Chris Williams, VP & General Manager of Free-to-Play (The Winter Nights: Mobile Games Conference http://www.wnconf.com/en)

1. Best Practices in Free-to-Play
Winter Nights Mobile Games Conference 2013
Chris Williams, VP & GM of F2P at Big Fish

2. Who is Big Fish?
Big Fish is the world’s largest producer and publisher of casual games.
• Founded in 2002.
• Has distributed more than 2 billion casual games.
• Launches A New Game Everyday!® for PC & Mac.
• 3,000+ games, 550+ game developer partners worldwide.
• Games sold in 150+ countries in 12 Languages.
• 250+ unique mobile games and 800+ SKUs across iOS, Android,
and others.
• Offices located in Seattle, WA; Oakland, CA; Vancouver, Canada;
Cork, Ireland; and Luxembourg.

3. You will learn today:
• How Big Fish is succeeding in F2P Casual
• How F2P is different than Premium Casual
• Best practices in F2P Retention & Monetization
• Why Big Fish is the best global partner for F2P
casual games

4. F2P Terminology:
• KPI – Key Performance Indicator
• DAU – Daily Active User
• MAU – Monthly Active User
• ARPDAU or DARPU – On average, how much money
am I making per day per user?
• CPI – Cost Per Install (paid)
• LTV – Life Time Value – Total money spent by a user
while playing a game.

5. Free-to-play Casual Today
Mobile PC / Mac
iOS Facebook
• Top grossing charts dominated by F2P • Facebook games are losing users
• Hit driven business - #10 grossing • ARPUs on are lower than iOS
makes 10x the $ of #100. • User acquisition costs are high
• Cost per paid install >$4 • Developers are shifting to Mobile
• Market is saturated, devs need a
publishing partner with users and
customer reach
Android
• A lot of users and devices, but ARPUs
are < 20% of iOS
• Device Fragmentation makes
development a challenge

6. Big Fish Free-to-play Casual Today
Mobile PC / Mac
iOS Big Fish PC App Store is now launching:
• 1.5M New Installs per Week • Ports of Mobile & Online games
• 3 very successful F2P Games: • Original Partner Content
• 2 very successful F2P Games are Live:
Android
• Casino is has shown strong results.
Big Fish is ready to fund, publish, and distribute your F2P games ideas!

7. Big Fish 2012 F2P Game Bookings
With only 3 F2P games, Big Fish grew F2P bookings by 275% in 2012
$4,000,000
$3,500,000
Net Bookings Per Month
$3,000,000
$2,500,000
$2,000,000 +275%
$1,500,000
$1,000,000
$500,000
$-

8. Big Fish Casino
The #1 Mobile Social Casino App in the World for over 12 months
U.S. App Store Top Grossing Rank
1
20
40

9. Fairway Solitaire
Ongoing updates since launch have improved monetization by 300%
Daily Revenue
UPDATE
UPDATE
+300%
6/1/12 7/1/12 8/1/12 9/1/12 10/1/12 11/1/12 12/1/12 1/1/13 2/1/13

10. Found: A Hidden Object Adventure
Hit #1 Free game on iOS at launch. Strong and consistent ARPDAU.
Average Revenue per Daily Active User
$0.25
Average Revenue per Daily Active User
$0.20
$0.15
$0.10
$0.05
$-
Found on iOS

11. Premium vs F2P Casual Games
Premium Free-to-Play
Casual Casual (F2P)
Game Product Service
Content Static Dynamic
Reasons to Play Relaxing Collecting
Customizing
Competing
Collaborating
Play with others? Single Player Social
Average Weekly Play 10 hours 20+ hours
Average Session Length 1-2 hours 10 mins

12. Premium vs F2P Technology
Premium Free-to-Play
Casual Casual (F2P)
Technology Client Client
Big Fish Provides this for Partners + Server
Social Features
Game Configuration
Content Download
In Game Promotions
F2P requires daily iteration. Waiting 3 – 4 weeks for approved client updates is too slow.

13. Premium vs F2P – Revenue
Premium Free-to-Play
Casual Casual (F2P)
Risk of no Revenue Low Very High
Peak Revenue Month Month 1 Month 6 +
% of Paying Users 20% + < 5%
Revenue per Paying User $5 - $20 $1 - $5,000+

14. Premium vs F2P – Your Team
Premium Free-to-Play
Casual Casual (F2P)
Team Before Launch 5 - 10 5 - 10
Team After Successful Launch 0 10 +
Team Roles Production Production
Engineering Engineering
Design, Art Design, Art
Quality Assurance Quality Assurance
Customer Support Customer Support
Localization Localization
Big Fish Provides this for Partners Launch Marketing Customer Acquisition
Game Data Analyst
Consumer Insights
In Game Marketing

15. F2P Retention
The most important Metric for success in F2P is your game’s retention.
Q: Is my game’s retention 10%, 50% or 90%?
A: It can depend on how you measure it.

16. F2P Retention
Tracking a user’s in game activity every day since first install.
100%
90%
Retained User Percent (Active)
80%
70%
Most users will only play for a day or two
60%
50%
40%
30% Some users will play every day for a very long time
20%
10%
0%
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61
Days Since Install

17. F2P Engagement & Retention
Frequency of play and long term retention will vary by game type.
Source: Flurry

18. Fairway Solitaire Retention
Tracking the % of active users who are retained month to month.
MAU Retention
100%
90%
Churn 80%
New
70%
60%
50%
40% Typical Range
Users Users 30%
20%
10%
0%
Month 1 Month 2

19. Fairway Solitaire Retention
Daily courses dramatically improved retention and monetization

20. F2P Retention Best Practices
• Focus on the First User Experience: < 5 mins.
• Provide a benefit for users to play constantly.
BAD: PLAY WAIT PLAY WAIT PLAY
GOOD: PLAY WISH I WAS PLAYING PLAY
• Create anticipation around upcoming
content, events, promotions, and updates.
• Have daily bonuses and motivations to play
• Notifications can drive 20%+ of all sessions.
• Social connections will benefit long term
retention.

21. How important is Social?
• Big Fish Casino players have created over 9.6
million friendships.
• Over 100,000 players have > 10 friends.
• The most popular player has over 13,000
friends.
• Players with > 100 friends are much more
likely to have purchased and play regularly.
Big Fish Confidential

22. F2P - Monetization
With ARPDAUs improving, some F2P games can now succeed with fewer users
DAU
100
Example Game 1
DAU 100,000
ARPDAU $0.05
Daily Revenue $5,000
Example Game 2
DAU 10,000
ARPDAU $0.50
Daily Revenue $5,000
47% of the Top 1000 F2P games have > $0.25 ARPDAU
Source: Flurry

23. F2P Revenue Concentration
100%
90%
80%
70%
Percent of Revenue
A large number of paying users will pay very little
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
A small number of paying users will pay a lot
10%
0%
Percent of Paying Users

24. F2P Monetization Best Practices
• Show users a FREE way to success and reward.
• Don’t think of monetization as a trick or a tactic.
– It is a user expressing appreciation for your game.
• Retention first, monetization second.
– Allows users time to love your game before asking them to
monetize.
– Create a “rhythm of play” before disrupting it.
• Users will value:
– Their time and convenience
– Creating ownership and pride
– Items that are scarce or rare
– Status and rank

25. F2P on Big Fish’s Global PC App Store
• Reach 1.2 Billion PC Users
• 14 million unique Gamers visiting each month
• First F2P games with in-app purchasing have launched
• Both online and PC downloadable F2P opportunities
Apple’s iOS App Store
2010 2012
Premium F2P Premium F2P

26. F2P on Big Fish’s Global PC App Store
Big Fish Confidential

27. Found: A Hidden Object Adventure
Avg revenue per daily user on PC is 4x the same game on iOS.
Average Revenue per Daily Active User
$0.70
Average Revenue per Daily Active User
$0.60
$0.50
$0.40
$0.30
$0.20
$0.10
$-
Found on iOS Found on Big Fish PC App Store

28. What you learned today
• F2P represents a big opportunity, but with high risk and
a steep learning curve.
• F2P services are very different than Premium Casual.
• Retention is your most important measure of success.
• Big Fish is the best global partner for your F2P games.
– Proven track record of hit F2P games and growth
– Distribution on both Mobile and PC – 4x iOS ARPDAU
– Large existing user base of paying users
– Long term view of F2P game services and partnerships
– Development, technology, and live ops support

29. THANK YOU!