The game of "Democracy": Liberal Values* the Russian AppStore
I hope that most of you have already played the game, "Democracy" on their iOS/Android/WP7 devices. This is a satirical sketch about the Russian policy, which is based on the mechanics of match-3 evolution, freemium distribution model and, of course, recognizable characters.
For the first version of the game it took 20 days and the efforts of three people – a programmer, producer and artist. Just a few days from the moment of occurrence in the AppStore the game reached the position of Top Free #1 in Russia. For the 6 months since the release in December of last year, "Democracy" loaded 330 000 users of iOS devices; more than 100,000 installs every update; 15-20, 000 people playing it every day. In the first month of life, the game broke even and still brings joy and happiness to its creators.
This article is about "Democracy" and our introduction to the Russian segment of the AppStore market. In the following material we will try to tell about the experience of domestic platforms Android Market / Google Play and Windows Marketplace.
Comrade, don't lose hope:
...Russia vspryanet from sleep,
And in lists of ratings.
Write our names!
how it all began?
In the early fall of 2011 we (Minsk company Nestersoft) had the idea to create a "mutant" Color Lines, where collecting in a line five or more balls of the same color the player just clears the field, as in the classic game, and gets the ball the next color which, together with three other such gives a new, etc.
To understand how this idea can be playable, programmer slowly assemble a working prototype and start experimenting. The amount required for "smachivaniya" balls varies from five to three, compared to the classical Color Lines iPhone screen not fit all cells of the playing field without compromising ergonomics. Naturally, this directly affects the balance of the game – we're experimenting with scales of probability of balls, with the management, the size of the objects. In October appears setting the "bugs" and working prototypes.
Fig. 1 – Egyptian "Scarab" — the prototype of today's Russian "Democracy"
We implement a simple drag and drop of objects, experimenting with settings, and at the end of October one of Minsk, the designer looks at our prototype and says:
have you ever seen on Facebook Triple Town? Look.
And the concept of the game by the evening takes shape. It became clear that the urgent need to finish your project, because clones puzzle about bears and houses will soon be overwhelmed with all the story. By the way, soon it almost did, but we managed.
A week later, we still suffer with the setting, we look at the sketches, and in the table conversation (I was driving), comes up with an idea to run the game on the Russian market.
Fig. 2 – What have we got after 5 updates.
only Release on the Russian market. Why?
Russian market. Simple and clear, with three of the leading blogs that make the hit of any project. We speak Russian, why before the release in the global market and not to try on a smaller segment? Is there life in the Russian AppStore?
Courage and crazy in the approach, the rise in Runet mediavolna "Painted" outrage shameless reshuffle before the election – and in the minds of developers, licausi videos "we are not in a row" and a photo of the doll "Medveput", is born the idea to start the game with political characters. Two hours later, a list of all the characters, and the work began.
For us it was very important that the chain of gaming figurines were understandable to users even without a description (although the creation of the description, we also put his heart and soul, maybe even two) and wore a sharp social connotation. Goszakaz, saw, officials, President, Prime Minister, Deputy blue bucket and voters are lying on the surface. The pioneer appeared just three hours before our submission of the game, and the state budget and new characters of the political scene – Bulk, Prokhorov with their assets already appeared in the updates.
is There life in the Russian AppStore?
I Want to reach the President and saw him,
Olga, age 6.
Prior to and after the election events have disturbed the politically active part of society, creating a powerful wave of information, which put us in the top of Russian AppStore. The product is in the early stages was not wasted a single Belarusian ruble, the publication was carried out without a publisher.
The release took place on Saturday 10 December 2011, when the Marsh came the first protesters. The first day of sales, by the way, brought $0.7 and 68 downloads (I even know the first buyer). On Monday we got a first material in the Siberian online media, and links to the game took the familiar mikroblogerami browsers and iOS products.
The reaction was extremely contradictory, from "complete hopelessness" and "I'm here to work" to "guys, do it quick, until I drank from the AppStore." Two days later, the situation has changed dramatically, and we were first to the second position of the top, and then, with a record 20 369 downloads per day we broke into the Top Free #1 Overall in the Russian AppStore. More than 150 retweets (RT) and 4,500 referrals great help growth.
However, we stayed there for a while – organic traffic quickly ended, and Top 10 we happily departed. After a few days of good audience – this is what we expected, releasing a free app, the game suddenly appears in the 10 of the Top Grossing and so far (after six months from the time of release), below the 25 line does not drop.
Fig. 3 – Download
At the time of launch, to think through the monetization of the application do not remain time — the score was not even for days. The ability to pay for the game appeared only after the full exhaustion of the limit of turns (2000 turns and a few hours of continuous play). And purchase in-game gold, there were just one IAP for $0.99. Whether it is necessary to describe our joy, when, even with such "ambiguous" approach to the game was the Top Grossing? Already in the 1st update we added the possibility of buying a certain amount of gold for 1.99$, and the second for 2.99$, 4.99$ and 12.99$. Cm. Fig. 4, it speaks for itself. Oddly enough, the most profitable purchase is just the latest IAP — 500 000 gold for 12.99$.
Fig. 4 – Sale in AppStore (orange bursts – updates)
Subsequent 2nd update has become one of the most memorable and most controversial. In it we have introduced a new character, according to players like Alexey Navalny (in the game it's called "Lawyer" and "blogger"), which gave the ability to move any figures on the field. But that the player didn't use this too often, after each use figure Navalny is sent to jail for a certain number of moves. So here is a straightforward approach to implement a difficulty curve.
Well, of course, the balance of the game "flew". Character (even as a paid option) greatly simplified the game and people with less effort started to get to the final figures. Losing to a mass audience, we suddenly lost a paying "hardcore". Had to add new figures at the end of the chain (at this point in the game there is "the last true Democrat" Gandhi Bausparkasse Jesus and Alexander "our everything"), we regulate the weight to teleport across the field "KGB colonels" hanging out "pioneers" and experimented with a number of moves before the release of "blogger". Users wrote indignant letters, two of them even asked refund. In the end the balance is more or less recovered, but the experiments on live humans we do not conduct (crossed my fingers behind my back, coughing into his fist, — approx. editor).
The last date of the update has brought into play the "quest" component: in the game, the mission that awards the user a three-liter jar with the earned achievement that fits in its personal "Cellar of Glory." Each quests is encouraged a small monetary reward.
In the near future we are preparing to launch fresh updates, one of which I hope to once again seriously to surprise the user.
Fig. 5 – the Cellar get achievements.
In conclusion, the success factors
Why have we got? Here are some of the main factors of success of the game "Democracy" on the Russian market in the manner we think, of importance:
the
- 2. Excellent gameplay and the lack of competition at the time of release in the mobile market
- 4. Free app with free2play monetization
1. Simple, clear and relevant campaign setting the
3. Excellent implementation of gameplay for the iPhone with limited screen size the
P. S. Technology
For those interested: the game is written in C++ and Objective-C (for working with platform-specific functions) used cross-platform graphics engine Cocos2d-x. The development was led by Windows, so the user is pleased with the different and unexpected bugs. Until the last update, all the UI have been implemented with the graphics, but we are working on reducing the size of the application and gradually moving on to programmatically generate a user interface.
All ports on Android and WP7, we have implemented on their own, including not very popular among iOS developers for the permission of type 240x320, papertissue a lot of blood, our programmers and artists – but we are ready to tell apart... if you're interested.
PPS Links
If you have never played in a "Democracy", you can download it for free at the following links:
-
the
- j.mp/democracy-EN, iOS / Universal (iTunes) the
- j.mp/demo-aa, Android (Google Play) the
- j.mp/demo-wp7, WP7 (Windows Marketplace)
No, by God, saw 5 young employees of Yandex at the same table, all with iPhones, and none have "Democracy". Where the world is heading?
*) Liberal Values – letters. "lava," translated from palavinskas.
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