Upselling techniques

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I know there's a thread on this every few months, see

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=1730

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3843

but I wanted to start a fresh thread, maybe with fresh ideas.

One thing in particular I wonder about is why games sold through portals seem to ignore upselling in their trial versions.

I've been told this is because its too hard to know whether you're running in 'full' mode or in 60 minute trial mode, because the wrappers enforcing the restrictions are entirely external. But I wonder if there are ways, at least for the DRM systems used by the top 4 or 5 portals, of querying a DLL and finding out if you're in demo mode or not, and doing some upselling accordingly?

And beyond the technical limitations, if any, what are the business concerns here - do Real, Yahoo, BigFish etc want you to be doing this stuff, or do they view it as a hassle to test and a possible customer support issue, thus not wanting it at all?

Finally, does anyone have any hard data on what difference effective in-game upselling has on C.R. as against the simple, somewhat crude external wrapper enforcing a 60 minute limit? A/B test results would be awesome.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Also, here are a few specific techniques I'm wondering about:

1) 30 vs. 60 minute trial
2) Level limits in addition to time limits?
3) 2 to 5 minute 'additional play' allowed after free time elapsed?
4) How often to hit users with nag screens in-game.
5) How much to push 'more games' type links in-game.
6) Examples of particularly effective nag screens.

[cliffski]

One place where all upsell fails (if you ask me) is its very first showing. If I download a demo and run it, I don't want to be nagged to buy it befiore even playing it. That's really irritating. Skip the first time!

[arcadetown]

Each wrapper has api calls to query if game is registered or not. Just plug in Armadillo, Trymedia, and Real's and should be good for most all portals.

Implementation: Just have a setting file where can set a flag saying wrappertype so the game calls the appropriate wrapper api functions. While at it just plug in settings for the in game buy now and more games url links and viola you make 1 build and it works for all the portals.

From what I've seen good techniques increase sales by 20 - 50%+. Many portals give higher placement based on better CRs thus by doing so bet you'd get double whammy of better CR and more downloads.

[arcadetown]

Also, here are a few specific techniques I'm wondering about:

1) 30 vs. 60 minute trial
2) Level limits in addition to time limits?
3) 2 to 5 minute 'additional play' allowed after free time elapsed?
4) How often to hit users with nag screens in-game.
5) How much to push 'more games' type links in-game.
6) Examples of particularly effective nag screens.
#1 depends on game. #3 should give 2 minutes additional and is controlled by game wrapper (when available).

#5 just need at bottom of the main menu. You wouldn't want "more games" on a nag screen as there you're trying to sell the game and not other/more games.

Check out Clash N Slash (http://www.arcadetown.com/clashnslash/gameinfo.asp). One of the best examples IMHO. Nags every few levels that changes and appears more aggressively as use the game and the live action exit nag kicks butt!