In support of the free mint
Nothing says “engagement” like a free game item with utility
Fact: The biggest games on the planet are free. Of the top 10 games across all platforms, many (if not most) have been free-to-play titles in the last decade. Major premium (upfront price) games come along and take some share each year (Hogwarts Legacy, the future GTA VI, etc.) but at any given time, the top earning titles are F2P. While SuperData is no longer (and the industry is in the dark on comprehensive game data, sad face), our coverage of top games in 2020 shows five F2P titles outpacing the top premium game in revenue.
Of course, F2P doesn’t work in all instances. It doesn’t make sense for many single player, narrative games or titles from small studios where the number of players needed to achieve success isn’t accessible without a miracle:
200,000 downloads of a $20 indie game = $4M, a respectable haul for a small game.
vs
200,000 MAU * 3% conversion rate * $20 ARPPU = $120k/month (it would take 33 months to equal that premium game’s success).
What F2P games do have going for them is accessibility. With no pricing barrier to entry, players can pop in and try it out. There’s no better demo than the full game, and if players bring their friends, it further cements a social entrenchment that makes the users sticker. This, as compared with a premium game, where the threshold measure for sinking in money becomes a composite of professional reviews, peer recommendations, gameplay videos, length of play and replayability, and genre fit for players. Bugs and crashes—which any game has—are loathed more keenly by premium users who feel entitled to polish from Day 0, compared to free games that will iterate quickly and can better recapture players later.
Because they start on the backpedal, when it comes to enticing players pre-launch, it’s actually premium games that have dangled more freebies and benefits in front of players for their preorders. Free skins, extra content, exclusive goods for the benefits of spending that money upfront. Free games, however, may have some initial gratis claims when the game launches, but otherwise don’t do much to sweeten the deal for early adopters and focus on getting everyone to that first conversion point. But the concept remains that free stuff and free access is a great way to increase engagement and jumpstart user acquisition. In fact, free things may be even better at incentivizing people than financialized things in certain situations.
The big benefits of free
Free web3 claims are even better for a few reasons. This is true both for gaming assets as well as loyalty programs. Here’s why:
In a market that still has NFT flippers clinging to (dwindling) secondary speculation, anything free tends to go viral and be shared far and wide. Alpha on $0 is only upside, and this community will work hard to create FOMO that will drive that price. This has drawbacks, of course, but all press is good press, right?
With IDFA and other privacy regulations, marketing directly to new users is hard, but airdropping a free item or letting users share the freebie amongst friends is easy and cheap.
More than being a passive ad, NFTs can and should be driven primarily by utility. The free drop—and dynamic updates to it—serve as a live reminder of the launch date of the game (literally updating the visuals with the date as it firms up), and is a proactive enticement to potential gamers to come in and try out their free item in situ.
Another really nice benefit of using free mints as the first access chip for your game? You avoid this:
NFTs with 1) prices and 2) broad promises that mention words like “value” are a big no-no. Not even for compliance reasons, but just because it is very hard to deliver on promises, and impossible to predict value. Now, the SEC isn’t exactly giving all of us nice guidance that the industry is literally begging Congress for, or applying its will in a predictable and understandable way, but here we are.
Going free saves headaches.
What about the money?
You might say, “But, Sam, what about all the money I’ll make off an initial high-priced mint that will help me fund my project?”
The amount of time and effort required to pump a primary, premium mint, particularly in this market, is not worth it, especially when those efforts should be on building the game and reaching more users or courting traditional methods of fundraising. In short, the mint-as-alternative-funding is no longer viable.
But, beyond that, these mints force exclusivity (no one is paying $100+ for items with more than 10k prints, especially these days), hugely limiting the addressable market of the game.
10,000 PFPs x $100 = $1,000,000. Sure, nice money, but not get-your-game-to-market money. And now you’ve got a maximum of only 10,000 caring community members who—ostensibly—are your bosses.
Particularly for legacy studios and publishers who have CRMs filled with 100s of million of gamers, artificially limiting access when 100% of that audience can 1) seamlessly be given a wallet and 2) have the ability to claim a free NFT (without on-chain friction), converting just 1% means 1M+ gamers primed and ready to play.
Obviously, we can’t have publishers doing free mints indefinitely, but in these instances of marketing and pre-launch mints, I believe that accessibility trumps incremental upfront revenue.
Why don’t we see this more?
Why haven’t we seen more free NFT launches? Other than seeking quick cash or project funding, the answer is gas. Ethereum 721 drops (the “gold standard” for PFP NFTs) have traditionally been burdened by “gas wars” that hamper mints. Free or low-cost items that come with a $30 or $300 fee just for the pleasure of minting is a big turn off.
But infrastructure like relayers, new chains with next-to-zero gas, and the ability for developers to even cover the gas for players (meaning truly zero cost, no crypto needed, etc.) have made this wildly possible and easy. We’re looking at a new user acquisition tool that developers haven’t leveraged at scale, yet.
Two flavors of free
There are two types of free mints: unlimited and limited.
Limited: This is nice if you want to ensure “sell-out,” create FOMO, and drive secondary market speculation. But it’s less nice if those that miss out feel like they’ll not have OG status despite showing up early or will miss out on in-game benefits or posturing when the game launches. It sets up a scenario that might make them shy away from returning for launch. With a limited drop, you also don’t necessarily know that the claimers are your core audience rather than speculators (unless you spend way too much time doing manual white-listing). No sense having a limited, free mint if 90% of the claimants aren’t your players.
Unlimited: Why hinder your market, especially if you already have an audience that numbers well beyond the typical limited NFT launch? But unlimited doesn’t necessarily have to mean unlimited for all time. Gamers love timed events, so a free claim that lasts for 24 or 48 hours—but is unlimited within that time—can incentivize people to rally and show up en masse, but not feel exclusionary. It rewards potentially infinite OGs, but preserves that status once the event is over.
User Acquisition 3.0
Part of the benefits of the on-chain world is accessing users in new ways, with public data that lets anyone examine potential gamers, and actively seek and even engage with them through things like airdrops. Free mints are another tool in the UA box. But many of these have been under utilized in the past because of gas, or the traditional high friction of onboarding. No sense having an unlimited, free mint if there are only a few hundred thousand degens with Metamasks who can even claim it.
I believe we’re going to see free mints as a major marketing and user acquisition funnel for some of the biggest upcoming web3 games.