Mastering F2P Cosmetics Monetization in Games
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful discussion, Anton Bernstein, CEO of Pocket Worlds, delves into the nuances of cosmetics monetization in free-to-play games. He highlights the importance of understanding player psychology and the significance of social status in driving cosmetic purchases. Bernstein also addresses the impact of secondary markets on cosmetics sales, the role of user-generated content, and the cultural differences in monetization strategies between Eastern and Western markets. The conversation offers valuable insights for game developers looking to enhance their in-game economies.
Takeaways
- 😀 Cosmetics monetization is crucial for long-term success in free-to-play games, especially on mobile platforms where it's challenging to find success.
- 🔍 Understanding player psychology and why cosmetics matter is essential for successful monetization, as is recognizing the importance of collectibility and secondary markets.
- 🎨 The presence of a secondary market, like in 'Counter-Strike: Global Offensive' (CS:GO), can significantly influence the primary market by creating a sense of value and rarity around cosmetics.
- 💰 The way cosmetics and non-cosmetics are sold can affect scarcity and player perception, impacting the monetization strategy.
- 🤝 The connection between cosmetics and user-generated content (UGC) can enhance player engagement and the perceived value of in-game items.
- 🏙️ Anton Bernstein's company, Pocket Worlds, has experienced significant sales in both primary and secondary markets, with the majority of revenue coming from cosmetic content.
- 🎮 Multiplayer and competitive games, like Battle Royale titles and team-based games, tend to perform well in cosmetics sales due to the social and status-related aspects of these games.
- 🧐 The fairness of a game (i.e., fair-to-play versus pay-to-win) can impact the sale of cosmetics, with purely cosmetic items often doing better in fair-to-play environments.
- 🔑 High engagement and time spent in a game are strongly correlated with cosmetics sales, as players become more invested in their in-game identity and status.
- 🌐 Cultural differences between East and West affect monetization strategies, with Eastern markets often favoring more direct paths to high-status items through spending.
- 📈 Tracking KPIs and metrics, such as conversion rates, depth of spend, and equip rates, is vital for assessing the performance of cosmetics in a game.
Q & A
What are the key aspects to consider when discussing cosmetics monetization in free-to-play games?
-The key aspects include understanding player psychology behind cosmetic purchases, the role of collectibility and secondary markets, the methods of selling cosmetics, and the relationship between cosmetics and user-generated content.
Can you explain the 'paper clipping' concept mentioned in the script?
-Paper clipping is a form of social crafting where players trade up low-value items for higher-value ones incrementally, aiming to acquire rare or valuable items within the game.
What is the significance of the secondary market in cosmetics monetization?
-The secondary market can significantly impact cosmetics monetization by creating a platform for players to trade items, adding a layer of collectibility and speculation that can drive the demand for cosmetics.
How does the presence of a secondary market affect the economy of a game?
-A secondary market can lead to challenges such as exploitation, fraud, and inflation if not properly managed. It requires careful control to prevent the economy from becoming unstable or turning into a speculative bubble.
What are some of the potential dangers of having a secondary market for cosmetics in a game?
-Dangers include the risk of inflation, exploitation, and the loss of control over the in-game economy, which can lead to a poor experience for new players and disrupt the balance of the game.
How does the concept of 'mimetic' behavior play a role in cosmetics purchases?
-Mimetic behavior refers to the tendency of players to buy cosmetics because others are buying them, driven by a desire to fit in or be part of a community, which can significantly influence the popularity of certain items.
What is the role of vanity in the context of cosmetics in games?
-Vanity is a primary motivation for players to purchase cosmetics, as it allows them to express their identity and status within the game world, often to impress other players or to stand out visually.
How does the cultural difference between East and West affect the monetization of cosmetics in games?
-Eastern markets tend to be more accepting of pay-to-win mechanics and gacha systems, while Western markets often prefer a fair-to-play approach, valuing skill over in-game purchases.
What are some metrics or KPIs that should be tracked to evaluate the performance of cosmetics in a game?
-Key metrics include conversion rates, average revenue per paying user (ARPU), depth of spend, equip rates, and the value of items in the secondary market if present.
What is the importance of community in driving the desirability of cosmetics in a game?
-The community plays a significant role in determining the popularity of cosmetics by dictating trends and expressing collective preferences, which can drive the demand for certain items.
How can the battle pass system impact the sale of cosmetics in a game?
-The battle pass system can drive meaningful conversion by offering a series of rewards that players can unlock by engaging with the game, which can include cosmetics and contribute to player retention and monetization.
Can you provide an example of a game that successfully implements a secondary market for cosmetics?
-Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is an example of a game with a successful secondary market for cosmetics, where players can trade and sell skins, contributing to the game's overall economy.
Outlines
🎮 Introduction to Cosmetics Monetization in Games
The video script opens with a discussion on cosmetics monetization in free-to-play games, led by Anton Bernstein, CEO of Pocket Worlds. The conversation aims to explore why players purchase cosmetics and the importance of understanding player psychology and collectibility. Anton highlights the significance of secondary markets for cosmetics, using CS:GO as a prime example, and touches on various topics including scarcity, sales methods, and user-generated content (UGC) related to cosmetics.
🏆 The Impact of Game Type on Cosmetic Sales
Anton elaborates on the types of games that successfully implement cosmetics sales, focusing on multiplayer PVP games like Fortnite and Counterstrike. He explains that the time spent in these games and the competitive nature foster a desire for status and self-expression through cosmetics. The discussion also covers the difference in motivations for cosmetics purchases in simulation games like Highrise, where social status and identity play a crucial role.
💰 Fair Play and Pay-to-Win Models' Influence on Cosmetics
The conversation delves into how the fairness of a game affects cosmetics sales. Anton suggests that in games with a pay-to-win model, the intrinsic value of cosmetics can be overshadowed by the desire for power and progression. He contrasts this with fair play games, where cosmetics are more about self-expression and time spent in the game, and where high engagement correlates with higher cosmetics sales.
🤔 Player Motivations and Perspectives in Cosmetics Purchases
Anton discusses various player motivations for buying cosmetics, including self-expression, status signaling, and speculation. He also addresses how the perspective of the game (first-person or third-person) influences which cosmetics are more popular. For example, weapon skins are more sought after in first-person games like CS:GO, while emotes and dance moves are popular in Fortnite due to their visibility.
🎉 The Role of Secondary Markets and Speculation in Cosmetics
The script explores the concept of secondary markets for cosmetics, using the example of CS:GO to illustrate how active secondary markets can drive primary market sales. Anton explains the speculative component of cosmetics purchases and how it can be influenced by the availability of a secondary market. He also discusses the potential dangers of uncontrolled speculation and the importance of managing the in-game economy.
🌐 Cultural Differences in Cosmetics Monetization
Anton highlights the cultural differences between Eastern and Western players in terms of their approach to cosmetics and spending in games. Eastern players tend to prefer games that allow immediate high spending for status, while Western players value effort and fair play. The discussion also touches on the challenges Western games face when entering the Eastern market due to these cultural nuances.
📈 Tracking and Managing a Cosmetics-Based Economy
The script provides insights into the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for managing a cosmetics-based economy in games. Anton emphasizes the importance of tracking conversion rates, depth of spend, and equip rates to understand how well cosmetics are performing. He also discusses the challenges of managing economies with secondary markets and the need for careful monitoring to prevent inflation and exploitation.
🔄 The Dynamics of Primary and Secondary Markets in Cosmetics
Anton explains the dynamics between primary and secondary markets in the context of cosmetics sales. He outlines the different methods through which players can engage with the secondary market in Pocket Worlds' games, such as trading, marketplace listings, and secondhand grabs. The discussion also covers the importance of taking a rake from transactions to manage the in-game economy and prevent inflation.
🚀 Final Thoughts on Cosmetics Monetization
In the final paragraph, Anton shares his final thoughts on the potential and pitfalls of cosmetics monetization. He stresses that cosmetics can greatly enhance revenue and player engagement but only if players care about their in-game universe and social status. He warns against the misconception that simply introducing cosmetics will automatically generate sales, emphasizing the need for a well-designed and player-centric universe.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Cosmetics monetization
💡Free-to-play games
💡Player psychology
💡Collectibility
💡Secondary markets
💡Scarcity
💡UGC (User Generated Content)
💡Highrise
💡Battle Royale games
💡Fair to play
💡Pay to win
💡Engagement
💡Social signal
💡Gacha
💡IP Integrations
💡Economy management
💡Rake
Highlights
Anton Bernstein, CEO of Pocket Worlds, discusses the importance of understanding cosmetics monetization for long-term game success.
Key topics in cosmetics monetization include player psychology, collectibility, secondary markets, and scarcity.
CSGO is highlighted as an example of an active secondary market driving the primary market for cosmetics.
The significance of how cosmetics and non-cosmetics are sold in games and their impact on scarcity is explored.
UGC's role in enhancing the connection between cosmetics and user-generated content is examined.
Anton shares Pocket Worlds' experience with cosmetics in Highrise and Ever SKU, emphasizing the dominance of cosmetic content in their revenue.
Multiplayer PVP games and Battle Royale titles are identified as successful in cosmetics sales due to their social and competitive nature.
The impact of game fairness on cosmetics sales is discussed, with fair-to-play games potentially driving higher cosmetic revenue.
High engagement games like League of Legends and Valorant are noted for their ability to sell cosmetics effectively.
The perspective of the game (first-person vs. third-person) influences which cosmetics sell better.
The presence of a secondary market in games like Counter-Strike significantly impacts cosmetics sales through speculation.
Fortnite's sales strategy, including battle passes and IP integrations, is analyzed for its effectiveness in cosmetics monetization.
Anton emphasizes the importance of community desire in driving the success of cosmetics in games like Highrise.
Different player motivations for buying cosmetics, such as vanity, self-expression, and speculation, are detailed.
Cultural differences between East and West in gaming, particularly regarding pay-to-win and cosmetics, are highlighted.
The challenges and dangers of managing a secondary market in games, including exploitation and inflation, are discussed.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for assessing the success of cosmetics in a game are suggested for product managers.
Anton offers insights into Pocket Worlds' growth and hiring, inviting interested individuals to reach out.
Transcripts
hello everyone and welcome I'm here with
Anton Bernstein the CEO of pocket worlds
and today we are going to be discussing
cosmetics monetization and free toplay
games and before we kick it off Anton
what do you think are some of the most
important things we could cover when it
comes to uh cosmetics monetization and
certainly I think if if we look at the
market today and how difficult it is to
find success especially on the mobile
side maybe not especially I think I
think there's problems all over the
place I think it really is important to
understand how to monetize your game for
longer term success but when you think
about Cosmetics monetization like what
are some of like the
highlevel topics or issues that you
think about and we can dive into them
after after you um after we hear from
you the areas that I think are worth
exploring one is you know first of all
why do people buy cosmetics in the first
place uh because there's something about
certain games and certain products that
uh yield High cosmetic revenue and
others I've seen people try to throw in
cosmetics and they just totally fall on
their face um and so understanding kind
of player psychology and why Cosmetics
matter understanding uh
collectibility uh as a notion and how
that leads into secondary markets so
marketplaces uh of cosmetics and of
content in general um but a lot of kind
of big titles like uh csgo is probably
the best best example of um an active
secondary Market that drives the primary
Market um I think also thinking about
the way both cosmetics and non-c
cosmetics are sold in games and how
those methods might lead to
scarcity uh or not lead to scarcity uh
and then finally another interesting
place to explore is ugc and uh the kind
of the Inplay and the connectedness
between cosmetics and user generated
content and how those two kind of
interface with each other um um so I
think all of those would be interesting
to explore and then we can go even if I
forget to ask you about any of those
please remind me but definitely a lot of
great topics I think we can start to
cover um but just for our audience to
establish sort of like your expertise in
this area could you also talk to us a
little bit about pocket worlds and
high-rise and your experience actually
with Cosmetics just just to set a little
bit more context for our audience sure
so I started pocket worlds about 11
years ago uh we have two products today
highrise and ever Skies we do about 30
plus million dollar in sales or so uh in
the primary market and our secondary
Market is quite big almost hundred
million uh annually that's people kind
of transacting with each other in our
in-game currency uh and pretty much the
entirety of it you know maybe 80 to 90%
is cosmetic cosmetic content um and so
yeah we've kind of invested heavily in
that uh heavily in the secondary Market
uh most of that comes out of high-rise
but also ever SKU is the social Avatar
platform that also has uh well the
entirety of the revenue there is
Cosmetics is just meaningfully smaller
than than highrise okay and maybe we
could start with one of the topics that
you mentioned which is like the kinds of
games that are able to successfully sell
cosmetics and so if you were to think
about some of the most successful games
that sell Cosmetics you mentioned csgo
obviously there's games like fortnite
and games of that nature that have
pretty high scale uh with respect to the
sale of Cosmetics based items but when
you think
about specific games and then the kinds
of games that are able to sell Cosmetics
extremely well what do you think what
what are those games and those kinds of
games yeah so I would say there's a kind
of a few different categories of which
games sell it best um so
of course multiplayer
PVP so often that's Battle Royale games
like uh fortnite or um you know team-
based games like a
Counterstrike there once people are
spending quite a bit of time and they're
playing
competitively they start to care about
status and how they look and how they
present themselves yeah you know you
look kind of badass killing someone with
a certain kind of cosmetic or a skin
that nobody else has and I would say
there's kind of two motivations there
one is um the way that these games are
designed they're designed in such a way
that um they're spectating after the
battling and so if you die you end up
spectating someone else you end up
seeing their cosmetic you end up
spending a lot of time looking at
Cosmetics like purely just time spent
visually looking at someone's cosmetic
they it's it's kind of designed whether
purposefully or just by virtue of you
know there's nothing else to do after
you're dead in a game of Counterstrike
um or a game of fortnite um but you end
up staring at somebody's kind of
Cosmetics right which one drives your
kind of purchase behavior um secondly uh
just the fact that um you care about
your status in this world and and that's
not just PVP multiplayer so for example
highrise is more of a simulation type of
game or product um similar to Roblox if
folks have heard of Roblox on the cast
but there as you spend more time in a
social world you start to care about
your status you start to care about the
way you express yourself the way that
people see you and so Cosmetics are a
huge way to show off your identity show
off who you are show off if you have
high status just like in real life you
know if you're wearing a I don't know if
you have a Birkin bag from Herz it
signals a certain kind of status and
certain kind of access um Cosmetics are
also a social signal so kind of the
kinds of games that I see it working in
they tend to be very heavily multiplayer
they tend to require quite a bit of time
and in those games in those worlds
people care about their status uh and
how they reflect their status and they
often do that through cosmetics and when
I think about Cosmetics I also wonder
about certain other factors that could
potentially impact the sales of
cosmetics in a game and so a couple of
things I I'd love to get your input on
is to what extent does a game that's
more fair to playay versus Pay to Win
impact the sale of cosmetics and then
well let's start there get your thoughts
and then I've got a couple other factors
I'd love to ask you about as well yeah
well okay if it's fair to play so say
it's you know um counter- strike you
know which is purely cosmetic there
there literally is no benefit to buying
valer fortnite yeah exactly um any of
these there I would say it is all about
how you present yourself and all about
kind of time spent so I would guess I
would venture to Guess that um dollars
invested for kind of the same person
kind of you know whether you're uh I if
you have the same-sized wallet dollars
invested for those games is highly
highly correlated to time spent so as
you spend spend more time you care more
about how you present yourself in that
game and so you end up spending more on
Cosmetics over time it's very highly
correlated to time spent and that's what
we've seen as well in high-rise um when
you start adding uh kind of pay pay to
play um if you look at you know um I
don't know uh a lot of the Eastern kind
of MMO games where you end up having the
kind of these big gotta purchases that
give you actually a lot of power early
on
um or TCG games where you're buying card
packs things like that um I would say
the the desire to have something that's
purely cosmetic is just uh intrinsically
nerfed in the player behavior and player
psychology and instead of something
being valuable because it's super scarce
that still exists to some degree you
know the Black Lotus is still the most
valuable card in Magic the Gathering um
to the tune of you know hundreds of
thousands of dollars I think actually
there was like a one million plus dollar
purchase in the recent past um but uh at
the same time because there's a power
progression and because things have
stats Beyond uh scarcity and have stats
Beyond status uh some of these kind
of pay to win power stuff um starts to
kind of supersede the problem is that or
I don't know if this is a problem but
the reality is that in a lot of these
games where it's not purely cosmetic
where you start to have power when you
start buying stuff with power uh the
game ends up getting stuck in this Loop
of requiring uh to uh kind of introduce
power creep and they start to power
creep items and they start to power
creep characters um they also have a
tool to change the meta so they can
either change the meta which sometimes
they do and you see that happen in like
a clash Royale
um where they're constantly tweaking and
changing the meta or they have to power
creep and power creep just means you're
you're turning and burning through
through Power and that's the way for
example if you remember game of war from
machine Zone that just was huge right it
was huge for a short period of time
billions of dollars in Revenue um and
then it just completely died and it
completely died because of power creep
and it was just designed to constantly
power creep um so it's kind a rambly
answer but I will say that you know the
tools that people have if they're going
to be selling through a gacha mechanic
or whatever something that gives power
are either power creep or completely
changing the meta can can you think of
any power creep games that do sell
significant Cosmetics as well I I can't
think of any
offhand
um
um yeah I'm not sure I guess there's
like some middle ground with um yeah
like character unlock games sure like
games where you're unlocking a character
because it is kind of fair to Fair kind
of fair play yeah like I think you're
generally right where you know I I think
pay to win you Pro probably generally
don't tend to see it as much cosmetic
cells and to your point as well like
whether it's League or these mobo type
games when they introduce a new champ
it's usually a little bit overpowered
and you kind of some motivation for
buying would be trying out somebody new
but also to increase your win rate
potentially and then they Nerf it later
um but yeah they changed the meta I mean
if you supercell I would say is really
impressive um with Clash Royale and
brawl star with I mean they they do have
it's not necessarily power creep it just
they keep changing the meta they keep
changing the dynamic like you know as
they introduce a character or as League
introduces a character it kind of de
facto Nerfs some other combination of
characters yeah and so that's the way in
which they keep it fresh it it's kind of
an interesting balance between power
creep and uh changing the meta that they
really kind of prevent the power Creep
by constantly changing the meta every
time they introduce some sort of
different power or unique power um and
that's why they spend so much time
tuning pre-launch of any
character the second factor I was going
to throw at you is something I just call
High engagement but like a League of
Legends or a valerant or these kinds of
games where you're just playing over and
over and over again I tend to think that
if you think about monetizing either on
the front end or the back end meaning
like front end meaning um willingness to
pay like you just love this game so much
that even if the devs have something
stupid like a whatever like a pink bunny
suit you're just like well I love this
game so much I want to support the devs
I'll just buy that stupid thing and then
payment optimization is more like the
game of war but it does to me seem like
and like you kind of alluded to it in in
answering the first question but you're
saying that the more time spent the more
highly engaging a game is the better
your odds are at selling Cosmetics is
that fair to say definitely yeah it's
super highly correlated to time spent I
will say also the the community what
what I've seen in high-rise for example
yeah is the the community often dictates
the desirability of content I mean we
have tools at our disposal to drive
scarcity so depending on how we sell and
we can get into merchandising cosmetics
and what that looks like yeah but in
general the community decides hey this
is this is something that's really
appealing this is something that we want
and uh because that's kind of the let's
call it the um kind of like the the the
cultural desire like what people in the
community want uh anyone who's spending
a lot of time in that world and cares
about their status and cares about being
part of that world start to buy it start
to consume it because you know they want
the status they want other people to
kind of see them as as um uh someone who
cares and someone who expresses
themselves the same way that others do
um a little bit mimetic in that way uh
and so I think that's another Big Driver
it's like in highrise for example we
can't just like sell some random thing
if if we just throw something out there
and the community doesn't see it as
something that's appealing or something
that's interesting it will do palpably
worse than something where the community
has kind of latched on to it and said
hey this is attractive this is
interesting and then there's a ground
swell of many many people who are
interested in buying that product um and
so there is the component of like yeah
we want to buy this because we're
spending time here but then also there's
the component of we want to buy this
because other people want to buy this um
because humans are mimetic in that way
the the third factor I wanted to ask you
about is perspective right and so
whether you're a first person or third
person if you're first person like inv
valerant and you're seeing your gun a
lot then you know I I would it's a lot
easier to sell weapon skins for example
but how much of an impact or I'd love to
hear your perspective in terms of you
know what you can sell or how well
Cosmetics sell depending on first or
third person perspective yeah um I think
it changes which cosmetic cell um I
don't know how much it changes whether
or not cosmetic cell like as an example
degree that itself yeah so fortnite if
you look at the breakdowns there was a
survey actually done of like a thousand
people people spending in in fortnite
and this was kind of the breakdown that
the survey identified 10% uh spent on
emotes or dance moves um 14% spent on
harvesting tools 18% spent on gliders uh
and then 60% spent on outfits or
characters um and an interesting
component for example of uh fortnite is
because it's this um kind of third
second person perspective y back items
are really valuable because you see the
back all the time right whereas in
Counterstrike it's all about the weapons
Y which weapon do you see because you're
spending all your time in this first-
person view um buying selling trading
weapons um but I would say both have
massive cosmetic demand despite having
different perspectives different angles
it's just which items are most visible
and so those are the items that people
are kind of drawn to or or into right
and then maybe the last last Factor I
would want to ask you about is it seems
like there may be different by the way
oh sorry one more thought on this yeah
please it's kind of an interesting stat
that almost 20% have spent on
gliders uh because gliders are not
visible in spectating mode so gliders
this is kind of an interesting one which
is you're buying it for yourself I mean
you're buying the buying the glider for
yourself you're getting the glider for
yourself you're not doing it so that
other people can necessarily see it um
so I think that's also kind of an
interesting reflection on you know is
this driving is this because of status
or is this because it just feels good
and I'm spending a lot of time here and
um I really want this glider to look
really good right and maybe this is a
question that we can also address when
we talk
about uh player psychology as well as
player motivations as well as primary
and secondary markets but it does seem
like there are some games that have a a
motivation to buy Cosmetics or
visibility and if you were to look at a
game like the banana game I don't know
if you've played that but that seems
like it's more speculation oriented and
I don't know to what degree you would
consider csgo a little bit speculative
as well but when it comes to like
potentially the reason why people are
buying Cosmetics um and having that
whether it's more of a a vanity
motivation or a speculation motivation
what do you think about that and how
that impacts the ability of the degree
to which you can sell cosmetics
yeah well it totally depends on and and
I would say this is a difficult aspect
of Designing a game it totally depends
on if there's a secondary Market
available or not so have the um creators
of the game chosen to implement a
secondary market so like you know if you
remember Diablo II with their auction
house yep you know they saw in Diablo I
big eBay Market I was playing Diablo I
and I was buying and selling items all
the time um in Diablo II
uh they leaned into that released an
auction house and it just totally fell
on its face partly because it was just
poorly drop rates were poorly designed
um I actually think the auction house
would have been great if they had
designed it uh correctly when with the
drop rates um but I would say that's a a
huge component so if you look at
Counterstrike and you look at all of the
different skins
marketplaces that exist around
Counter-Strike and if you look at all
the gambling marketplaces that exist
around Counter-Strike it is so clearly
clear that there's a heavy speculation
component um there's a heavy speculation
component around Counter-Strike and how
Counter-Strike cosmetics and secondary
content Works um and that's because
they've enabled and allowed this uh very
rich secondary Market you know the most
extreme version of this is crypto games
um I'm actually an investor in Sky Mavis
they make axi infinity and axi infinity
was probably the first highly
speculative um very successful uh game
with actual gameplay obviously there was
crypto kitties before that and um but um
there you saw it was pure speculation I
mean the whole thing and the problem
with speculation when it's pure
speculation is it almost takes over the
entire gameplay and it turns into a bit
of a um not a pyramid scheme but
um you know turns into a
bubble speculation is tough unless you
really control it and for the game
developer you know we think about this
all the time we think about our economy
and we think about our economy as GDP
and we think about our secondary Market
as a component of our GDP and we very
much control you know the levers that we
control is scarcity of content scarcity
of items um currency uh for example we
look um we look at a trailing 30-day uh
amount of currency in people's wallets
and if it goes too high or if it goes
too low we need to change something
about our liveops in order to not
inflate the economy or in order to not
deflate the economy but in order to kind
of manage the economy so that it doesn't
a it doesn't become a bubble but also it
doesn't become kind of nothing um and so
a secondary Market must be really kind
of I would say effectively controlled to
not basically take the whole game and
turn it into a big speculative bubble
game like beanie babies um so that
that's like a big component of secondary
but there's a lot of games out there
that don't have secondary as an example
fortnite does not have secondary and it
does 5 billion in annual sales um they
just have a ton of users in high arpu
because people are spending a lot of
time there and they care about their
Cosmetics right um League also doesn't
have a secondary Market um but you know
I would say probably Counter-Strike is
the best example of secondary Market
maybe Magic the Gathering and and
Counter Strike are are probably the two
best examples that I can think of right
and yeah I'd love to touch on that a bit
more maybe later but just to kind of
close the loop on specific games that
you think the audience should be aware
of when it comes to like really great
examples and as far as like key
reference games or emulation targets we
talked about csgo fortnite League of
Legends um and they seem to be primarily
either shooter games or MOBA games um
you also mentioned Diablo which is an
arpg but like are there any other
specific games that you think the
audience should be aware of and then the
followup to that would be in terms of
the genres what else is selling well in
terms of Cosmetics
besides clearly and obviously
shooter MOA and then what else like what
other
genres but maybe starting with like
specific reference games that you think
people need to need to learn yeah well
you know there's also the the you know
not not quite cosmetic um kind of M RPG
character-based games like a genin
impact or um you know fake Grand order
honkai star rail um these are more power
progression power creep Meta Meta
changing but then also um just very much
character-based uh and they obviously do
tremendous amounts of sales um you know
a billion a year for for um these
products generally um but but yeah I
would say um there's that category of
game there's uh also in our category of
game there's there's us there's Roblox
um to kind of a a smaller level there's
you know IMVU or um uh Second Life you
know to give you an idea second life is
purely cosmetic it's been around forever
right yeah you know they do um a
tremendous amount of Revenue they they
do if you include primary and secondary
Market about 180 million maybe 200
million in revenue and off of fairly
small base of users you know 50 60,000
concurrent um at the peak uh and so that
is for example a game where they're
selling um real estate scarce real
estate and items and content around real
estate and all of it is heavily ugc so
it it's really an old one but an
interesting one to explore um uh of
course Counter-Strike is is is the
biggest we talked about it you know
League DOTA um these kinds of uh kind of
competitive gameplay valerant um
uh Apex Legends too um was doing really
well on Cosmetics so yeah I would kind
of take a look at those uh pretty
heavily and maybe just talking about
okay so there's a lot there's
potentially a lot of developers in our
audience who are interested in in
selling
cosmetics and from your experience when
you think about whether it's the a
specific arpo Target for different kinds
of games or the the kind of depth of
spin that you could could potentially
get because for some of these like you
know like a like a game of war you could
potentially have someone spend one two
250,000 a
month and the those kinds of games can
you basically can drain the economy so
easily whereas in a Cosmetics based game
you know how many skins before it's
enough totally whether it's League you
know I've got these three skins or I've
got 10 shirts and I've got 30 pants you
know when how do you think about that
and what what the differences maybe if
there are amongst different kinds of
games yeah so uh I would bring it back
first of all to the notion of the
secondary market
so in a title that has a secondary
Market you do have the capacity to spend
you know in the case of csgo there was a
there there's actually a weapon that is
worth about $1.6 million right now so
you can spend $1.6 million buying this
weapon in fact it had an offer of 1.2
million um and so if there is a
secondary market and there is true
scarcity then there is the capacity to
spend a lot of money and in just one
purchase and it's not because you're
looking for power progression it's
because you're looking for status it's
the equivalent in real life of buying
you know the the fanciest branded suit
you know um there is theoretically
infinite depth and it really just
depends on people's available wallet and
how much they're willing to spend and
what their demand is for that item so I
would say in a world where you do have a
secondary market for Cosmetics uh it's
not that you're going to have a 100
shirts it's you're going to have one
shirt that's extremely desirable and
extremely valuable and somebody else
wants that shirt they want to buy it
from you um and so that drives a lot of
the meteor kind of spend on Cosmetics if
you don't have that then yeah I mean
um in general like capacity to spend is
a bit lower and it's a little bit more
consistent um I I've seen you know
different figures for fortnite um that
you know have been pretty broad I've
seen a figure of like $80 RPO I've seen
a dollar of $10 rpu um or figure of $10
rpu so there's some range there um
because their private is a little hard
to tell with with league as an example
in
2022 u based on the data that we looked
at um they were sitting about $12 arpo
with about 150 million monthly active
users in 2022 and about like say 25 to
35 million daily active users um so but
but it's hard to say there because you
don't see the the range the the kind of
the variability you just kind of see an
average arpo um how much of that is
carried by you know Big Spenders who who
have have very Deep Pockets um but again
League doesn't have that secondary
Market market so it to your point it's a
little harder to spend like $100,000 in
a pure cosmetic you know in fortnite
it's going to be hard to spend $100,000
and so they're relying on really really
big scale um and much higher conversion
and I would say fortnite for example is
kind of best-in-class on conversion you
know they really pioneered the battle
pass system and I think that battle Sy
pass system has actually driven
meaningful conversion uh combined with
you know High ma High engagement um and
so that kind of they're balancing It Out
by increasing conversion and they can
kind of afford lower arpo verse say a
lot of these e Eastern games you know a
lot of the big MMOs whether it's genin
or somebody else um they're having much
lower conversion you know probably in
the two to four per range if I had to
guess right um but they're having way
higher average revenue per paying user
you mentioned fortnite's battle pass and
speaking then to the form of sales of
Cosmetics so whether it's in a battle
pass or you're selling items
individually or selling as part of some
kind of gotta loot box of some kind or
some other form uh what what do you what
performs the best is is it battle pass
to sell Cosmetics that does the best or
um I think it depends on the title yeah
I think it depends on the title and the
type of title so a battle pass works
really well to convert Rel relatively
highly but at fairly low arpo right you
know with a battle pass you just can't
spend all that much you know I think the
most expensive battle pass that fortnite
has is maybe 25 bucks um something like
that uh and you know historically it's
been 10 bucks 12 bucks uh so you can
only spend so much so it's really good
if you're a mass product with really
Mass Appeal and you're driving up
conversion and your whole goal is to
drive up conversion and you have really
high engagement because the whole way a
battle pass works is you're really it's
kind
of I'll just kind of like detour here I
don't know if you remember Club Penguin
but but Club Penguin they kind of
designed the first um they called it the
Velvet Rope so they designed the Velvet
Rope I don't know if you ever heard that
term but I love it and it's basically
this idea that like little kids you know
they're playing Club Penguin for free
and they're earning currency but they
can't spend the currency until somebody
buys a subscription and so you're like
playing playing earning currency earning
currency and then eventually 20 days in
you have all this currency but you can't
spend it on anything because you can't
you need to buy a subscription and so in
Club Penguin the kids would then go to
their parents and be like look I did all
this work can you please buy a $10 a
month subscription so that I can spend
this currency and so a battle pass is a
version of that where you know if you
spend 20 20 days on this thing and
you've gotten so far this battle pass
and you have this whole track where you
you can buy it um but it's funny that
Club Penguin was doing this 20 years ago
um and it was a different variation and
it was like a different motivation but
they were doing this 20 years ago um but
anyway it's really great for
conversion gacha is really great if you
have more of a core game with a smaller
audience but it really is a core
audience it's it's less broad more
narrow
and you're trying to get those two to 4%
of people who end up converting you're
trying to get them to uh invest more
heavily into the title and so there uh
if you look at the Eastern games that's
the way they're designed and they're so
heavily you know GED every Everything is
a gacha um everything is designed for
gacha because you're trying to go really
really deep there right and I'd love to
dive deeper into player motivations and
specific types of items that sell well
but before that I just thought of a
question I'd love to hear your thoughts
on which is you know when I look at some
of these shooter games like fortnite it
seems like a lot of the Cosmetics or the
the conversion of the sale of Cosmetics
is driven by big IP Integrations so
whether it's like the the ninja
integration or the Marvel integration or
the Stormtroopers integration or the
this and the that and so to what degree
do you need scale to be able to do those
kinds of things in order to sell
Cosmetics well like if if you had a
small shooter game with a battle pass
how effective are you going to be at
selling Cosmetics versus a fortnite
where you can you know you can buy a
Batman cosmetic or something like
that from what I've seen I think it's
it's it's definitely tougher um you know
I will say supercell has shown that it
works on mobile in a fairly casual
environment you know brawl Stars has a
battle pass um I'm pretty sure Clash
Royale has a battle pass so um it it
does work there it's still fairly large
scale and they don't do any brand
Partnerships from what I've seen um they
have their own brand and their own IP
and they have done a pretty good job of
of kind of monetizing that um but they
have a lot of other monetization methods
you know they're they're fairly
monetization rich and I would imagine
the battle pass is not the bulk of their
revenue um I'm not sure I don't have dat
on that but um that's just kind of my
guess
um I would say if it's just kind of a
small shooter and they're monetizing
entirely through a battle pass it's just
pretty tough to get the arpo high enough
to
justify the costs of building and
maintaining the live Ops of a shooter
that maybe is is ever green and you have
to keep changing it without getting some
of those really deep deep monetization
methods like a gacha system um I I think
it's quite quite tough you need to be at
Large Scale to be able to do that that
that's my take um and then as far as the
IP
Integrations
um yeah you know we've been doing a some
on high-rise for example you know again
to give you an idea of scale let's say
at about 30 million in primary Market
Revenue we've been starting to do some
IP Integrations and activations and
those have been um interesting I I would
say I haven't seen them meaningfully
move our Cosmetics sales
they've been engaging and they've been
interesting for some folks um and we
have some interesting ones coming up
that like are big IP and big Brands and
we'll see what the impact will be there
but in general I would say they've been
Break Even is in terms of impact um but
but also you know we're not working with
Star Wars so it's like maybe Star Wars
is a whole another level I I would say
that the kind of the IP integration the
brand integration needs to be really
high and it needs to be like of a really
strong really relevant BR to that
audience everything else is going to be
neutral to possibly negative okay so
yeah talking more about player
motivations and you had already
expressed that one of the primary
motivations is is Vanity for example but
could you maybe dive a little bit deeper
when whether it's in high-rise or from
your understanding of some of these
games that are so successful selling
Cosmetics what are some of the player
motivations
behind buying specific kinds of
Cosmetics if you were to do a highle you
know kind of categorical breakdown of of
the potential different kinds of
motivations and then what are some of
the items that you believe sell the most
based upon those
motivations there's kind of many
different types of players and different
games attract different types of players
um probably you know Bartles kind of
taxonomy of of players but there's like
Achievers killers socializers and uh I
forget what the fourth one is I don't
know if you remember um and
so I would say all of them are doing
different things so you know the the
Achievers for example are often trying
to complete so they're they're kind of
focused on
completion or they're focused on getting
the rarest thing in in the game that's
what what kind of I've seen um and uh I
would say the motivation that I've seen
in in high-rises is much more about
getting kind of the most valuable or
rarest thing there's a there's a concept
in highrise they call it paper clipping
um I think it exists elsewhere in like
um just in real life but this idea of
paper clipping which is you kind of try
to get items and then you try to uh
basically it's kind of a form of social
crafting so you have three low value
items and you try to trade them up for
one Higher value item and then you do
that a few times now you have three midv
value items and you try to trade them up
to a high value item and so on and so
there's kind of this I think of it is
social crafting uh because you keep kind
of like combining these items into one
Higher item and so I would say there's
there's these Achievers who are really
trying to get kind of the rarest item or
trying to complete
collections um there's the the at least
in highrise there's a major kind of
self-expression um category of person so
it's someone who's trying to express
themselves through cosmetics and they
have a certain Identity or image of
themselves and so when they see
something that resonates with that image
or resonates with that identity they
really feel the need and desire to to
have that thing so that they can wear it
and express themselves and high-rise is
an example so high-rise is a kind of a
simulation social type of platform um
people are changing their outfits five
plus times a day uh and so they're
changing their outfits constantly uh and
there's different reasons for that but
mostly it's you know there's some other
energy that they want to put forward or
some other way that they want to express
themselves like 2 three hours later um
or they're trying to hang out with their
friends and as they're hanging out there
with their friends their friends are
dressing up in certain way they want to
dress up in that way too um so there's
like a big um self-expression component
uh there's the there's the speculative
component so there's this kind of genre
of player that I've seen who are really
trying to play the economy game I would
say they're also Achievers um but
they're trying to kind of drive towards
collectibility um they're trying to kind
of the way they see winning is uh not
losing money and essentially their
portfolio of assets growing in value
over time and it's kind of a non-trivial
uh number of players who are who are
trying to do that um so yeah those are
some um you know there's also kind of
the The Killers the competitive players
I would say those they're kind of trying
to show off generally speaking um and
trying to show off to other and show off
high
status one other Nuance I wanted to ask
you about is um basically the difference
between east and west and so a while
back I think it was around 2015 or so I
was working in China and one of my
friends was talking to me about a game
in which it's like a farming game but it
was connected to WeChat and there was an
incredibly expensive building like I
don't know something like $10,000 or
something like that and he's like the
reason why people buy that is because
people can see that you have that
building and so the guy that has that
building all these girls would message
that person with that building for
example and so um I I guess there's kind
of two nuances or questions I have there
one is like do you see any games doing
things like that with status and the
impact of having a community or social
to your point like some people are
buying Cosmetics even though no one else
can see them so like that the social
impact of that and then East versus West
in the sense that we also discussed or
you had mentioned before that in Asia
there's a lot more gotcha loot box pay
to win is more acceptable right because
there it's like it's not like in the
west it's more about hey I'm so skilled
I don't pay even though some of these
players may have spent you know hundreds
or thousands of dollars they try to say
that they don't pay whereas in Asia it's
more like look how rich I am I paid all
this money in this game and so maybe you
could speak to some of these nuances
with respect to
status social community and then East
versus West which might be a little bit
tied to the issue
around uh the culture around fair to
playay or pay to win yeah I mean it's
it's spoton it's 100% true I mean I've
heard of stories where um Western games
would launch in Asia and people would
churn because they literally cannot buy
the High status item until they make
more progress right because in the west
uh like you said people tend to um kind
of look down on people who just pay a
win or look down on people who just jump
in and spend all their money and now
they're like super loaded in the game
they they they value effort they value
work and they value kind of getting
there fairly um from their perspective
and so that's the way often times
Western games are designed you know the
the battle pass as an example
is very much a western design because
you need to play a bunch in order to
unlock on the you know 30th day the
really rare item Eastern games are
designed in such a way where on day one
you should be able to spend dramatically
and be able to get the highest value
thing um very quickly and I I've heard
of stories where when they're not
designed that way in the East people
actually churn out um especially high
value kind of players people players who
want to invest heavily they just turn
out because they're like this is going
to be too much work I'm out um and so
that is definitely a major cultural
difference and cultural nuance and
that's why you know the these games in
in Asia particularly in China Taiwan um
but also even Japan uh and South Korea
uh they're super gacha heavy the gacha
is totally unlocked from the beginning
and you can just sink a lot into that
title so that you can immediately um be
kind of leveled up and be strong and um
they're also very heavily MMO focused
they're deeply social you know if if you
look at those games they very much tend
to be uh normally like kind of like top-
down MMOs um you know think like a a
maple story or something like that um
and so yeah it's it's a huge difference
I'll flag that high-rise for example
we're not um live in China South Korea
Japan um a little bit in Taiwan and so
we don't get as much exposure to that
yet um we're kind of uh starting to and
working on it um if you look at you know
our number one competitor Roblox they
ended up partnering I think with tensent
to launch in in China and kind of
tailored it that way and I see a lot of
Western titles needing to partner with
someone in the East partly you know for
Regulatory and government reasons but
also partly because that there is a very
big cultural difference into terms of
how people spend and how they think
about spending
right um maybe for our audience I I can
just name without naming the specific
game as an example of a game that was a
little bit more pay to win oriented
where we saw in the west or in the US
sub 2% conversion but then in China the
conversion was over 10% and the AR poo
poo was actually dramatically higher so
to your I think that just kind of
confirms to us like what we've been
talking about that this is this is
certainly a phenomenon that Developers
will have to try to understand and um
you know whether you're catering for the
Western Market or if you're catering to
China it's probably gonna have to be a
little bit of a different design I think
what's interesting is the so Western
games I think have a hard time entering
the East but there are a number of
Eastern games that are entering the west
and fairly
successfully um and I think it's because
that there is that kind of depth of
spend in the West and it's possible and
and viable it's not like everyone's like
no you know it's it's not fair and I'm
not going to participate in this game
because very early people can come in
and and spend a bunch um so so I will
say it's
like on the margins a little bit
one-sided um but obviously you know
league has become huge in you know yeah
I I think that's an important point I
think in our conversation I don't think
we're telling the audience pay to win
can't win in the west because clearly it
does yeah of War being a good good
example but uh that there are
proclivities and cultural differences
that one should keep in mind definitely
cool so I I think one of the other
topics that um we were going to punt on
so maybe we talk about it now or punt on
to later in the conversation is this
notion of primary and secondary
markets and so I i' love to hear more
about that I know you're running
something specifically you had mentioned
I think in primary you're selling like
30 million and then in the secondary you
I think you said 100 million so could
could you break out like so what does
that mean uh from an economics
perspective in terms of like that 100
million do you take a rake on some of
those transactions how does that benefit
you and then I'd love to hear more about
the Dynamics between of what you
mentioned because you also said that
having a secondary Market is a little
bit potentially dangerous with Diablo
being you know a a the an example and so
I'd love to hear more about the dangers
of a secondary Market as well yeah sure
um so I I'll kind of cover our um
primary and secondary market so our
primary Market mostly consists of um
either gacha or direct sale so we sell
Cosmetics through a gacha mechanism I
mentioned we release it for a limited
period of time people can buy it and
then they can um trade it in the
secondary Market we also do some direct
sales where we sell it for limited
quantities or limited time or Limited
stock um we also have some kind of event
progression systems where people can
progress over time and they they can
kind of win items and then trade them
away um and then the secondary Market we
have um a few different methods that
people can uh tap into the secondary
market so the way that they can sell
through the secondary Market one we have
a Marketplace so people can list items
on that Marketplace uh two they can
trade with each other directly so I can
give you an item in exchange for another
item or for currency our in-game
currency is called gold um that's kind
of the the scarce currency it must be
purchased you can't really earn it um
and then also we have something that we
call Secondhand grabs which basically
you have your own gacha in your own room
and you can put a bunch of stuff in it
and then people can spin it and they can
um kind of win one of your items one of
your kind of inventory items um the last
piece I'll mention is because we just
rolled out high-rise Studio which which
is our IDE to be able to build games and
experiences inside of high-rise uh
creators can now start giving away or
selling items directly inside of their
experiences using H studio so um anyway
that that's kind of the way that we're
designed uh the bulk of the secondary
Market transactions happen through the
marketplace but a non-trivial amount you
know 20% or so um come from Trading uh
and another large non-trivial amount
comes from secondhand grab so
um they all kind of drive towards the
secondary Market uh I would say the the
dangers one one of the biggest
challenges with having a secondary
Market is uh exploitation and fraud it's
so hard
to have the levers that a product that
doesn't have a secondary Market has so
as an example we can never give away our
currency because if we start giving away
our currency I mean we can to some
degree as a marketing expense but if we
start giving it away somebody will find
a way to exploit it and start to flood
the market with currency right so just
blue Stacks all that yeah and so it's
very it presents this challenge where if
you do offer a secondary Market all of a
sudden you can't you know bring someone
in and start kind of like giving them
currency in order to succeed and because
there's no power progression you know
most other currencies just aren't that
valuable you know where if you remember
Game of War I don't know they had like
20 currencies and each currency was
actually important because it would gate
power and so you could actually give
away a lot of these different currencies
without giving away the hard currency
you know the the really kind of valuable
expensive one that must be purchased
whereas for us um because it's purely
cosmetic uh and there isn't kind of this
power progression it's much it's more
difficult to introduce these soft
currencies that normally in a
traditional free to play game you'd be
kind of giving away to get people to
return and come back it's a really nice
lever so we don't have that lever as
much and so that that's a problem with a
secondary Market you just don't have
that currency lever um and that's true
of of Counter-Strike that's true of
League that's true of all these kind of
kind of games but at least they're hyper
competitive and they've turned into
sports um whereas for us we're we're
kind of more about simulation and and
kind of uh either building games or or
kind of consuming games um so so yeah I
would say that's kind of the biggest
challenge of having a secondary Market
in addition it's what we talked about
which is um if purchase behavior is
driven in some part
by secondary Market or you know
perceived value that kind of stuff then
if the economy gets away from you and
you don't have enough visibility into
the economy you can really destroy the
the product so uh I don't know if you
remember Gaia Online um but Gaia Online
was huge it was a it was kind of this
for for and and you had avatars and all
this stuff I worked there for like one
or two months okay well then uh I don't
know if you were there before or after
they completely decimated their economy
um but there was a time when they
completely decimated the Eon the economy
they essentially sold sold a machine
that produced currency um and that
created massive inflation and because of
the massive inflation you know Gaia
completely tanked and so there's a this
big component of managing controlling
the economy you know Eve online CCP
games they they I I remember hired a um
I don't know if they still have them but
they have um uh
economists who who manage the economy
steam I remember had hired uh an
economist and scientist to analyze the
steam economy and so um these are kind
of complicated problems because they're
complicated systems but at least there
are some metrics and kpis that if
companies do have secondary markets they
can look at you know they can look at
gold in the system or currency in the
system
that that's currently alive you know
they can look at the GDP and transaction
volume um all that kind of stuff uh last
thought um in terms of taking a rake um
yeah we take a rake and we feel we have
to because without taking a rake so so
you know a rake is a Sync It's a sync
for the currency if we don't have any
kind of sync then a lot more currency
stays in the system and it drives
inflation uh and inflation is really
scary for us because then as new users
join our platform everything becomes
exorbitantly expensive for them uh but
old users who are very rich because
they've been trading between each other
uh they end up kind of driving the
entire top end of the economy right
because everything's highly inflated and
so for us our secondary Market we take a
30% rake off the marketplace um we
actually tested a 10% rake and a 30%
rake and we actually saw virtually no
difference in transaction volume just a
much lower rate take rate you know um
rake uh we take a 10% rake when with
direct peer-to-peer trading um and we
take a 30% rake uh with secondhand grabs
so
um we definitely take a rake and I find
that it's very important to do so uh
otherwise you're going to start
experiencing massive inflation to your
point when you mentioned kpis and
metrics so I I can understand it's very
important that you're kind of trying to
keep a pulse in terms of your economy if
you have a secondary market for example
and there's C probably you know maybe
outside the scope of this discussion but
probably a lot of things that you should
be looking at but if you don't have a
secondary Market um how would you like
to a product manager that may be
listening that is overseeing a game with
a Cosmetics based economy like what are
some of the kpis or metrics or things
that you would track you in order to let
you know whether the Cosmetics that you
have in your game is performing well or
not uh what should PMS be aware of
that's an interesting question because
you know for us we think about it a lot
in terms of secondary market so so the
nice thing about having a secondary
Market on the flip side is we can easily
see what the community wants and what
the community doesn't want by virtue of
the value of the items and the cosmetics
in the secondary market so we kind of
track the price of every single item in
the game relative to volume um I would
say without that then you really only
have the kind of the primary Market data
and so you're looking at you know how
many users end up purchasing you know
this item obviously it depends on your
merchandising strategy if you're using a
Goa system vers a direct sale but
basically you know how many people are
are are kind of buying this item how
often are they wearing it you know
what's what's kind of like the wearing
or equip rate um you're uh you're
looking at um kind of conversion uh and
and depth of spend so so if you're
looking at a gacha for example you're
looking at the depth of spend on a gacha
and when when do players stop so do they
stop when they reach a certain item
because that item is the desirable item
um or do they stop because they've Rage
Quit because there's no not a good pity
mechanic or you know the the the rates
are really poor and and painful um so so
I would look at things like that but
there's no better indicator than Topline
so you know you do some sort of live Ops
event um that has
Cosmetics how much revenue did you
generate per user you know from on an
arpu basis from this kind of cosmetic uh
sale there's there's no better high
level metric than that um and guidance
than that but then within that you're
looking at depth of spend on you know
again if you're looking at aacha you're
looking at conversion rates um and
you're looking at equip rates and going
back to the very beginning of our
conversation there were a bunch of
topics and issues related to Cosmetics
that you had mentioned is there anything
important that I left that I haven't
asked you about I I forget there was a
long list that you
described um so so the question is uh
like kind of dangers of Cosmetics you're
saying or
oh well I I forgot you you mentioned a
list of issues but yeah maybe we could
talk about that what what are dangers of
selling Cosmetics then I think Cosmetics
are a are a pretty great
augmentation in in terms of Revenue um
and player engagement if you can get
them to work the big challenge is
getting them to work
and the reason why they work is because
people care about the way they present
themselves
in your Universe which means they have
to care about your universe and they
have to care about others in the
universe because otherwise why do you
care about presenting yourself in a
certain way you know Cosmetics will
rarely almost never work in any
meaningful way in a single
player game it's
just there's there's just no obvious
reason why you would spend
Beyond I don't know a few bucks or maybe
a 100 bucks on cosmetics in a single
player title and don't know of any
single player title that monetizes
really well or well at all through
cosmetics and so you
know I've seen some kind of Junior game
designers or or PMS think that they can
just kind of roll out cosmetics and
people will start to buy them and that's
simply not true people buy Cosmetics
because they care about their status in
that Universe which means they need to
care about that Universe they need to
spend time in that Universe they need to
care about other people and what other
people think inside of that
Universe um so I would say the the
pitfall of Cosmetics is thinking that
you can just roll them out and there
will be demand uh that is far from true
well Anton I think that was the last
question that I can think of do you have
maybe a final message or a way in which
if people are interested in reaching out
to you where where they could uh contact
you in some way sure yeah well uh I
guess I'll share that pocket worlds um
we are uh growing pretty quickly and
we're hiring pretty quickly um we were
about 120 people today uh we're building
out an office in Austin so if anyone's
listening out of Austin they should
reach out to me um they can reach out to
me at antono worlds.com or Anton bur on
Twitter uh and in general we're hiring
so if you go to pocket worlds.com
careers uh you'll see a bunch of open
positions there um you know our our goal
is to build a platform where on one end
we have creators building games and
experiences and deploying them with one
click directly into high-rise and then
on the other end you know our mission is
to connect the world through shared
experiences so we're all about hey how
do these experiences uh help people
connect with each other help them to
socialize with each other I mean this is
why people care about Cosmetics inside
of our world because we're entirely
designed uh around uh having a social
experience within uh a world that
contains games and game like uh
experiences so yeah if anybody's
interested in in that in in kind of
accomplishing what we're what we're
working on and trying to accomplish uh I
welcome them to reach out great well
thank you so much for your time Anton I
kind of feel like we've only scratched
the surface in terms of Cosmetics um and
selling cosmetics and free-to-play games
so um maybe we could actually do a
deeper dive in certain areas and if you
if you can join me again perhaps to
co-host with some other folks to discuss
these things I'd love to have you join
me in the future yeah I'd love to and I
I'd also love to learn from uh from from
other folks cool well with that uh to
our audience thanks for making it this
far and we will catch you next time
thanks Anton yeah
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