of playing a game and then they said um fifty percent of all uh once someone's bought an in-app purchase

um 50 of them will buy something within the next um kind of couple of hours so they see very kind of suggesting quite quick monetization whereas obviously the example of king which is now one of the top um grossing uh publishers mobile publishers in the world uh if not i mean it's kind of always changing between king and uh supercell and and gung-ho um but i guess probably because king around all has more games out now across android and ios is probably the top crossing at the moment it takes a very different approach but anyway let's say bye bye okay bring the pets at the bottom okay i've rescued a pet so now i guess this is the thing about the how how slow the tutorial has been this is kind of the main point of the game is to rescue these little pets that's why the game's called pet rescue saga but um it started off as just like a block a block popping game and now this is like the fourth tutorial we've been on and only now we're gonna i'm gonna get this one

the power of the power up so seven minutes eight minutes in now let's give them just another one ago let's just go back to the map and just kind of see obviously there's no there's no we're not here still not been asked to hit a store um i don't even know i don't even have the option to get a store this is the map thing to see where all the all the different levels are and obviously i did log into facebook i would see my friends have played this game where they appear on this and obviously this this dog icon would be would have my face on it um okay let's

go one more save two pets get five thousand points okay so one thing so these are gonna be power ups which is not open yet it's gonna be very sophisticated on this yeah not so bad yeah i'm gonna use that okay okay so there we go there's the uh the first uh first 10 minutes all right episode one complete there's not quite

any let's see is it going to get any prompts no let's see that's everyone finished okay well there we go that's a king's pet rescue saga [Music]

Summary

Pet Rescue Saga exemplifies a strategic approach to mobile game design that prioritizes long-term user retention over immediate monetization. By analyzing the initial ten minutes of gameplay, it becomes clear that the developer employs a highly accessible, gradual onboarding process designed to accommodate a broad, casual audience. The tutorial structure is intentionally simplified, breaking down mechanics into incremental steps that ensure player comfort before introducing more complex objectives, such as the core pet-rescue mechanic, which is only presented several minutes into the experience.

The monetization strategy is notably restrained, eschewing aggressive in-app purchase prompts or hard currency barriers during the early stages of play. Instead, the game focuses on consumable and permanent power-ups, such as the column blaster, which are integrated naturally into the gameplay loop rather than forced upon the user. Social integration via Facebook serves as a foundational element for cross-platform state synchronization and social proof, yet these features remain unobtrusive during the opening levels.

This methodology contrasts with industry trends where some platforms report significant monetization occurring within the first day of engagement. King’s approach suggests a deliberate trade-off, delaying potential revenue generation to build a substantial, loyal player base. By deferring monetization until the player is deeply invested in the game’s progression, the developer mitigates early churn. The experience demonstrates that for top-tier mobile publishers, the primary focus during the initial user journey is establishing a seamless, low-friction environment that encourages sustained play, with monetization mechanisms reserved for later stages of the game’s lifecycle.