What are game Live Ops?
explained with an example from NFS
Many games do well in engaging their players because their ‘Live Operations’ functioning well. ‘Live Ops’ does all the activities that result in players getting new, fun, seasonal and time limited content in the game on top of regular game offering. Live Ops keeps players engaged and give them fresh reasons to stay engaged in the game for quite longer.
In many games, time limited game content is called an Event.
One of the best examples which demonstrates Game Events well is the EA mobile’s NFS no limits games’ event ‘Midnight Boulevard’
Midnight Boulevard in brief
Players are given a 7 day’s challenge which started on 26th April and Ended on 3rd May.
Player is given a brand new car on loan with which the player can play this event races.
As part of these 7 days events, players will have to upgrade the loaned car to a very powerful machine with high specs.
If the player manages to successfully complete this event, then the car can be owned with all the upgrades made through the time of event.
What motivates players to play this event?
In the regular game races, players start with car types like ‘Street’ and C.Sports categories which are entry level.
But, events like this give the player cars from the ‘Hyper’ category on loan.
Hyper category cars are very expensive and they take nearly ‘life time’ to start playing with them in NFS. The power of reward.
If you did not want to race with the best cars in NFS, what did you come here for?
How to play this event? (explained with more details)
- Players start with loaning a top tier car in NFS for a week. Typically this new car is launched the day the event starts.
- Players get 1 Event ticket every hour with a max storage of 5 event tickets at a time.
- A race is played by spending a ticket from the balance of tickets.
- In each day of 7 day event, players need to finish a set of races assigned for that day.
- Every race rewards ‘event credits’ and ‘material inventory’.
- Some races are gated be played only if the loaned car has a specific level of PR (Power Rating)
- Upgrading the car with relevant materials will improve the PR (Power rating) of the loaned car
- Some specific races in the event ‘days’ are allowed to Replay so that player can play multiple times and win required materials.
- Replay of any race is allowed for 3 times. Playing replays will reward mystery prizes (1 of 3 random picks) which can give needed material inventory.
- After 3 replays, there is a cool down period during which player can not replay again. Typically for 12 hours.
Following is the Event’s daily races and the allowed races to replay.
Considering the 1/3rd probability of finding the material the player needs in the mystery prize, the replay effort will raise up in the further days by some sort of power function which depends on the math model behind the event system. Its majorly due to parameter tuning for each PR gating required.
Event economy primer
Without individual’s choices, there is no economy. This section is about the choices the game creates and lets users make the best decisions suits them based on the choices available to them. It is also important to put some constraints so that some rules are in place to make the experience engaging by design.
Economy design adds some constraints which drives players towards completion of the event.
Following are only some snippets from this event’s economy.
Event tickets: Game allots one ticket to the player every hour. With a maximum storage of 5.
- This is an important game economy decision which can impact a game’s sessions and more importantly ‘Player habit loop’
- Player is compelled to collect the tickets before they are wasted post the limit of 5. (For example, play a last race and sleep at 11pm and wake up at 8am, 3 tickets are wasted)
- Ticket system makes an important parameter of this event economy. Players need to make choices here on when to play in a day and how to optimize player sessions.
- Player: ‘How much TIME should I spend?’
Currency in the event is different from the actual game. Player wins event credits when playing this event but the player wins the game cash when playing regular races. Event credits are time limited. After the event ends, they expire.
- Being a player of NFS, one might have made some progress in regular races and upgraded the entry level cars. Now, playing this event will not give player any direct benefit for playing regular races.
- Making this event run on a parallel economy, game design demands players to make some more choices.
- Player: ‘Where should I spend my TIME and how much?’
Playing every race rewards materials specific to the upgrades needed for the car. But, players has a choice to buy them from an event store which shuffles its stock every 1 hour.
- Players need to make a choice on whether they spend more time and tickets and play more races to get needed materials or buy them from time limited stores when the item is available?
- Player: What should I spend? My TIME or CURRENCY?’
While there are many choices to make in this event, I highlighted above a few important ones.
Why is this kind of complication or set of constraints needed?
At the end of the journey through this event, the player must feel he had really played well and this prize is worth it. When a higher aspiration is set, that should really feel winning big. Winning big is not like a slot spin with random choice. It is putting in some hard and smart work. Player find it interesting and gets engaged well when they experience this kind of a system.
Please take this with a pinch of salt. The above comments are pertinent to the genre of audience I’m referring to. For the Casino genre, the level of complication would be way different.
An analogy to explain the importance of constraints
Asking a toddler to draw anything on a white paper is giving freedom but lacks clarity.
Asking a toddler to draw a fire monkey on a paper, kid has both constraint and guidance.
For designers, its never a question of whether to add constraints. Its about what constraints to add so that the game experience becomes immersive.
Scratching the surface of the event math from economy standpoint.
Math model of the event will support the game economy system to either induce some biases or make them balanced which can influence player decisions.
The event math should reflect game’s economic policy clearly. Whether game encourages users to play event or regular races.
Some game math parameters in the events will be different from regular games as the balance of effort to reward needs to be achieved.
Event fuel economy is thrice expensive in event. If players does not use free resources effectively and players wants to win the event, they end up paying more price.
In this case, the economic principle of this event appears to be encourage players to play more ‘event’ races during this event compared to regular races.
There is a clear incentive for ‘drift’ parameter though minor dips in some less important parameters in the event economy.
This means the game system is releasing more resources into the event so that users can make progress faster.
The math tuning efforts also support the overall completion rate of the event adjusted effort to reward ratio for events. The main reason for such a tuning is to achieve a near perfect ‘Balance’ between prize player gets and resources used to be at optimal level.
Players will need to spend either more time/money during the event than regular races to achieve the event completion.
All this effort is justified with the prize that is waiting at the end of the event. We are talking about Hyper category cars here as an event prize.
Psychology behind the design of compulsion loop
A good compulsion loop design will always have to be supported by the principles of behavioral psychology. I’m not going to address the process and the ethics part of the compulsion loop here. That topic is up for another day. Lets jump into the current loop in discussion and its merits in robust compulsion loop design.
There are some mechanics in this event scheduled in a fixed manner (Day of the event and Event store), Others are fixed scheduled, but player triggered schedules (Tickets, and Replay freeze times)
Various levels of Time Depth in the event defines the schedules of craving being inhibited into players. This system tests the temptation for what next?, when next? and how much next?. This kind of delayed gratification even for game content, creates compulsion for players to get hooked to the game till the conclusion of the experience.
Fixed Schedules:
Event day and Event store: These fixed schedules keep players waiting for a specific period of time.
On Day 1, players may be able to complete the events/races in just a few minutes. They are easy to play races. (This is the initial positive reinforcement to get conditioned response from players for the next days of the event)
The delay of ‘time’ given is called ‘trace’ in psychological terms. This is set and maintained to keep the player guessing what’s coming. And, if the new content is unlocked next day is exciting and rewarding, the conditioning becomes successful so that player would find value in coming to the game on every event day.
‘Event store’ also has a component of variable reward like system due to its limited slots of inventory displayed. This adds a lot of value to keep this loop more robust.
Player triggered fixed schedules:
Tickets and Replay times: These mechanics are player triggered fixed schedules.
Only when the player uses up at least one ticket in the stack of tickets they have, the new schedule starts(1 hour).
Only when the player completes the current replay limit(3 replays), the new replay countdown timer starts.
Since these schedules are player agency schedules, players tend to strategize based on some or all of the following factors.
- At what times of the day I can play so that I minimize the loss of cool down timer?
- What replays to play to get items needed to next PR
- How much GOLD should I spend today so that I can save for the worst difficulty level of the event?
- What items I should buy with GOLD and what items I should buy with event credits?
- Should I spend the event credits to recycle the ‘Event store’ options? (Now or later)?
In addition to above, there are more strategizing elements which players can use.
What does the above do to the player? They are more engaged as they make more decisions. They own their progress MORE as they make more micro decisions.
They would not want to lose the progress which they had hard earned. This will now work as a Resistance to give us the motivation which triggered initially.
This entire exercise helps players to develop the habit of playing NFS.
a. Players who are already habituated to it, they come to feed their habit and possibly play the game more often.
b.Players who have not created yet the habit, for them this is the entry point absolutely with a big prize waiting at the end of the event.
Needless to say, Delayed Gratification component in this design makes the whole event experience very powerful.
The most important factor that makes delayed gratification based system work well is the reward at the end of the tunnel. In this event the reward look great and attractive compared to the sum of the small prizes every now and then player would receive otherwise.
Fully upgraded Hyper category car!
(Please take this part with a pinch of salt, delayed gratification is not the ultimate weapon. It may not work for all genres of the games. In some contexts instant gratification works better. This kind of decisions needs a lot more close attention to detail on the objective behind design)
Player Experience is (Seductive/Addictive?) Brilliant
Player experience in the entire game is generally simpler and driven by great Art than conventional UX. Following are some snippets on what kind of ‘UX’/Player experience will win players when it comes to Live Ops.
- Bring users into the mood of the game by regularly keeping them in the story loop (there has to be a story ideally). Remember, in Live Ops game is trying to bring a new story and fill users with some novel experience.
- Keep support UI systems in place to help players make their decisions. (Note: Doing just enough to help decision making is sufficient, but trying to default options is generally not a good experience. It’s tempting to follow ‘defaulting’ from the ‘Nudge theory’. But, don’t forget the basics of ‘nudge’. You are expected to just nudge. Not make the decision)
- Consider information first, aesthetics next as the key approach. Find ways to manage negative space or anything small/big comes on the way of UX. Never fill the screen with too many options and hope players to appreciate the freedom offered to them.
Following are some snippets from UX of the Midnight Boulevard event.
When a race is lost, the player is not just made aware of the fact why he is lost, but is also given a tip about what he can do to get better next time. A direct button to show you the problem.
Notice there is a lot of negative space in the screen.
Sometimes, blank space helps you to emphasize on the high priority information.
An emotional boost to the race starts with a strong mood build up. If players are playing with Sounds ON, then the experience is immersive and amazing.
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When players need help, proactive prompts are provided to help them achieve their goal.
Players are stuck with less PR? No problem, Game advises them what to do. Especially, non-hardcore segment of users finds this very useful.
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Player is always given options to find the missing material
Player can either buy from the store where the material is available (if available, it says ‘in stock’)
Or, player can play more games to find the material by playing other races (‘Replay’ races)
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If you have chosen to race and replay to find missing materials, you are taken to the lobby of the specific event.
Players are indicated clearly which exact race they need to re-play to get desired items. This is the real Nudge.
Monetization aspects of this event
Monetization for Live Ops has to be designed to provides avenues for users to recover from possible slow progress due to constraints in the event economy. In this section, I refer some brilliant references from Midnight Boulevard event. There are also some possible additions that can make this monetization design even better.
Event tickets: Indirect Monetization through Burning GOLD through ‘Buying’ more event tickets. And, direct Monetization through store purchase to increase the event ticket pocket limit. Players will feel the value of ‘Store’ most as players can wake up in the morning and find they could have had more tickets to finish races.
(!) Ad monetization seems a bit less rewarding by the nature of mechanism design. Player will get benefited to watch ads when the cool down timer is longer. Giving ads power to win you a ticket can be dangerous too. In general this is a double edged sword.
Midnight Boulevard Store: This store plays a critical role in making upgrades faster. Players often needs to make a choice between either burning their event credits or GOLD or both. This has a very high potential to have positive monetization impact directly and indirectly on this event.
Store Refresh: Store refresh is another important monetization aspect as all the materials are not available to players at the same time (8 materials at a time). Burning event credits will lead to resources crunch and can turn on direct monetization.
Direct Monetization through ‘Fast track to PR’
Offers like this are generally good and helpful from player standpoint.
While the car designs are elaborated and comprehensive, some players may find it little lost as they are here to just race and win.
Game can not change the scale of design just for such users by scaling down the system universally. Hence, this monetization aspect is to support players who wants to go for simplicity.
Players who likes to go for complex problem solving and willing to put efforts for deeper experience, may not buy this. They would follow the actual course of all races, replays and find or win materials they need to upgrade and feel satisfied when they themselves make the upgrade. This event design satisfies both types of players. Things will start to appear fair for both types of players.
This is far from ‘Play to win’ model. At the end of the day, players need to still play and win races. This is to merely simplify the steps on the way to make players car powerful.
What additions could have made monetization more useful on the user side and benefit the game too?
- In the event store, material options could have been categorized based on the ‘Garage’ tool kit options. This could give players an avenue to check for what they must be missing and where they should look for. Price hikes could have been okay.
- By the above segregation, you can provide refresh options for each category at a cheaper price of event credits. This can greatly invite the users from lower event credit balance to try out in smaller size purchases (sachet economy)
- Ad monetization is generally for long term grinding. Trying to benefit from ads in Live Ops where you have less time to achieve some great stuff appears not so rewarding for players. Its better off without ads in Live Ops monetization.
- Store refresh cold have 2nd currency options which uses GOLD instead of event currency. This can be helpful especially when player needs a material that is put on sale for event credits. Small price hikes are okay (On the other hand, this can also be classified as a strategy to create scarcity of event credits which can drive more replays)
What does the ‘Game’ get by doing this kind of events?
it’s more about. How much players love the game, how much do they care about it. And, how much they wait for the next event to start. How satisfied they are after playing the event (No matter they did not win the event)
Player retention/engagement → Its less about KPIs
(session lengths, number of sessions, Number of event races per event day, and Number of non-event races per event day, and how much Gold has been burnt per each day of the event, Event Credits exchanged at the end of the event, and total play time)
The amount of endorphins released due to such an event makes player’s time worthwhile, memorable and euphoric. That’ll not be measurable.
And these kinds of events are likely to become nostalgic moments in players’ overall experience of the game.
Conclusion:
Game Live Ops is both science and art. It plays an important role in keeping the players fully engaged and stay hooked to the game. This is what any game maker desires. New and fun stuff is what players expect. Success of most games depends on their Live Ops strategy and execution.
