MONETIZING AN AUTO-BATTLER Retention and Monetization breakdown of a new game genre

Léo Nantermoz – January 2020 Table of contents Disclaimer

This document is still a Work • What is an Auto-battler game ? in progress, and as such is not complete. • Focus on 2 auto-battlers and their economic systems I’ve tried to be as correct as • possible with all the • Battlegrounds information and numbers contained in the document, • Retention and monetization of a generic auto-battler but as these games are • Teamfight Tactics breakdown subject to quick changes, parts of it might become • New monetization strategies for Teamfight Tactics outdated quickly.

Last update : 11/01/2020

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 WHAT IS AN AUTO- BATTLER ? An auto-battler game is a turn-based strategy game, in which players fight each other one on one, using AI- controlled units.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Unique aspects of auto-battlers

• The player

• Unit recruitment and synergies

• Itemization

• Economy management

DotA Underlords

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 The player In auto-battlers, the player controls a team of units. He will have to manage several variables in order to gain a competitive advantage against his opponents.

The first and most important variable is The player has an experience level. This gold. At each round, the player earns gold, level can be increased using gold. It impact the amount depending on a few factors. the game in several ways : This gold can be used to purchase units - Higher levels allow to place more units on and to level up. Factors that impact gold the board at the same time earnings are : - Higher levels increase the chance to find - Win and lose streaks rarer units to recruit - Interest gold generated from unspent gold already owned by the player Finally, the player has a health bar, that depletes whenever he loses a round. When No matter the result, the player earns a set the health bar is empty, the player loses. amount of gold after each round The last player standing wins the game.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Unit recruitment and synergies

In order to fight, each player needs to recruit a team of units. Each unit has statistics, unique abilities, a rarity, a price, a level and will be part of several synergies. Each unit has one or more abilities, giving them unique powers to defeat their opponents. Each unit has a rarity and a price. Stronger units are more expensive and of a higher rarity. When purchasing several units of the same level, they can be combined together to create a stronger version of the unit. Depending on the game, this can be done once or twice usually. By placing on the board several units with the same synergy names, the player unlocks bonus powers for his units. Depending on the game and the units, this can range from bonus resistances against damage, to bonus damage, faster attack rates, or new mobility mechanics (jumping to enemies in the back for example)…

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Itemization

In auto-battlers, items are a way to fine-tune units beyond synergies and positioning. Acquired in a variety of ways depending on the game, each item usually gives stat boosts to a specific unit, along with a unique effect.

Economy management

In auto-battler games, managing the amount of gold that you have at any moment in time is key. Gold earned at the end of each round increases with the amount of unspent gold of the player. Therefore, choosing when to spend and when to hold on to gold allows the player to maximize gold earnings, leading to more gold to level up or buy more units.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 FOCUS ON 2 AUTO- BATTLERS

Teamfight Tactics and Underlords

Teamfight Tactics – Design

• Teamfight Tactics (TFT) is ’ take on auto-battlers. Available on PC now and mobile later. • Relying on the universe, the game differentiates itself through a few key mechanics, focusing on making the game more accessible to its players : • A carrousel system giving players items at specific points in the game • High-impact synergies, changing the units behavior significantly (new mobility options, new ways to deal The interface of Teamfight Tactics, with synergies on damage… the left, the shop at the bottom of the screen, and the health in the right corner.

The Carrousel, where players can get items and units

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Teamfight Tactics – Retention

To bring players back daily and weekly into Teamfight Tactics, Riot Games use a few mechanics : - Weekly missions granting XP - A seasonal Free Battle Pass, with rewards at each tier - Both Ranked and Unranked matches

- A daily XP reward, increasing with the amount of matches played Weekly missions

The Free season pass, granting emotes, icons and arena maps Daily orb

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Teamfight Tactics – Monetization To monetize the game, Riot relies on several ways, all done with their own hard currency, Riot Points (RP) : - Cosmetic modifications for the player arena - Emotes that can be used during Arena appearances and their price - Player icons, seen in the loading screen – 250RP per icon - Cosmetic skins (view next page) The conversion from Euros to Riot Points is not simple, as varying prices give out various amounts of RP, with higher spending giving higher amount of RP per euro spent. Emotes. Animated emotes are more expensive Amount 2.5€ 5€ 10€ 20€ 35€ 50€ spent RP Amount 310 650 1380 2800 5000 7200 RP/€ 124 130 138 140 ~143 144

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Teamfight Tactics – Monetization

- Cosmetics for the player avatar, with a custom model, texture, sounds and animations

- These function with a gacha system, where the player gets a random skin Level 1 within a set. If the player receives a skin that he already owns, it « levels up », granting slight tweaks to the appearance and the animations. - Some appearances can also be purchased directly, at a steeper price.

Level 2

Level 3 Single box with a Bundle of boxes (10 + 1), Single cosmetic random appearance, around 35€ appearance, around 4€ around 6€

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020

Hearthstone Battlegrounds – Design

• Hearthstone Battlegrounds is Blizzard’s first dive into the auto-battler genre. Based on cards from Hearthstone, the game is faster-paced than other auto- battlers. • Hearthstone Battlegrounds is quite different from the typical auto-battler : • Units are placed in a single line, and attack one at a time • Each player chooses a hero, with Hearthstone Battlegrounds interface, with 2 players facing one another impactful effects • Units can only be upgraded once, and the combined unit retains all boosts gained by the original units Several heroes in Battlegrounds • Units cannot freely move between the bench and the board, a unit placed can only be sold

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Hearthstone Battlegrounds – Retention and monetization

Hearthstone Battlegrounds is embed in the Hearthstone client. It serves mainly as an advertising system for Hearthstone, to attract new players to the game or to bring previous players back. There are only 2 visible elements of progression in the game : - Each player has a rating that increases or decreases based on each match result - When opening a certain amount of card packs from the latest expansion, players unlock minor Bonuses earned by opening Hearthstone packs of the latest expansion bonuses for Hearthstone Battlegrounds. This caps at 30 packs opened.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 RETENTION AND MONETIZATION OF A GENERIC AUTO-BATTLER Battle Pass The Battle Pass is an efficient system to drive retention by rewarding players for frequent gameplay. The key elements for a battle pass system are : • An easy progression through the levels • Appealing rewards spread throughout the battle pass • Allowing the user to view the remaining rewards, to incentivize them to play • In the case of a premium battle pass : • Giving several rewards at the start, to reward the player for acquiring the premium pass Fortnite’s Battle Pass is a good example of a • Showing the rewards that free users are missing well implemented Battle Pass system, with without the pass. From time to time, remind the incentives throughout the pass, exclusive cumulative rewards they would unlock by content and high overall value for the price purchasing the pass • If using a hard currency and a store, including a small currency reward with some tiers can convert users from the battle pass to the store.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Lootboxes

Lootboxes are a mean to deliver content to players using randomness. It requires a large amount of content in the lootbox, to allow some content to be hard to unlock Some ways to create lootboxes that help make them perceived as fair by players: - Provide meaningful rewards when receiving a duplicate of an already-unlocked document - Disclose the odds of the lootbox (This is mandatory on iOS and Android) Brawlstar lootboxes are obtainable both through playing and with hard currency. They - Provide a way for free users to open the lootbox a few contain gameplay improvements, a soft times, to give a taste of what can be unlocked and currency reward and an occasional small hard not lock all the content behind a paywall currency reward

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Cosmetics

Cosmetics can be of many types, depending on the Teamfight Tactics player avatar skins on specific mechanics of the game : release - Arena maps - Avatar skins - Unit appearances - Badges, Icons, Player name colors or symbols

These cosmetics could also be accompanied by interface changes on the user side or, if possible, optional effects for all the players in the game. cosmetics, with a banner, animations and TFT and DotA Underlords cosmetics are good examples of board skins what can be done in auto-battler games

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Player communication

Player interactions can go a long way in auto-battlers, as games can often feel similar to playing against AI. Therefore, providing players with ways to interact can make each game feel more unique, and more player- driven. Those can include: - Emotes Emotes in Hearthstone Battlegrounds - Animations - Chat messages - Player avatar in the game world - Recognition of player achievements in the game world Hearthstone Battlegrounds and TFT both have good player communication methods Emotes in Teamfight Tactics, priced at around 4€ each

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Gameplay elements

Premium gameplay elements is a delicate system to implement. If the game wants to have a competitive mindset, free users can feel disrespected.

If monetizing part of the gameplay elements is important for your game, here are some things that can be converted into paid content: - Specific game modes - Specific units or synergies - Battle Pass progression or soft currency acquisition boost

Call Of Duty Mobile Battle Pass allows users to purchase tiers in exchange for hard currency

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 TEAMFIGHT TACTICS BREAKDOWN Content updates

The game is regularly updated with new content, with a balance patch every two weeks, and a gameplay patch every month. Gameplay patches usually contain a few new heroes and some cosmetic appearances, with sometimes a new synergy. To incentivize players to come back regularly, a daily points reward is also present. It will be discussed more in the Battle Pass progression page.

Daily Weekly Bi-weekly Monthly Trimestral

Balance Gameplay Points reward Set of missions Battle Pass updates update

Content update rhythm in Teamfight Tactics

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Missions

Every week, 6 new missions are introduced, with 2 sets of 3 missions. The first mission in each set focuses on reaching at least a specific round in TFT games. The round is chosen so that it is easily reachable through normal gameplay, but not reachable if the player doesn’t try to play the game at all. The second and third missions focus on specific . This can include playing a specific type of units, a specific synergy, performing an action, or use a specific mechanic Upon completion of a mission, the next one in the same category is unlocked. This happens even if the other missions in the same set aren’t completed yet.

Play 6 games of TFT to Stage 3-6 Play 10 games of TFT to Stage 3-6 Activate a 6-unit trait bonus Reroll 30 times Activate 3 different trait bonuses at once Activate 5 different trait bonuses at once

A weekly set of missions in Teamfight Tactics

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Battle Pass progression The Battle Pass can progress through 2 ways: the daily reward orb and the weekly missions. The daily reward orb rewards from 100 to 160 points, with 100 base points and 10 points for every match played that day, up to 5 matches. The orb resets every 22 hours, to allow players to consistently get their orb around the same time daily. Weekly missions reward from 75 to 200 points, depending on difficulty. The first missions being slightly easier, they reward a bit less points than the second ones. These values slightly differ from the previous pass, as daily points were slightly lower and missions gave slightly more experience (70 daily points, and missions started at 100 points)

Points required Daily orb (no Daily orb (1 Daily orb (5 Daily orb (no Daily orb (5 to complete Missions only matches) + match) + matches) + matches) matches) the pass missions missions missions 6800 3920 6720 2560 6480 7040 9280 Points earned for the previous pass with different behaviors The above table shows the points earned with several behaviors. By looking at the table, it shows that playing one game per day and completing missions was enough for players to unlock all of the battle pass content, with the daily orb being the most rewarding in points, around 50% more than the missions.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Best possible spending to get a specific level 1 Little Legends appearance The main hard currency product sold in Teamfight Tactics is Little Legends. They 490 have already been introduced in this page. Here, I will keep the values in hard Worst possible spending currency, but you can find the real currency to hard currency rates here. to get a specific level 1 Each little legend has 6 variants, with slight appearance changes, mostly relying on appearance textures. Little legends main sale method is through Eggs, a gacha system where 25 480 the player gets a random little legend variants from a set of 3. As the odds of the box are evenly distributed between every appearance, this means that the player Average spending to get a specific level 1 has 1/18 chances to unlock the one that he truly wants. appearance

Each Little Legend variants can be upgraded twice, to reach its level 3 8 820 appearance, with brighter visual effects and slight model changes by being opened in an Egg again. After that, it is no longer possible to drop it from an Egg. To make it easier to get access to a specific little legend, each little legend has a single-purchase egg available for 750RP in the store. This allows player to be guaranteed to get the little legend that they want, though it might not be the appearance that they prefer, for around the average price that it would cost to get any variant of that little legend. Players can also purchase bundles with a higher volume of Eggs: - A 5 Eggs bundle priced at 2450RP → No discount compared to buying them separately - An 11 Eggs bundle priced at 4900RP → Around 9% discount, as the 11th Egg is considered “Free”

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 Linking LoL with TFT Aside from Little Legends and arena skins, players can also purchase 2 type of items than are linked to both League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics : player icons and emotes. Player icons are displayed in the loading screen and in the pre-match client, but they are not shown during the game in Teamfight Tactics. Emotes can be used throughout the game in Teamfight Tactics. They serve as a way to communicate with opponents and taunt them. Linking these elements between both League and TFT is a conscious design decision. It motives League players to try TFT to unlock exclusive content, and TFT players to try League, with the elements that they have already earned through playing. Teamfight Tactics is also a way for Riot Games to showcase character cosmetics. Out of the current set of 56 heroes, 33 use a cosmetic appearance instead of the base one. Thanks to this, players that have only played Teamfight Tactics will be likely to link the visuals of a champion to its purchasable cosmetic, and thus more eager to acquire it if they want to play League of Legends afterwards. Furthermore, icons and emotes earned through the Battle Pass can only be earned that way. This means that for League players that aim to collect as much content as possible, they have to play TFT to get access to that content, and could therefore be more interested in purchasing TFT-only cosmetics. Little Legends can also be shown in one of League’s mode, ARAM, as a cosmetic pet following the player.

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020 NEW MONETIZATION STRATEGIES FOR TEAMFIGHT TACTICS Monetizing the TFT Battle Pass Below is a method for the implementation of a premium Teamfight Tactics Battle Pass :

- Keep the free Battle Pass, but provide a new premium Battle Pass, with exclusive rewards - Grant small RP rewards at some tiers - Give a few rewards linked to League of Legends, to incentivize users to try the main game. Avoid exclusive rewards if possible, as LoL players will feel forced to play TFT to get the rewards.

A mockup suggestion for a premium TFT Battle Pass

Monetizing an auto-battler - Léo NANTERMOZ - January 2020