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Monetisation Patterns

Earn fairly from players who love your game.

Methods for earning from a game in ways players see as fair. Written mainly for free-to-play mobile teams, though most cards apply to premium and hybrid games, they cover choosing a business model, designing a clear store and currency, timing offers, building recurring revenue, using ads without driving players away, and measuring results while protecting players.

48 cards · 6 suits · 5 recipes · 2 missions

What's inside

• Model8Is it clear how the game will earn?
• Currency and Store8Can players understand what they are buying?
• Offers and Timing8Are your offers reaching players at the right moment?
• Recurring Value8Have you given players a reason to pay again?
• Ads8Can ads earn without driving players away?
• Measure and Protect8Are you sure it works and stays fair?

A few cards

Model

Revenue Model Map

Lay every way of earning on one page, then pick the mix your players will actually accept.

Currency and Store

Two Currencies

Use a soft currency for play and a hard currency for purchases, and never blur their roles.

Recurring Value

Season Pass

Two reward tracks, one season: free for everyone, richer for those who pay.

One card in full

Ads

Rewarded Ads

Let players choose to watch, and make the reward worth the thirty seconds.

A rewarded ad is a deal the player opts into: watch a short video, get something useful. Done well, it is the one ad format players thank you for, because it turns attention they were happy to give into progress they wanted. Done badly, it is a slot machine lever with a sponsor.

How to use it

1. List the moments where a player already wants a little more: a second chance, a doubled reward, a faster timer, an extra spin.
2. For each, write the trade in one line: "30 seconds for X". If you would not make that trade yourself, drop it.
3. Set the reward against your economy, so a day of watching never outpaces a day of playing.
4. Make the button honest: say what the reward is before the ad, deliver it instantly after, and handle a failed ad load gracefully (grant it anyway, or say none is available).
5. Cap views per day with Frequency Caps and place them using the Ad Placement Map.

Example

Many casual puzzle games offer "watch to continue" after a failed level and "watch to double" on the end-of-level chest. Both sit at a moment the player has chosen, and both are skippable by not tapping.

Watch out

• Rewards so generous they replace small purchases; run a Cannibalisation Check.
• The dark version: designing friction purely so players must watch to escape it.

Recipes

• Ads Without Anger: Earn from ads in places players accept, at a rate they'll tolerate, without eating your purchases.
• Design The Store: Build a store players can read in seconds, with clear currencies, honest prices and a first purchase worth making.
• Fair Play Audit: Find the unfair edges in your monetisation before players, press or regulators do, and fix the worst first.
• First Monetisation Pass: Choose how the game earns, set the rules you won't break, and see where players drop off before they pay.
• Launch A Season Pass: Ship a pass players can see the value of, finish by playing, and are offered at the right moment, then check it earned.

Missions

• Design a monetisation model: from "how will this game make money?" to a one-page model with pillars, a price ladder, the ad rules and the metrics to watch.
• Plan a price test: from a pricing hunch to a test design with hypothesis, segments, guardrail metrics, sample size and a stop rule.

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Player Research Patterns

Learn what your players really want.

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UA Patterns

Acquire players who stay, at a sensible cost.

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