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PocketGamer.biz28 Apr 2016

My failure to run a guild in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
The transition to guild-based play was a strategic evolution for Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, which had already achieved top-ten grossing status in the U.S. prior to their implementation.
02
Guild management requires a critical mass of high-level, active players to successfully clear tiered raid content, creating a barrier to entry for smaller or unorganized groups.
03
In-game recruitment tools are currently insufficient, forcing players to rely on manual coordination or external social platforms to build cohesive teams.
04
Guild systems are essential for long-term player retention and monetization in free-to-play mobile games by incentivizing daily engagement through collective goals.
05
Social structures like guilds allow developers to gate exclusive content, such as unique character shards for units like Han Solo, behind collaborative raid events.
06
The disparity in player experience levels necessitates features like minimum level requirements and privacy settings to help guild leaders maintain competitive standards.

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Transcript

hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer bizzy's YouTube channel I'm John Jordan and we're looking at Star Wars Galaxies of heroes today and the big news for that game which has been out since December is its added guild so guilds a very important part of a free-to-play games long term attention so what i guild guilds are just groups of players coming together to form larger kind of groups but they can do more things collect more resources typically have more things they can you can only do if you're in a guild so this is this is the guild that I started as we as we come to its not being very successful what can you do in a guild store and in a Guilder there's a guild store you can buy things this is similar to the rest of the games these are different items you can't get anywhere else so these are materials and these are shards so you collect shards to unlock characters so I need another 70 shards of raid to collect her we can see I'm getting only currencies I can't even disney's at the moment this is the problem of my shield other big thing for guilds is raid so

you have raids where all the guild goes in together and and does things and then much bigger reward so you can see the getting rewards so currency and items and also you can see here if you enter this different tier so there's seven different tiers of this one rate which just gets harder and harder and harder to do so embarrassingly I can't even enter like you'll be so weak these eight thousand credits to Norton so wasn't the case so this is like your Michiel consists of me and two others one of whom is is Rick I work with you I'm forced to join and then some random person so obviously the problem of guilds you can help 250 people in the guild I create the guild and you haven't really got a very fine in doing anything with it so you can you have allies in the game so these are just players whose character I've borrowed normally by fighting them and then if

they beat me I can I can have bought borrow one of their key characters for the rest of the game so I don't know these people at all I can just spam them but you know it meaningless no pending invites so the one where you can can if you if you can't get into Facebook you can kind of manage things in a bit in a way that way the other that way you can do it is it's a bit clunky but you have allied codes so this is how the Allied Ally system works in in the game you can have only have 35 this might allied code I can if I had someone to allocate I could enter them there I have them as an ally and then kind of extend them a a notification from my guild so it's a bit clunky to doing really so that's why I've got very far so basically what I'm gonna have to do is well actually before we do that you can see here the other thing that what guilds come in is so this is the daily activities which is the homeless

of stuff you're supposed to do every day or if you do every day you get extra extra rewards so it's a kind of a good kind of to-do list it keeps you going back to the game so the new one they many of them here is personal contribution so you can contribute 600 guild bank coins a day you do that by playing in the in the light side so the left side battles dark side light side battle so the more if I spend my energy in the light side battles then I then I earn this guild currency which is shown here so coins produced that would keep woody about so you can come see if if there if this was full of 70 people then we quite cooking food creating these coins at the moment we've got three so where what was that kind of 15 times lower that even if so water waters to was actually doing anything so that's not very work the gill doesn't work for me so what we're gonna do a bit radical will disband the guild cuz it's just I'm never gonna kill 50 so let's do that disband the guild so that's a bit more waste of money that I spent three

hundred thousand credits on train that guilt now you see my killed doesn't exist so what can I do let's go and have a look so what's the what's the the game will recommend so I can see here there's the the leads guilds and leads its place in the UK this Braveheart I don't know if she's doing it fight location there's the no message set here only active players and then we got 35 I can reset this we are the New Republic give us your credit so we'll make things great payable jar-jar okay join them we swear we are in line federal agents I've got bad feeling about this they're kind of funny there none of these have got any red points at the moment so suggest and though we don't know so you're not Kingdom UK base guild so maybe I'll try and join them so let's see if I can join them over send them a request so I have to wait now to see whether they don't want me there so just to say guild shifting level 22 in the game two to join a guild and and people who are saying up girls can then set up a higher kind of level if they feel you have done if you were very high

level players you might want to say level 70 which is the thing why I am anyway yeah so you might want some high level players to lock it that way or you can just create kind of private private kills and only allow friends people you know some way to join but that's how girls work and the one thing about kills is as you can see you know he's doing these group things together and that's a really strong in terms of retention and in the end monetization as well it's interesting that the game didn't launch with gills that was partly because they had to launch alongside the the force awakens the film so that's a key part that they probably would have won the game there but probably taken them they would have lost in December if that if they were gonna get that in they would have had to have probably launched in because the Christmas coming up maybe you know end of January staff every something pushes everything back the games been pretty successful anyway it's been the top ten grossing game of the US so they haven't really needed guilds come out quite well for the mythical game now that can add guilds in maybe a bit difficult that some you're kind of adding guilds into an ecosystem of players who are all different levels but I'm sure the other cool thing about the

gills is you can get a if you you can unlock shards of this bread special play which is the Hat the hand solo the original hand sailor character who's not being available in the game so far the only hand so the character is it's a really crummy hand so let's talk football who is kind of useless rubbish these are these are tank B's not as good as cheery who's the best tank so um so yeah so that's that's raids and guild and that kind of stuff hopefully if I get to join a guild I'll do another video I'm showing you how a healthy guild actually work in terms of raids but for time being thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe so we do a lot of analysis or free to play mobile games that's kind of thing that you like please do subscribe it you won't miss anything okay I'll see you again soon goodbye

Summary

The introduction of guild systems in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes serves as a critical mechanism for long-term player retention and monetization within the free-to-play mobile gaming landscape. Guilds facilitate collaborative gameplay through shared resources, exclusive guild stores, and raid events that offer unique rewards, such as character shards for otherwise unavailable units like Han Solo. These social structures are designed to encourage daily engagement by integrating personal contributions—such as earning guild bank coins through standard battle energy expenditure—into a collective effort that benefits the entire group.

The practical implementation of these systems highlights significant challenges for smaller or unorganized groups. Successful guild management requires a critical mass of active, high-level players to meet the requirements for raids, which feature multiple tiers of increasing difficulty. The existing ally system, while functional for borrowing characters, proves insufficient for building a cohesive guild, as the recruitment process remains clunky and relies on manual coordination or external social platforms. Consequently, players who fail to attract a sufficient number of active members often find themselves unable to participate in high-level content, necessitating the dissolution of underperforming guilds in favor of joining established, active groups.

Although Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes achieved top-ten grossing status in the United States without a guild system at launch, the subsequent integration of these features addresses the complexities of managing an established player base with varying experience levels. By allowing guild leaders to set minimum level requirements and privacy settings, the game attempts to balance accessibility with the need for competitive, high-level participation. Ultimately, the transition from individual play to guild-based collaboration represents a strategic evolution intended to deepen the game's ecosystem and sustain its long-term commercial viability.