Hi, I was just re-reading Steve P's article: "How to Permanently Increase Your Sales by 50% or More in Only One Day". In it he mentions that if you are time crippling your demo you should add feature crippling as well and vice versa. I am currently employing the feature crippling by only allowing upto level 8. I'm making a few sales here and there, but I get the feeling that even if people like the game, there is no strong incentive for them to "Buy Now" rather than "Buy Later" at which point they could just forget about the game entirely.

So I am asking everyone whether or not they think I should add a time or try limit to the game and if so, how long? If you haven't tried the demo, you might-as-well do it now ;) I was thinking maybe 5 tries, or 10 days or something like that, but I don't have enough marketing experience to know which fits MY game. Any tips?

Thanks

Ya, I think you should definely take a wack at some sort of time or times of play cripple.

If you REALLY want to know though, you are going to have to test this. Use the old Cookie order tracking to figure out which restrictions work best for your game.

one size doesn't fit all, but generally speaking, it doesn't seem to hurt to put some time pressure in there and will likely be pretty effective. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk, or enough of it for free? You probably
need to cut them off at some point until they give you some coin.

You should probably test:

# of plays
# days
# minutes

Each in diffrering amounts.

This was discussed a couple of weeks back... now where is that thread?

Basically there were some pro- and anti- time crippling arguments raised; I was leaning towards the anti- side, but acknowledging that it's a difficult (or, at least, deceptive) thing to test... it stands to reason time crippling should always make your sales go up in the short term... but over the lifetime of the game, harder to say...

In our game, ThinkTanks, we used both time and feature crippling in the demo. The original demo version of the game (which shipped on GarageGames) did not have a time limit, and it appears that the time limits on the demo did up the conversion rate by about .4% based on data I was tracking at the time.

A really short time-out actually appeared to decrease conversion.

I think that what to put in the demo and how to upsell is really game specific. No one formula works for all games.

No sure way to say how long the timout should be. Some tests should give you the answer. My own feeling is that one hour is too short and over 3 hours for free is getting to the point where it won't make any noticible difference in your sales.

Here's the earlier thread:

http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2153

Feature crippling seemed only to hurt sales of my game. Time & limited use crippling seems to have done the trick, in addition to ingame buy screens which enable you to purchase the game without having to exit - that has probably seen my conversion rate increase by 25%.

I personally don't like feature crippled games, and they're never an incentive for me to buy. I want to know about everything I'm getting first and see it all in action. Time crippling works brilliantly when you don't feature limit the game.

Cas :)

Thanks Anthony for the link. I have re-read that thread and am even more confused about my specific situation than before. If my game was an action shooter I would definitely time limit the demo... but I guess I'm asking what do you think I should do with MY game specifically? For those of you that have never played it:

It is a puzzle/mind-bender game where you are an apprentice wizard learning the ways of magic as you solve more puzzles. Every couple levels you get a new spell which affects the way you can solve puzzles. Right now I am offering 3 tutorial levels, and the first 5 actual levels in the demo. Honestly I don't have enough player data to know whether or not people are even finishing the demo at all. Would time crippling work in this case? Maybe I can use positive incentives as Steve P has done where he offers them a reward for ordering within the first 10 days?

Hmm, since it's a puzzle game I think limiting the levels as you say should work pretty well. Agressive time crippling, with this sort of game, really annoys me; and I'm sure I'm not alone. Gives an unpleasant panicky feeling in what should be more of a nice contemplative game.

But, you really need to make sure that people ARE completing the levels. Do you have hints and solutions supplied?

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
Hmm, since it's a puzzle game I think limiting the levels as you say should work pretty well. Agressive time crippling, with this sort of game, really annoys me; and I'm sure I'm not alone. Gives an unpleasant panicky feeling in what should be more of a nice contemplative game.

Thats the one thing stopping me from putting it in.
Maybe adding the bonus for buying quickly (as mentioned above) would be better than actually limiting the time available?

But, you really need to make sure that people ARE completing the levels. Do you have hints and solutions supplied?

There are hints online (for the demo levels for now, eventually will have all the level hints). In ToW v1.1 (not yet released) I have included an Online Hint button inside of each level that brings you to the appropriate spot on the hints web page.

With this sort of game the tried & true model is to reveal as many features as possible in the demo and provide only a limited number of levels. No need to limit replay or time at all. The incentive to play the game is based on wanting to solve more levels.

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
With this sort of game the tried & true model is to reveal as many features as possible in the demo and provide only a limited number of levels. No need to limit replay or time at all. The incentive to play the game is based on wanting to solve more levels.

Cas :)

So maybe the demo levels need to be easier? I have a feeling some people are giving up before they complete the demo... then again others have said the demo levels are too easy.

I think casual "clicky" gamers don't usually finish the demo, but gamers that love a good puzzle seem to think its too easy. Arggg

Hi Bruno,

I was going to take a look at your demo before posting but the download link on your site isn't working right now.

My opinion is that your 3 tutorials and 5 game levels is a good trial without needing any kind of time limit. As a potential purchaser of your game, I want the demo to reflect the actual game I would be buying. If the actual game does not have a timer component and lets me solve the puzzles at my own pace, then the demo should do the same.

Looking at your demo, I know exactly what I am paying for if I get the full version: 40 more puzzles. If the 5 demo puzzles don't interest me then neither will the other 40 -- a timer isn't going to give me incentive to purchase. It could, however, cause me to not buy if I find the puzzles interesting but the game times out before I can finish the 5 demo puzzles.

Does your demo allow you to see the other 40 levels? Dweep lets you see the starting setup for all puzzles but only lets you play a few. I think one of the Dexterity articles says that this increased sales since the demo user could clearly see what was available in the full version.

-Tom

With Aargon I have it level crippled and it seems to work pretty well. When I developed our first mahjongg game I was kind of stuck. I didn't know how to cripple it. Mahjongg is infinitely replayable. I could cripple features, but in a mahjongg title the only thing you're competing on is features really. How does your title differ from other titles. So I decided to go with a combination of time and nag crippling instead. Snake was yet another case... it's got replay value... so I can cripple levels but will people just replay the early levels until they've had enough. I use a mix, time and level crippling in that case.

I'm often amazed at utility demos that have features crippled. I download a demo of something to do a particular job and then I can't test if it suceeds or I like the way it does that job. That's why the smarter util companies cripple in a way that you can still see what the tool does but you can't just use it for free. In many cases though utilities use a 30 day limited system.

My personal view on this sort of thing is that the game or app itself dictates how it should be crippled much in the same way a game might dictate the style of music you'd want to use. A game like Werlin doesn't have a lot of replay value, so once you've finished the free levels there's not much fun to be had unless you get some new puzzles. So the kind of crippling you're doing is probably right for that game AS LONG AS the player can clearly see what they're missing. You want to ensure that if there's some cool stuff coming up that comes out in the game itself and not in some list of features on a text screen. Try to cut them off in such a way that they're really curious. Imagine a game where you get a new spell and you go to use it and just as you're about to see it the first time you get cut off! or a game where you get to a new world and just as you start to play you're cut off. Frustrating but effective if the thing your teasing them with is at all compelling.

@Tom Cain - Hmmm... not sure why you couldn't download. If you get time could you try it again? Thanks.

@Tom Cain and Svero - ok i think i'm getting it now. From what you said it might be best to keep my level incentives the way they are, but instead of just blocking the full levels, I should let them "look but not touch".

Thanks everyone

It would be a great incentive to actually be able to see nearly all the levels but not play them. And the cherry on top would be the last 10 secret levels that you can't see but know are there ;)

Cas :)