Hello game developers, and welcome back to another thrill
a minute episode of Game On.
So if you're paying attention to Google I/O this year,
you might have noticed that in addition
to all those Android powered watches, and cars, and TVs,
and blenders and stuff, we launched a major update
to the Play Games service.
In addition to exciting features like quests
and save games-- which I will talk about in future episodes
I promise-- every user now has their very own game
profile which they level up as they play.
This game profile will be visible throughout the Play
Games experience.
Players will see it as soon as they're
signed in to any game using game services.
It's the first thing they see in the Play Games app,
and the players can compare their game profile
with that of their friends.
And at every point along the way,
we're showing players what level their profile is at.
Here I can see that I'm at level 15,
while my manager Rado is only at level 7.
Clearly my manager, he's a bit of a slacker.
And so with all the work we're going
to be doing raising the visibility of this game profile
level, I think it's safe to assume
this is the metric by which most people will start measuring
their contribution to society, and overall value as a person.
Or at the very least, it's something a lot
of your players, particularly the competitive ones,
are going to care about.
So how do players level up their game profile?
By unlocking XP.
And how to get this XP?
By earning achievements.
We convert achievement points to XP
by using a fairly complicated formula that I don't want
to get into right now, because it's a lot of math.
And uh, oh, actually it's just this.
Every point you decide an achievement is worth,
it's roughly equal to 100 XP in the Play Games app.
So as players start caring about their game profile level,
they're going to start caring about how much XP they earn.
And as players care about the XP they earn,
they're going to care about the achievements
you put in your game, and how much they are worth.
So use these achievements well, and score them appropriately,
and they can be a powerful force to keep players
happy and engaged within your game.
So let's talk about making sure these achievements
are scored correctly.
And that starts by having a decent number of achievements.
We took a look at our 100 top performing games
with achievements, and found that they average
about 30 or 40 achievements per title.
So put in a good assortment of achievements.
Once you have that, you then have the freedom
to add in a mix of achievement difficulties, right?
Variety is the spice of life, maybe after salt.
So you want to add some tough achievements that
might take players some extra effort to earn,
as well as a few easy ones that players will earn just
in the natural course of playing your game.
Once you've done that, you can now
score these things appropriately.
We recommend make the easy ones worth around 5 to 20 points,
the medium ones about 25 to 45, and the hard to epic
ones in the 50 to 100 point range.
Now remember, you have a maximum of 1,000 achievement points
per game.
So if you're making a game with 100 achievements,
you're going to need to score them
a lower on average than our recommendations.
But that's OK, a lot of achievements, that's fun too.
Also keep in mind that if you've got some future expansions
planned for your game, and you have achievements to go along
with each of these new expansions-- and you should--
don't use up all your points right away.
Keep a few in reserve, so that you then
have some achievements points to spend
on each of these new updates.
But what do you do if you've created
what you think is a little one off project,
and it becomes a surprise hit?
Well good problem to have I guess,
but now you want to add more updates,
and you want to add more achievements
with those updates.
But you've already used up your 1,000 points.
So now what?
Well it turns out we do give you the ability
to change point values of your achievements
even after they have been published.
So you can reduce the value of some of your older
achievements, and then you have a few more points
to spend on the new ones.
Now if you do this, your current players,
they're going to get to keep the points they've
earned for their older achievements.
So that means your most loyal fans, who maybe earned 1,000
points from your original release,
they're going to be able to earn more than 1,000 achievement
points total.
Which in the grand scheme of things
isn't so bad-- you're rewarding your most loyal players--
but don't do it too often or it'll
start get confusing if players notice that they're
getting scored differently than their friends.
Second, double check that your achievements are, well,
achievable.
Have you gone and made five secret achievements
that nobody can actually earn?
Yes, we know who you are.
And in fact, if you've done this,
you've probably seen that we now hide the achievements
portion of your game in the Play Games app.
And maybe your players noticed earlier, and didn't care much.
Because it's a bummer to not get achievements,
but it's not the end of the world.
But now this means they can't level up by playing your game.
And maybe they decide to ditch your game
in favor of something similar that will increase their level.
Maybe that's not a risk you want to take.
Just a thought.
But on the flip side, you also need
to watch out for giving away too many achievements too early.
Watch out for making your achievements so easy
that they earned in the first 30 seconds of your game.
Partly, this is a big missed opportunity for you, the game
developer, because you've used up all your achievements
before your player has had a chance to really
become invested in your game.
But also, if you give away too many points too quickly,
it may trigger some rate limiting alarms on our end,
and you might find that your achievements aren't worth
as much as they ought to be.
So remember, it's OK to have easy achievements,
but they should be ones the players earn
through the course of naturally playing your game, not ones
they are just by pressing the Start button,
or finishing level one.
Finally, you might have noticed that we not only tell
each player the amount of XP they've earned,
but we break it down by game category.
Here you can see that I'm clearly a puzzle player,
as shown by my title Puzzler.
While my friend Damien, you can see
he's a little more of a racing player.
And our official titles are based
on the games we've earned the most points in.
So my last piece of advice for you
game developers is make sure you have your games category
set correctly in two places.
Yes, two.
Both here in the Play Store listing,
which you've probably already done,
but also here in the game services detail page.
Yes, you need to set it twice.
Once is for the Play Store, and the other is for game services
to use for the user's game profile.
So this will make sure we're not recommending your match three
game to a bunch of racing fans, and we'll also make sure
that players won't level up as a music game aficionado
by playing your first person zombie shooter.
So there you have it, folks.
The new game profile is on an Android device near you,
and is going to sweep across the nation
like a stampede of majestic wild ostriches.
Now you can harness this stampede
and ride it to fame and glory.
or wind up with a bunch of talon marks on your face.
It's up to you, your fate is in your hands.
Just remember.
One, create a varieties of achievement
and set their scores appropriately.
Two, don't do the five secret achievements
that nobody can actually earn thing.
That's not cool.
And three, set your games category correctly.
So thanks for tuning in.
You keep making great games, and we'll keep playing them.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a "Flappy Bird" clone
that I'm trying to port to my Android blender.
So I gotta get to work.