good afternoon now if you looked on the
program you'd have seen the title of my
talk was hunting whales and iPhone which
hopefully got you a little bit intrigued
what's it going to be about well I'm
gonna start we're looking at maybe just
very quickly the history of mobile games
I'm only gonna do it in one slide which
is quite a challenge when you think
about it it's about 20-ish years now
probably most of the audience didn't get
to experience snake on the rocky or
iPhone but you are kind of what I would
call the iPhone generation so you
entered your secondary score roughly the
time the iPhone originally came out and
we saw the birth of smartphones and the
birth of games that you could download
and play on the go there's been an
example from the year 2008 when the
iPhone first came out but today we move
on to high fidelity products such as
call of duty mobile a modern example of
games and what we've looked at across
the course of these years is the
diversity in the funding model of the
way that you pay to play these products
to give you some numbers the computer
game market alone in the worldwide is
worth about a hundred and thirty eight
billion dollars that's a lot of money
it's as much as film and music combined
in the UK alone if I ask you how many
game companies there were operating out
of this out of the UK you'd probably say
10 20 30 it's well over 2,000 the vast
majority of those are working on mobile
games which accounts for about half the
amount of money seventy billion dollars
that's an awful lot of money but the
problem is they're cheap often free I'm
sure all of you you've got smartphones
full of free games we've downloaded and
played for a while so how on earth do
they make all this money and that's what
I'm going to look at over the next few
minutes but we've got a problem free
trial of this talk has ended I'm afraid
you're getting it straight away so what
a lot the rest of this talk it's been a
free ride all day to be honest I'm going
to charge you 650
my currency the Ralphs rupee and the way
I'm going to offer you those coins to
buy well you could spend just a pound
and get 50 or I'll send you 500 for five
pounds or I'll sell you 50 for sorry ten
thousand for fifty pounds but you can
see they're deliberately designed to
confuse you large numbers compared to
the real currency that we work with the
pounds
it's the monopoly money syndrome you
might have encountered this if you've
gone to certain countries abroad where
the amount of money you're paying for
things you don't really know how much
it's costing notice the combinations I
want 650 or Alfre piece for you to
continue my talk you can't buy 650 you
can just about do it by having 500 and
350s but your feeling as if you're
missing out and notice the best value
offer I'm offering you any one bold
enough to take that so what I'm looking
for now is that need to get sings 154 of
rupees
let's buy to lots of 5 pounds anyone got
10 pounds I was willing to pay I'll look
at this I'll just check it's real they
think they're getting it back at the end
not this time thank you very much
purchased a thousand rupees for ten
pounds and we've unlocked the rest of
the talk so I can continue and this kind
of progress lock is is really common
what we have here is an example Super
Mario run where they gave you the
initial levels of the game and then
charge you about 10 pounds to unlock the
rest of it it's not a new idea
those of us old enough in the audience
were no game called doom on the PC was
basically what a concept could shareware
that gave away the first version it was
shared around months people if you
wanted to play past the first level then
you sent your $30 and I mean
sent your $30 or 30 pounds because there
wasn't an Internet this is 1993 was the
very rudiments the internet and you
unlock the rest of the game now again to
you and I 60 million dollars might sound
a lot of money but it's not we are only
in the chunk change here if therefore
the money says spit and that mobile
games earn yet so this is not the best
way to make money out of mobile games
I've just had lunch I'm really tired
run out of energy so I'm going to go
away and have an hour's rest now or I
tell what we could do I'll let you
unlock an instant recharge for me
just spend another of my hundred rupees
now luckily thousand less 650 where 350
left so we'll spend some of those and
this kind of energy progress
is used by a lot of games this is one
that probably quite a few of you have
played clash of clans and it's used to
control the progress of the speed
through the games that you make these
tiny gaps are putting real blocks on
your activity and these games are clever
they're very clever because clash of
clans will let you build level one of an
item in just a minute or two level two
couple of minutes level three a few tens
of minutes they might offer you a free
bonus that allows you to our locker an
hour or so quite quickly but they're
hooking you in and eventually you get to
the mechanics where it's going to take
you a day or three days and then they
throw a threat mechanic at you a friend
have start to attack your town and you
think oh if I could just get my fault up
to the next level or my wall not
necessary in this game but what loads
games are like the same then a small
payment will let you continue and once
you start paying you continue to pay now
this game is estimated to have generated
for supercell around six billion dollars
this games free so by not selling it to
you and just working on unlocks and time
progress and things like that they've
generated a very large amount of money
we move on oh I'll tell you what I've
got a few slides that have been blue
let's sit let's let's you know let's
chat it up a little bit we'll sell you a
new colored background where we could go
for cool purple but doesn't look much
different under this light nor does
steel I look today only limited edition
background the brushed gold a Sony 750
this money has become not important to
us now thrown away we paid the 10 pounds
that's safely in my pocket as a
developer and you've got this 250
kicking around let's have a new look
thank you very much straight away to the
new background brush gold the cosmetics
cosmetic in came as some of you might
predict the game we're gonna be talking
about here for tonight all on mobile to
be fair we're into the big
zone here now multiplayer games often
feature these paid Cosmetics because you
want to show off to your friends you
want to be playing the game you want to
have the latest skin the emotes the
dance the floss and you want to be after
you know perform these in front of your
friends the children wanting this the
latest thing there may be less insidious
and pain to actually win like the
previous game but they're still there
they're still impacting on their on on
the model they've got to get their money
somehow out of you but they tend to
feature the hard sell if you think back
to maybe the times we were in school did
you have friends that had more money
that were unlocking things or it doesn't
even have to be digital this is new and
digital but they're physically people
that had better clothes different things
than you and you wanted them you crave
them that need to have the latest thing
to match your peers to match your
friends and this is where the hard sell
comes in and my message is starting to
develop here I I don't like this kind of
thing this is where we are going to the
children and and people that don't have
the control the self-disciplined we have
to decide intelligently what they're
spending their money on there won't be
many of us in the audience that have got
children but believe you me when you do
and they reach the age that that can
play stuff like this you will get
pressurized for this kind of thing so my
message starting to come across here now
it's only three billion you think what
we've just seen a six billion well that
was in one year and we'll go on I am
sure to be one of the biggest grossing
games of all time so is it's making that
much money out of people that's nice a
nice surprise part the way through the
talk I'm going to offer you a loop box
now these are very clever because I'm
offering you something that looks
extremely shiny it's the big treasure
chest it's never a little paper bag is
it so it's the treasure chest is always
the promise of greatness the list of
possible rewards is endless hundreds of
Ralphs rupees that we could spend we
could be offering you exclusive
backgrounds or it's used for cosmetics
to your for any of your friends would be
able to get any other way unless they're
as lucky as you
well you might win specific
today an amazing finish to this talk but
it's locked I want you to be paying up
another hundred Ralph rupees to open it
and believe you me when you're playing
the games you'll get way way more of
these chests than you will ever have the
money or the keys to unlock so why not
I've got a couple hundred left let's
gamble Oh a rare prize win it's quite
nice if I won the mystery talk ending
I'm surprised in this one ah oh well
okay as we can see there in the early
19th century the River Thames had a
pretty problem with pollution okay I'm
only joking I don't know whether any of
you read through that and I've spotted
the additions I made that too late
didn't loot boxes now this game here
some of you may have encountered but
majority probably wouldn't have done
this is a Korean game and it's probably
the number-one earner in the world and
they make their money out of an egg
machine that unlocks rare monsters to
use in this game nothing real nothing
tangible is just the the thought of
being able to collect
I know Pokemon collect them all but at
least you buy that outright and the idea
being that they have made all their
money by selling this promise have been
able to get a rare reward unobtainable
items and features and the odds are
massively stacked against the player
with these things you may have watched a
youtube video of people unlocking a load
of these boxes that the cards for the
FIFA game are a classic example they're
not silly the manufacturers to these
games have contacted these popular
youtube videos given them a hundred
packs that have been set to one to
release rare objects way more often than
you're ever gonna get so you're a
impressionable young person you log in
you think I'm interested in buying some
of these pranks let's have a look what
comes out and you watch your favorite
youtuber and they get maybe five or six
really good items and you think odds
don't so mad I'll have a go and that's
where they catch you okay it's not a
massive amount more than the other ones
that catching up but it's at the top of
the
sharp seven billion dollars estimated
very much on that game it could be a lot
more than that because it's very
difficult to tell it being an overseas
product interesting stuff oh that's the
bane of our life when we're playing
these free games and that's what we get
that's the last way we can be made to
pay and if you play some of the more
recent stuff it is heavily adverted not
only will they make money from selling
adverts in the games they'll charge you
to unlock it without the adverse so
we've got a hundred left you didn't
think you will get away with any zero
but anything other than zero by the end
of this presentation so we'll remove the
adverts from the rest of the talk thank
you for the payment they're commonly
used to fund entire games but they're
also used to supplement the other
methods that we've seen today it's
difficult to estimate the total revenue
but mobile advertising is worth roughly
the same as mobile gaming about seventy
billion a year so an obviously mobile
gaming takes a chunk of act so we've
probably be talking about half of the
money is made from just pure advertising
so you are selling yourself to the tune
collectively across the world of thirty
five billion dollars looking at those
adverts clearly a big chunk of your time
being spent there we come to this last
bit it was called hunting whales with an
iPhone so where does the whale come into
it well all of these systems can be
manipulated and this is the point we
come to companies such as the supercell
we saw earlier hire professionals to do
this psychologists analysts marketing
experts and they also spend this money
to make it is now estimated to get an
user that will pay to play the game
because most people download them they
throw them away when they're forced to
play and it may be only 5 or 10% that
will pay and start paying you might
spend as much as five dollars to secure
that user and this is where the money's
going this they're spending it are
feeding back into a machine a cycle to
convince you to invest in their products
where's the whale the big spenders are
called whales those people that spend
money on games once you start spending
you keep spinning and it can get to ten
pound
for 100 pounds or in rare case there's a
thousand pounds and they are whales and
their whole departments in companies now
that and believe you me they're paid way
more than their developers making the
games they don't out there trying to
secure you as a whale so my message is
basically don't be the whale think about
what these tricks are doing to you think
about the way that you are probably
wasting in the vertical us your time
playing these games and you think it's
something free it's something fun but
they're not these people are very clever
they're manipulating your behavior might
not be in this game might not be in the
next game might be a 5 games down the
line maybe when you leave University and
you get a job that's paying you think
what's a-matter
paying five pounds to play this I enjoy
it I kind of agree with you but why not
spend that five pounds on just buying a
game let's reward the developers the
innovative people the people who have
actually been creating this stuff and
actually buy something outright rather
than being hooked onto that line and
fished up by these companies that want
to basically hunt you down as whales
with your iPhone's thank you as a little
bit okay thank you