A new mechanism illustration through an idea for a freemium mobile and social game..
Nothing begins without a name, so let's call it Go-Woo
(based on Gòuwù 购物 translated from “shopping”). The corresponding app for Advertising is titled Wo-Goo which works in tandem
with the game.
The Target Segment - Chinese young and mid aged women
Target Market:
Singapore, Hong Kong, China & other techno-commercial places
Alternate Markets: A re-branded game for other markets, like US, Europe,
India employing the same concept but targeting different sentiments, culture
etc..
Background Philosophy:
- Chinese like to shop. They are especially drawn to shops offering special discounts or offers. They generally wait to buy something until a seasonal sale starts.
- Chinese are drawn to simple, colorful, cute games on iPhone/iPad.
- Urban dwellers are having less access to play with pets and it’s getting more and more expensive to own a pet.
- Current Groupon style offers are less popular in the region, or the people are too busy playing the free games to notice the offers.
Objective
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The main objective of the game is to nourish a virtual
pet and to keep it happy. When it gets happy, it rewards the user by a
mini-game (simple puzzles). On successful completion of the mini-game the
users are rewarded with the best deal in town…
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Game-play
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Users register their profile and get to choose their
pet (fish, cat, rabbit, parrot etc. maybe a dragon). User personalizes it and
learns its unique requirements. Each pet needs its own habitat, its food, its
toys, etc. The user needs to find the suitable food/habitat in the pet store (well
guided by a friendly staff). Users can buy using his pet currency. The pet
currency increases over time and grows based on how happy the pet is.
Users are notified when the pet needs attention, they spend
time playing with the pet and making the pet happy. There are enough things
to do to keep the user engaged for him to keep the pet happy. Once the pet
becomes sufficiently happy, it gifts the user a mini-puzzle to solve. This
could be either a Jigsaw/Tangram/match3 (other simple puzzles popular with
the culture), On success, the pet gives users a real shopping offer as a
reward from a shop in the current locality that can be redeemed by visiting
the shop within the next 12 hours (flash sale offer).
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Social
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Users invite their friends on social network to visit their pet. They visit with their pet and bring gifts or leave pet currency behind. The pets become friends. The pet periodically tracks the friends’ pet and knows when the pet is close by (of course, users need to allow this). The pet gets excited and starts jumping around (leaving notifications) to let the users know that the friend is nearby along with the virtual pet friend. Users can choose to place a call / message the friend to meet/interact.
Users share the promotion to their friends on the network, and leave a trail of happy mood texts from their virtual pets..
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Monetization
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It’s a Freemium app and the strategy is to engage the
users in the game and make them wait patiently for pet currency to accumulate
or alternatively buy it from the store. Users can buy bundles of essentials
for the pet as packages that lasts a week/month. They can buy cute, adorable
decorations/clothing at a certain price and keep the pet constantly happy, in
order to get more deals..
Advertising is the main option. This is the new
innovative idea for the game. The advertising is creative, rather than the traditional
ad banners in the app. Small shop owners/retail outlets can be approached to
join in this campaign. The Advertisers download another advertising paid app
(called Wo-Goo) which allows them to configure campaigns for their products /
service and launch it to targeted audience who are in the locality. These
offers end up on the installed Go-Woo game users. These are offers that lead
to a flash sale and thus the validity of the offer is limited to less than 12
hours. The Advertiser gets to target the ad to users in the locality or to
every user of the app. The app tracks and provides detailed reports to the
advertisers about the ad campaign for measuring effectiveness. The pricing
model is cost/per campaign charged through Ad-credits, based on the type/size
of promotion. Advertisers buy Ad-credits
before-hand and launch these campaigns; they get a discount for buying
credits in bulk. Registered advertisers get prompts of when the time is right
for the campaign, based on the number of installed game users in that
locality etc.
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Disclaimer: No idea is perfect on its own, and need further refinement through collective brainstorming and usage testing. I have tried to innovate a new and an efficient Ad-model which plays on psychology of the user that motivates to play more by rewarding more offers. The innovation is in this mechanism of engagement-reward-shop.
