Roblox Game Monetization Explained Like You're 5 — Transcript

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1. 0:00Roblox game monetization explained like
2. 0:03you're 5 years old, man. In this video,
3. 0:05guys, I want to show you how we took our
4. 0:08game from making around 175k
5. 0:11in the past 72. Okay? It was at 1k CCU.
6. 0:15This is the exact same game that you saw
7. 0:16in my last video.
8. 0:18It was on a run rate for around 6k USD
9. 0:20per month. And recently,
10. 0:23we've almost doubled CCU, more than
11. 0:26doubled CCU,
12. 0:27and revenue has gone up like 3x. And
13. 0:30it's on a run rate to make close to 15k
14. 0:33a month. And I'm going to show you guys
15. 0:34in this video
16. 0:35how I think monetization,
17. 0:38what our best-selling dev products are,
18. 0:40why I set them up the way I did, how you
19. 0:43can use basically the same mental model
20. 0:46and thought process to apply to your own
21. 0:48game. Let's dive straight into it. So,
22. 0:50here is what we did. And I'm I'm a big
23. 0:52proponent of this. You guys see me talk
24. 0:53about this in a lot of my videos is
25. 0:55number one, we looked at the data. Okay?
26. 0:58Simple, straightforward, dude, right? I
27. 1:00go here. I go look at my top products. I
28. 1:03look at which one is selling the best.
29. 1:05Okay? I go sales in descending order.
30. 1:07What's my best-selling product? Now,
31. 1:08what was the best seller? In our game,
32. 1:10there's a speed mechanic. You run. Okay?
33. 1:12Best seller was plus 10 speed. I'll just
34. 1:15put it like that. Okay? That was our
35. 1:17best seller. Now, what's the simple
36. 1:19logical thing to do? Oh, well, let's
37. 1:21just add plus 30 speed as a dev product.
38. 1:23Let's add plus 100 speed for our whales.
39. 1:26Okay?
40. 1:27That might seem straightforward, but
41. 1:28like, dude, when I tell you when I first
42. 1:30started working on this game, we only
43. 1:31had plus 10 speed as a dev product.
44. 1:34Okay? So, we just added more options,
45. 1:36made it more expensive.
46. 1:38Simple, straightforward, and that became
47. 1:41our new best seller, okay, for a hot
48. 1:43minute. Now,
49. 1:45what happened next?
50. 1:47I was in the game observing player
51. 1:50behavior. Okay? Talked about this in
52. 1:52last video. Talked about qualitative
53. 1:53data.
54. 1:54Simple, straightforward. Play your game
55. 1:56and just see how people are playing it
56. 1:58cuz your game won't always be played the
57. 2:00way it was intended to be played. What I
58. 2:02mean by that is our game is not really
59. 2:05an AFK game. It's a very active game.
60. 2:06You have to run in between the servers
61. 2:08to collect data. But what I saw is a lot
62. 2:10of players were playing AFK. Which kind
63. 2:14of made no sense to me cuz I'm like,
64. 2:16"Dude, you can't even collect data AFK."
65. 2:19Some of you guys might think, "Oh, just
66. 2:20add an auto collect game pass." Here's
67. 2:22something I want to talk about. You have
68. 2:23to be careful with the products you sell
69. 2:25cuz this obviously seems like simple
70. 2:28solution, add auto collect. But what's
71. 2:30that going to do? That could potentially
72. 2:32wreck the entire economy of the game.
73. 2:35Okay, bro? So, we didn't add auto
74. 2:37collect.
75. 2:38All right, spoiler.
76. 2:40What I noticed though was these players
77. 2:41that were AFK, they were getting wrecked
78. 2:44by PvP. What do I mean by that?
79. 2:46Basically, in our game you have bats,
80. 2:49like Stealing Brains Right, you can
81. 2:50smack other players, you can steal data
82. 2:51from their servers, and these AFK
83. 2:53players were having their data stolen
84. 2:57like [ __ ] crazy, okay? Also, if you
85. 2:59played Oil Empire, this is also a
86. 3:01mechanic in the game where you can steal
87. 3:03gas from people's refineries. Okay.
88. 3:06So, what do we do?
89. 3:07I looked at different games in the genre
90. 3:10and I saw One other thing I want to
91. 3:13mention
92. 3:14is that there were confirmed complaints
93. 3:16in the feedback. So, again, if you go
94. 3:18here,
95. 3:19you go to audience feedback, okay? There
96. 3:23were complaints in here
97. 3:25about "I'm tired of being attacked
98. 3:29and stolen from and targeted, okay?"
99. 3:32Now,
100. 3:33this isn't something that we just added
101. 3:36in. Like, the stealing mechanic was
102. 3:37always part of the game, but we just
103. 3:38noticed this was a friction point for
104. 3:40players where their [ __ ] was getting
105. 3:42stolen. A lot of them were AFK. It was
106. 3:44frustrating for them. So, what we did
107. 3:46first is we added a base lock feature.
108. 3:48Okay? You guys have seen this in
109. 3:49Stealing Brains Right's classic, right?
110. 3:51Every 60 seconds or so, you can lock
111. 3:53your base, no one can get in. Okay, we
112. 3:55added that to our game. Oil Empire
113. 3:56doesn't have that by the way. I took
114. 3:57this from a different game in the in the
115. 4:00same genre, okay? And then what did we
116. 4:02do next? Of course, we added a dev
117. 4:04product where you can lock your base for
118. 4:0624 hours. Now, I'm a huge proponent of
119. 4:09dev products versus game passes when it
120. 4:11comes to consumables. What do I mean by
121. 4:12consumables?
122. 4:14Consumables basically means
123. 4:16can be purchased again
124. 4:19and again. If you think about
125. 4:21e-commerce, some of the biggest brands
126. 4:22in the world are CPG brands, consumer
127. 4:25packaged goods. These are your
128. 4:27toothpaste, these are your supplements,
129. 4:28these are anything that can be purchased
130. 4:30again and again.
131. 4:32This also works really well in Roblox,
132. 4:34okay? So, 24-hour base lock, we added it
133. 4:37in literally 2 days ago and it's already
134. 4:39our top seller now. Like if I go here
135. 4:42and I go to overview,
136. 4:45okay, and I go to dev products,
137. 4:47you'll see
138. 4:49that's last 28 days. We'll get into
139. 4:51this, 2x offline earnings.
140. 4:53But you'll see last 7 days and we
141. 4:54literally added this product yesterday,
142. 4:58bro.
143. 4:59Lock for 24 hours, okay? This is huge,
144. 5:01guys, because there's a stat
145. 5:04when it comes to your home wrecks.
146. 5:06If you go to acquisition, you go home
147. 5:09wrecks.
148. 5:10There is this stat called 7-day spend
149. 5:12days per user and it's exactly what it
150. 5:14says here, the number of unique days
151. 5:15individual users spend Robux in your
152. 5:17experience over 7 days. This basically
153. 5:20means if you have a user, how often did
154. 5:22they spend Robux over a 7-day time
155. 5:24period and consumables really pump this
156. 5:27stat because they can buy the 24-hour
157. 5:29lock today, they can buy it tomorrow,
158. 5:31they can buy it the next day and the
159. 5:32next day. Same thing with 2x offline
160. 5:34earnings, which I'm going to get into,
161. 5:36okay? So,
162. 5:37again, with this mental model that I
163. 5:39have showed you guys in the last video
164. 5:41where it's research, form hypothesis,
165. 5:43launch update, check results, research,
166. 5:45right?
167. 5:46What I did
168. 5:47is some competitor analysis. If you look
169. 5:49at sell lemons, very common in other
170. 5:52games as well. It's 2x offline earnings.
171. 5:54And again, not a game pass, it's a
172. 5:56consumable.
173. 5:57Meaning, if they buy it today, they're
174. 5:59not going to have it tomorrow. They're
175. 6:00going to have to buy it again tomorrow,
176. 6:01okay? So, saw that a competitor was
177. 6:03doing it, I wanted to test it. Our
178. 6:05original game design was to have 2x
179. 6:07offline earnings be a game pass. This is
180. 6:10where a lot of people go wrong.
181. 6:12They think, okay, this is super valuable
182. 6:132x offline earnings or 2x cash, things
183. 6:15like that. Let me make it into a game
184. 6:17pass. But, you're hurting your stat here
185. 6:19when it comes to 7-day spend days per
186. 6:21user. You want to experiment with
187. 6:23consumables. This is just what I've
188. 6:25experienced. This is what is it
189. 6:26literally every time we add a new
190. 6:28consumable that solves a big friction
191. 6:31point in the game, it always becomes a
192. 6:33new best seller, okay? I remember saying
193. 6:34to David, like, bro, watch 24-hour lock
194. 6:36become our new best seller. So, start
195. 6:38thinking in the world of consumables.
196. 6:39Sell lemons, this is I can almost
197. 6:41guarantee their best selling dev
198. 6:42product. Okay? Turn it into a dev
199. 6:44product, boom, 24-hour lock became our
200. 6:47best seller, okay?
201. 6:49Um it's actually our first best seller,
202. 6:50so ignore that. Anyways, last thing I
203. 6:52will say here, guys,
204. 6:54is improve your purchase pathways, okay?
205. 6:57What the [ __ ] does that mean? Okay.
206. 6:59Let me give you an example.
207. 7:01In our game, we had cash,
208. 7:03okay?
209. 7:04How can the player buy cash? This is the
210. 7:06way it was previously. The player could
211. 7:07only buy cash via
212. 7:10opening the shop icon.
213. 7:13Okay? In the
214. 7:15heads-up display, in the HUD, okay? You
215. 7:17guys see this? It's literally in every
216. 7:18single incremental tycoon, every single
217. 7:20game has that shop icon where they open
218. 7:23and they see cash packs, okay? This was
219. 7:24previously the only way player could buy
220. 7:26cash. What did we do? We added
221. 7:29this little guy.
222. 7:30This little plus icon, okay? Now, if you
223. 7:33tap this plus icon, this is now a new
224. 7:36way to access
225. 7:38the cash shop. If they click this plus
226. 7:40icon, it opens the cash shop, okay? now
227. 7:42we have two purchase pathways. What do
228. 7:44we do next? We added a third purchase
229. 7:46pathway, okay?
230. 7:48Which basically, what would happen
231. 7:50is if a player went to go buy something
232. 7:52in the game where they don't have enough
233. 7:53money, they would get this error, right?
234. 7:55You don't have enough money. Now,
235. 7:57I've talked about this with devs in the
236. 7:58server and asked them, "Hey, if they
237. 8:01don't have enough money, should you just
238. 8:02directly open the cash shop?" The
239. 8:04overall consensus is no, okay? It can be
240. 8:06very annoying. It can hurt your play
241. 8:08time. And again, something you want to
242. 8:10think about is when you're creating
243. 8:12these products, what is the impact it's
244. 8:15going to have on my other stats, okay?
245. 8:17If I have a 2x offline earnings, I need
246. 8:19to make sure that my economy long-term
247. 8:21of progression compensates for that,
248. 8:24okay? Cuz you don't want to wreck your
249. 8:25in-game economy. Now, back to this. We
250. 8:28had this pop up. Someone went to go buy
251. 8:30something, they didn't have enough cash.
252. 8:31It says, "Error, you don't have enough
253. 8:32money." Okay, what did we do? We simply
254. 8:35had it where the second time after they
255. 8:38see this error, it will show the cash
256. 8:40shop. So, the first time it's just like,
257. 8:41"Hey, error, you don't have enough
258. 8:42cash." Second time it's like, "Hey,
259. 8:44error, you don't have enough cash." The
260. 8:45third time they go to do it, it's like,
261. 8:47"All right, buddy. Do you need cash?
262. 8:49Obviously, you need cash. Here's the
263. 8:50cash shop." And we directly open the
264. 8:51cash shop on the third time they go to
265. 8:54purchase something and don't have enough
266. 8:56cash, okay? And this pop-up where it
267. 8:58goes straight to the cash shop only
268. 9:00happens, I think we have it three or
269. 9:02five times per play session right now,
270. 9:03so it's not super intrusive, but it's
271. 9:06there for players that don't realize it.
272. 9:07So, what do we have now? Now, we have
273. 9:10three purchase pathways to this one dev
274. 9:13product, okay?
275. 9:15Now, purchase pathways, they can be UI,
276. 9:17they can be physical parts in the world,
277. 9:19which I'm going to get into. But, the
278. 9:20more purchase pathways, the better.
279. 9:22Usually, not all the time. You're going
280. 9:24to want to experiment, but just think
281. 9:25about what is intuitive for the player.
282. 9:27This plus little cash thing, I saw this
283. 9:29in tons of different games, not in Oil
284. 9:31Empire. You guys know our game's heavily
285. 9:33inspired by Oil Empire. But, this is why
286. 9:35it's important to study other games and
287. 9:37see what mechanics they use and just
288. 9:40form a hypothesis and think to yourself,
289. 9:42will this work for our game? And [ __ ]
290. 9:44test it, bro. For us, this drastically
291. 9:46improved cash sales, okay? Cash is not
292. 9:49our best-selling product. I think the
293. 9:50one bill cash is, but
294. 9:53we were basically selling no cash before
295. 9:55we improved the purchase pathways, okay?
296. 9:57Now, one more thing I want to mention
297. 9:59that I've
298. 10:00come to learn, that's been taught to me,
299. 10:02is the placement of the actual dev
300. 10:05products themselves is very, very
301. 10:07important, okay? So, we added this lock
302. 10:09feature, right? When David first
303. 10:12designed this,
304. 10:13the way it was set up
305. 10:15was, let me do like a bright yellow,
306. 10:17okay? The way it was set up was this
307. 10:20free lock
308. 10:22was previously right where the dev
309. 10:24product is here, okay? But, I basically
310. 10:26told him to swap them,
311. 10:28okay? Cuz this is where the player
312. 10:30enters their base right here, right?
313. 10:33So, this is where their foot traffic is
314. 10:35going to be. This is where they're going
315. 10:36to be walking a lot, okay? So, since we
316. 10:39put the 24-hour lock right here, they're
317. 10:41more likely to see this than if it were
318. 10:43over here where the free version of it
319. 10:46is, if that makes sense. So, you want to
320. 10:48put your products
321. 10:50where the player is going to be walking
322. 10:55the most, okay? And these are commonly
323. 10:58referred to as POI, okay? Point of
324. 11:01interest, okay? This is where you want
325. 11:04to put your physical dev products and
326. 11:06create that new purchase pathway. It's
327. 11:08not just in the HUD, it's not just in
328. 11:11the UI, all right? You want to make sure
329. 11:14that your dev products, again, are
330. 11:18really close to where majority of the
331. 11:20foot traffic is going to be happening in
332. 11:22your game, okay? That's what we're
333. 11:24talking about when it comes to
334. 11:25placement. Now, one last thing I want to
335. 11:27say to wrap up this video. This is what
336. 11:29I noticed with our top-selling products,
337. 11:32okay? Our best-selling products directly
338. 11:35solved a problem {slash} pain. This is
339. 11:37classic just consumer psychology. You
340. 11:40see this in e-com. Products that rip are
341. 11:42products that solve a pain point. So,
342. 11:44let me show you guys what this looks
343. 11:45like for ours our game. So,
344. 11:48I almost said our store. Uh plus 30
345. 11:50speed, what problem is that solving? The
346. 11:52problem is I don't want to have to wait
347. 11:53and grind and that's the pain of effort,
348. 11:55okay? This product is relieving
349. 11:59this pain.
350. 12:01Okay? Very simple, straightforward, but
351. 12:03just keep that in mind when you're
352. 12:04creating your products. One bill money,
353. 12:07okay? Same exact problem. It's the pain
354. 12:09of effort. I don't want to have to grind
355. 12:12and get all this cash. I have the Robux,
356. 12:14why can't I just buy it? Again, you want
357. 12:15to be careful when you are having
358. 12:17anything related to your economy because
359. 12:19you can completely destroy your game's
360. 12:20economy. Okay? You don't want to just
361. 12:22make it like one bill money is like nine
362. 12:24Robux. Like, that's going to cook you,
363. 12:26bro. Trust. 24-hour base lock.
364. 12:29What was the pain that this was solving?
365. 12:31I don't want people to steal my stuff
366. 12:33while I'm AFK.
367. 12:34Right?
368. 12:36Very simple, straightforward. This is
369. 12:38now our new best-selling consumable.
370. 12:4024-hour base lock solves a direct pain.
371. 12:43Okay. Limiteds.
372. 12:45This one is interesting
373. 12:47because you might not think, okay, it's
374. 12:49it's not it's not a pain, but
375. 12:51technically could be related to a pain,
376. 12:53right? What are limiteds? In our game,
377. 12:55we have RGB antenna, RGB server. They
378. 12:58are by far our best-selling antenna and
379. 13:00servers. Why? Because there's limited
380. 13:02stock, limited inventory. We say, "Hey,
381. 13:03there's only 100 of these for sale.
382. 13:05There's only 150 antennas for sale." And
383. 13:08the pain that it's solving is I don't
384. 13:09want to look like a filthy casual when
385. 13:11I'm playing. I want to flex on everyone.
386. 13:14Okay?
387. 13:17Interesting, right? 2x offline earnings.
388. 13:19What pain is that solving? Well, this is
389. 13:21the pain of missing out on huge gains,
390. 13:24right? Think about sell lemons. You come
391. 13:27in and like, "Dude, I've made 85
392. 13:29trillion, or I could double it?
393. 13:31Man, I don't want to miss out on that,
394. 13:33right?"
395. 13:34And again, it's the timing and placement
396. 13:36of when these dev products actually
397. 13:38show, because in our game, for the
398. 13:40collecting offline earnings,
399. 13:42when the player walks over this part to
400. 13:44collect their offline earnings, okay,
401. 13:46right here, that's when the prompt pops
402. 13:49up and says, "Hey,
403. 13:50do you want to 2x that?"
404. 13:5219 Robux. It's cheap.
405. 13:55And you get twice as much data as you
406. 13:56would have previously, okay?
407. 13:59Now, one last thing I'll say to wrap
408. 14:01this up is products should feel like a
409. 14:02must-have, not a nice-to-have,
410. 14:05okay? Basically, what that means is they
411. 14:07should be solving a pain. This can vary
412. 14:10genre to genre. I'm not going to pretend
413. 14:12like I'm an expert in every genre, I'm
414. 14:13definitely not. I'm still [ __ ]
415. 14:15learning, bro. I literally, you know,
416. 14:17this is one of the first games that I've
417. 14:18helped hit this amount of revenue, okay?
418. 14:21And I'm just sharing with you guys
419. 14:22everything that me and David implement
420. 14:23along the way, what became the best
421. 14:25seller, the thought process behind it,
422. 14:27and ultimately just comes back to this
423. 14:29again, which is research, form a
424. 14:31hypothesis, launch an update, check
425. 14:34results. Did it work?
426. 14:36Yes, keep it. If not, revert it, okay?
427. 14:38Check results is not just did I make
428. 14:40more Robux. You want to also see, did
429. 14:42this dev product absolutely cook my
430. 14:44playtime? Did it absolutely destroy my
431. 14:45D1? Did it hurt my D7? Okay, did it hurt
432. 14:48my session time? Did it hurt the
433. 14:49first-time user experience? All these
434. 14:51things you want to keep an eye on, all
435. 14:54right?
436. 14:55Hope you guys got value from this video.
437. 14:56This is everything that we've been
438. 14:57learning as we are scaling this game,
439. 14:59and uh if you have any questions, let me
440. 15:02know. Also, Discord link will be in the
441. 15:04bio, pinned comment, always. So, that's
442. 15:06it. Peace and love.