Monetizer: Star Wars: Uprising

hello and welcome to pocket gamer. bus's monetizer this is where we look at the uh monetization of freeto playay mobile games it's just turn this down a bit so the game we're looking at today is um kabam's Star Wars Uprising so um obviously pretty big uh license it being Star Wars um it say all kind of all new game or kind of all new really kind of experience in the Star Wars Universe it's between set between the end of Return of the Jedi and new game The Force awakens so um Force awakens obviously coming out at the end of the year so this game's kind of come out um couple of months beforehand uh and I I guess it's kind of interesting that you kind of get this now with with people's universes or kind of these game um film universes where there's you kind of have side project

and obviously Star Wars is probably the great example of ones where there's like millions and millions of of different kind of um kind of uses of the IP um and trying to keep all that together is kind of gu an interesting issue for Lucas Arts but here here we are with um there been a lot of Star Wars games obviously um this is um a freet to-play RPG based in the star universe so you can see a few things going on here um let's have a see what's what were you doing so um this thing's tapping away so let's go have a look at what this is so this is me this is my player um get quite a nice customization options to begin with um different kind of races and all that all part of the Star Wars uh kind of a cannon um I've been doing some stuff I don't know I've been Victorious it's always nice isn't it so my adventure is clicking away so it's an RPG so we're going to have a lot of RPG elements so let's have a quick look at see what's going on here oh there we go so typical RPG so this is my current gear gear set um now so I've won a whole bunch of new

New Gear items you can see um there's a rarity thing going on here obviously it's being an RPG there's going to be some Rarity issues going on there's going to be some leveling up of gear going on there's going to be some maxing out of gear going on there's going to be um lots of this kind of gear stuff so um let's see what I got here standard body braces I can equip them uh okay there we go on there got a new little backpack uh I equip that so ah so now I clicked on that to say I can uh I can evolve up upgrade my um my backpack with these items so again we're seeing quite a deep um RPG system that's going on here I've got a new Blaster what's this Blaster um I hold that so that will show me what I get compared to what I've got have anything equipped so let's equip that going rather nice isn't it equip

that helmet equip that okay equip it all goody goody goody so there we are you all see it's kind of equipped on there so it always nice to see in RPG is fairly standing out I guess um so ack look on this so we can look at my um stock Grilla helmet see if I can level it up um I can't level it up cuz I haven't got any anything things to level it up in there but obviously you can see there's an idea where and we collecting some crystals and kind of components and doing kind of crafting type things um still flashing away was it telling me again yeah I've got all those new things got them all yeah okay so G so I'm level six my XP is here oh look we've got some um unsurprisingly some currencies so there's a soft currency which is this kind of credits one this kind of seven with a funny line through it that's credits that's the soft currency then there's a hard currency which is called chromium so as we'd expect to see we can

buy hard currency this is one of the interesting things about this game um and it's kind of hard excuse me hard to show it but when you first play the sty the um sty was Uprising when you first go into the store you don't you wouldn't see this one so this is um £40 so equiv I don't know what that' be really getting on for kind of um $70 $60 um and the only reason that I can see that one is that I spent in this case this is in UK Curr um £23 on the most expensive um uh option that was available when I I first played the game and then when I go back into the store it's unlocked a more expensive one I assume if I spend £40 it's going to unlock and unlock obviously in when it comes to inapp purchases the most expensive single kind of purchase you can do is is $100 um so it's kind of Kabam has been quite obviously careful um in the sense that they're not letting people spend that money up front some people could argue that is that a good thing or a bad thing because decision they've taken

probably because the Star Wars license is is fairly um fairly Mass market and maybe they want to encourage kind of a retention at the start rather than monetization that's always something that developers um kind of struggle not struggle with really but um have to be aware of um so let's go and have a look at this let's go look at the supplies so obiously online game so we're going to have a bit of a bit of loading um and this is of the main monetization um option um in the game so this kind of thing called the premium crane so if go to premium crane so here we go so I can premium crane would guarantee me the three star options are better so this is kind of like um what's known in the industry is kind of like a a GAA system so a random randomly generated um kind of option where you spend some money so I've actually got five grabs available with all my money that I had my chromium was available I actually

bought some so I've got five grabs available I think um so we'll do one grab anyway just to see how it works and it says this is the possible loot I can get obviously these are all things um that I can then use to equip on my on my character so this little chap here is going to go and lots of smoking stuff going such like going to happen um and I'm going to get a thing that's going to go whoosh and I'm going to get a oh wow I've got a a big gun carbine rifle J good um so I can go back and equip that so this one so this one is a scrip crane I can redeem recogition scripts for components I have two grabs available I've obviously just earned these five playing so let's do a grab there see get something similar another little alien chap bit more like molten metal going on

there okay so there we go we got some material press dish scraps used for advanced another grab let's use that one up so what you can see is you kind of we haven't really gone into the game at all but obviously a lot of these free to play games The Meta game what we call it the stuff that's going on around the game is is kind of actually the main bit of the progression really um I've got something uh some crystals Okay so so we can see then so so we can see basically what I'm going to be doing is either spending money to get some Crum or actually the game's quite generous in giving you Crum to begin with when you're playing through it um and and and doing the the basic missions which we'll have a quick look at um and then basically then you're kind of also collecting loot during those missions but the main thing is is getting kind of high level loot through this kind of crane system and then then leveling it up but obviously that makes it easier to progress with the missions so I've got this where's my massive gun is my massive gun oh my massive gun is

actually not actually that useful um so that's not so good cuz I a good gun already um so let's see if I can level something up um uh let's try this let's see if I can level this up yeah so I've got a my stock enforcer tunic I've got that um yep so so it's going to cost me OB I'm going to use those up um and they were kind of a a a a limit option um and I'm going to spend 300 credits to level it up so off we go I'm going to get a little level up thing and it's going to go Who whoo so it's level one it's going to go way up to level 9 OB up to 40 so we can see kind of the uh the restriction and the uh celebration of of getting these things and my my attacks gone up by two and all these kind of you can see all these as well these are more kind of direct attributes that's all jolly good so

um no but I've got that I know that yeah that's new I got it okay don't worry about that so I'm going to talk to this happy D chap he's one of the main he's kind of one of these kind of guys giving Missions at the moment yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah little bit dialog Star Wars after all so here's the mission now um so I'm quite early in the game but you get an idea um so R2 R2 C3 is going to tell me about um reward levels and Y and Dum Dum oh okay tap on start when you're ready okay thank you so he's going to tell me that um reward level this I need um a player my character needs a certain rating for me to be light to to kind of achieve it not get killed um this is guaranteed this is my possible Loop this is is my

um okay so CU this is for my if the minimum minimum rating is 100 minimum rating to get this other reward stuff so I've got a chance of getting all that good stuff I's quickly zoom off into the mission a b bit of loading again um so and it is interesting in in terms of the gameplay for this game so a lot of kbam games of um I think in recently have kind of tried to kind of balance kind of what we call what we' consider kind of skill-based gameplay that we've been used to in the west we're actually doing something and I guess kind of what we have with C battl games particularly in in Asia where you're just really tapping on stuff so compared to say the James Bond game that that glue just put out where you're literally just tapping and it's a car based game you're not really doing anything in this one um quite well people could argue how skillful the game play is I'm not very scill at it we're going go and tap that

okay I'm something happen so obviously this is a bit kind of pointy clicky type stuff I'm going this ship to see what's there oh some nasty chaps coming so you just tap on them I mean it's not as to say it's not the most advanced game plan in the world but you can do these little things special attacks and things oh gra that you can zoom in and come on take some of that oh he's got a so yeah go over and get some more Health looks like I'm going to need so we get a bit one-onone action there

oh is he gone he's over there let someone know what's going on so anyway you get the idea let's this might come can't come out there can okay so after that so uh there we go a bit more dialogue finish the mission so um didn't miss any action me messing around so there we go Mission completed I've got some XP that's all nice I'm going to level up not quite got some credits okay there and I collected some equipment this is all going to do it celebratory reveal so whether it's any good hard to judge I have to go into my inventory and kind of see well you can see that's not very good stuff but obviously I can probably use it up um as I level up other things or sell it off so that's kind gives you an idea um

there is good gameplay element I think um if you're better at me learning learning the special moves um but the whole point about about Star Wars um Uprising is is all the RPG elements and there is this kind of big we've not got got into at all is is is a big alliance system and obviously that's something that that kab will be focusing on um as as with all these games Alliance systems are the things that drives them month on month year on year to be to be a top grossing um game you need you could have people in the light system and obviously kind of Star Wars is a good example of of a brand that people really care about um so for go back in here um let me so so you can see these are my abilities these are the things I weren't really using I had a diving roll I had a hold up Blaster I had a crowd control them so actually just tell me how to how I should actually be using them there we go uh so yeah um um certainly a

a impressive um game from from kaban this one um I think it's been a bit slower in terms of its performance than they would have liked to begin with um we've been looking at top racing performance not been not been amazing so far um but I think this is a long game for them um and they've kind of had a lot of investment in it obviously the release of the film um will help that so we'll keep an eye on on how it goes but um yeah if you're into Star Wars certainly or just into kind of RPGs definitely worth checking out