Effect of nagging

[SteveZ]

I've done an experiment with nag screen which may interest developers:

"Cactus Bruce and the Corporate Monkeys" is a shareware game and has been launched only for a month, however it has gotten fairly strong sales for me to see the effect of nagging customer to purchase the game:

**********************
Version 1.0 - Passive Approach: October 13th-31st
*No nag except when level 14 is hit, game jumps into the buy screen.

Billing Page Hits: 13.3%
Completed Product: 1.8%
**********************

**********************
Version 1.1 - Humor Approach: November 1st-13th
*In addition, Exit button in game jumps to Buy Page (which you then can exit again to quit game). Buy Button in game moves to catch attention.

Billing Page Hits: 14.3%
Completed Product: 3.0%
**********************

There are some other variables that effects the number, such as customers who take their time to buy the game, slight enhancement of v1.1 and others. However, the pool of data is quite large that suggest the nagging in v1.1 has boost the sales to more than 50%.

I'll also experiment with more aggressive nag effects in the future and see how it affect sales.

Hope this helps.

[Nauris]

hmm, thats some interesting information. Could you maybe take a screenshots of various nag screen versions and attach them as well? It could give better feeling of various approches you tried.

[cliffski]

yes very interesting. As a consumer i hate intrusive nags, but they do work. The ones i hate (and dont use) are where a full screen app has some countodwn timer before you can quit at the games end. I know how to use alt tab, alt f4 thankyou very much.

surely if someone presses escape, they dont WANT to read your nag screen, so let them quit!

I use different levels of nag depending how long someone has owned the game. The first run through has no end game nags at all. after x days i get a webpage hit at the end etc.

[svero]

Well maybe I'm mistunderstanding. It's hard to comment without seeing the two versions, but it kind of sounds more like a test between giving the customer the information they need to buy and hiding it. I mean the potential customer may never even reach level 14.

[SteveZ]

Good point Steve V. v1.1 is pretty much showing them the buy screen even if they don't hit lvl 14.

I didn't add any new objects in the game from v1.0 to v1.1. v1.1 merely redirects the user to the buy screen after he/she exits the game AND the Buy button moves left and right periodically (thought it was funny).

-Steve Z.

[terin]

Yes, given the large increase in completed product vs. the smallish increase in billing page hits I think it has a lot more to do with informing the user than it does the nag screen its self.

[Black Hydra]

One point I found very persuasive was used by Dweep (dexterity).

What he did, was after you finished the game you could click Buy Dweep Now or Don't Buy. When you clicked Don't Buy it brought up a webpage that basically was used to dispell any possible reason for not buying the game. He went over any concerns and reassured you. While I didn't buy the game myself, I was very tempted, which is odd because before downloading it didn't look like a game I would even like, let alone buy.

By telling your customers that your aware of their concerns and by helping to relieve them you can get more sales.

This isn't exactly nagging, but the webpage was brought up when I clicked "Don't Buy" (assuming the program would close...)

[merovingian]

One point I found very persuasive was used by Dweep (dexterity).

What he did, was after you finished the game you could click Buy Dweep Now or Don't Buy. When you clicked Don't Buy it brought up a webpage that basically was used to dispell any possible reason for not buying the game. He went over any concerns and reassured you. While I didn't buy the game myself, I was very tempted, which is odd because before downloading it didn't look like a game I would even like, let alone buy.

By telling your customers that your aware of their concerns and by helping to relieve them you can get more sales.

This isn't exactly nagging, but the webpage was brought up when I clicked "Don't Buy" (assuming the program would close...)


Steve Pavlina is so the Tony Robbins of indie game development. I love that guy...