Modern War Dissected

Modern War by Funzio (acquired by GREE) was first published back in November 2011 and has ever since floated between 57th and 1st in overall category for iPad in US grossing ranks and between 358th and 1st for iPhone in US grossing ranks, according to App Annie.

Here's my analysis and explanation why Modern War has been able to stick in the top grossing list for so long.

Core Loop

The core loop of Modern War is quite typical two-fold loop for modern casual / mid-core social mobile games. The core loop consists of building and upgrading of player's home base and  battling against NPC enemies or against other players in the game. Despite the overarching core loop being quite traditional, there is some special ingredients in the loop which makes this game interesting.

Battling - mix of energy mechanics and consumable items

Here's where the game gets interesting. There is the basic energy mechanic in the game which restricts the amount of possible actions in given time (called in the game: "energy"), but in order to attack against other human player in the game, the player needs second type of energy mechanic called "stamina". Both resources have their max cap which the player can increase with skill points when leveling up.

Dividing energy mechanics to two types of mechanics, the game limits the amount of actions the player can do against other players which increases the motivation of spending some dimes and also decreases the back-end costs (slightly, but still...).

In addition of energy resources, player needs different kinds of units in order to defend from or attack against to enemies, but unfortunately it is not very clear to player is there any effect on having these units in any case. I mean that the player can't see the units at his home base and neither he can select which kind of unit to use when he starts to attack to enemy base, but still the troops are one primary ingredient in the mechanics of the game.

If successful, the player will get experience points, cash and from time to time some troops for his use. In any case he or she will have to use some energy or stamina and cash to battle against the enemies.

Building and upgrading the home base

In order to unlock different kinds of troops, accomplish some missions and collect more cash, the player needs to build and upgrade his base. 

Player has to build different kinds of buildings in his base in order to fully leverage all troops which are available in the game. There are money buildings, unit buildings and defense buildings in the game, each of one helping with given type of objective in the game.  Unfortunately, the effect of each building is not very clearly visible in the game, other than in the store where the building is selected. Let me make this very clear and give an example; if I, as a player, want to increase the defenses of my base, I would of course build defense building. I would go to in-game store, select "defense buildings" and then select the appropriate building - in this case a guard tower. I see that it's defense points are 2 and range 8 and that it costs 5000 cash. But after I place it to base, I have no way of seeing how exactly does it affect my defenses and does the position of building have any more effect to defenses of my base. This is very clear in e.g. Clash of Clans and I reason that is one primary reason for it's success; the decisions what the player makes, are very clearly visible during the whole gameplay which is not the in Modern War.

Building and upgrading building in the base has also other implications; it increases the money which the player can earn from the money buildings (e.g. supply depot & armory).

Engagement

According to some notable professionals, retention and in some part, engagement is no. 1 KPI in free-to-play games since without, other KPIs of F2P game will decrease as well.

While "making a great game" is one of the main reasons for a good retention and engagement, I am not going to analyze the goodness of Modern War since it is largely in the eye of the beholder. What I will do, in the other hand, is to analyze the mechanics which affects the retention and engagement whether or not the game is good.

Core Loop

The most important aspect which affects to retention of freemium social game's is the core loop. In Clash of Clans for example, the core loop consists of three parts which is in itself complex enough but in addition, the outcome of the actions inside the core loop depends largely on the decisions made by the player, making it very compelling to master your skills in the game. In Modern War, the decisions made by the player for example in attacking other player's base, doesn't seem to largely affect the outcome of the action which makes it very hard for player to master the skills needed to make better decisions and thus, decreases the motivation to come back to game.

Feedback loop of PvP battles illustrated below.

PvP battle feedback loop, 1: select your opponent and decide whether to raid or attack

PvP battle feedback loop, 2: If decided to battle, this is the feedback you'll get during battle(!)

PvP battle feedback loop, 3: Outcome of the battle

Energy mechanics

In addition to core loop, in any free-to-play game where the progression speed of player in the game is reduced with energy restriction mechanic, primary engagement mechanic is the fill time of energy and the notification of the user when energy is filled. In Modern War, the energy fills up very quickly, in about 10 minutes (depending, of course, on the max cap of energy which the player has) and the stamina refills in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, Modern War doesn't notify the user in any way that the energy has filled up making less easier for player to know that now is good time to come back to game.

Community and PvP

Despite the crappy feedback loop, the most effective aspect in Modern War which encourages players to come back to game is PvP battles and especially  the community around it and the time-limited live events with special prizes. 

Live events are most effective way to engage and retain users in Modern War.

Live events are the glue which ties PvP fights, rankings and factions together. Live events which start at certain time, last for certain time and rewards players with special in-game items which cannot be purchased from the shop. By creating short-timed live events, it increases the engagement as well as monetization because the true fans of the game will spend money to win those special prizes.

Monetization

Needless to say that when game remains in top ranks of grossing lists for so long, it is doing something right in terms of monetization. In order to fully understand how the money-making actually works, let's dive a little deeper.

In-Game Currencies

The game features soft (cash) and hard (gold) currencies, meaning that the player will earn soft money by doing missions = attacking enemy bases. Gold is earned very small amounts by leveling up, but that really means small amounts.

Player can spend cash to building and upgrading buildings and purchasing more - regular - units. Gold is used to purchase special units and building, fill up energy and stamina and also to speed up construction and upgrading of buildings. 

In my opinion, the game doesn't give the player enough hard currency so that he could get used to use it.

Different buildings cost different kinds of currency

Special items

In similar vein to live events, game features also limited-time campaigns which offer limited edition units to user to buy. These special units are typically very effective (either in attacking and/or defending) and as you might have guessed, these limited-time units cost hard currency, making it quite compelling for users to buy those.

Limiting the availability of units increases the motivation for users to buy them.

In-App Purchases

Users can buy both the hard and the soft currency pack as in-app purchases from in-game store. The minimum price for purchasing either currency pack is 4,49€/4,99$ which gives player 50 gold bars or 50 000 in cash. Prices starts to go higher quite quickly because the next price tier are 17,99€, 44,99€ and 89,99€.

According to App Annie, the most popular IAP is "Bagof Gold" for 4,99€ which, I think, is not a surprise to anyone because usually players tend to buy the most inexpensive option available.

Summary

To sum up the analysis, it is clear that the game is still making decent amount of money in App Store. Although the feedback loop especially in waging battles and defending home base could be a lot better, the game excels in creating a thriving community of players (as depicted in the game forums) who want to play the game, contribute to their faction and be in the top ranks of all players. I think the developers have been able to create a game where there is quite big tribe of true fans and the developer gets most amount of money from this thriving community.