Casually Create an Indie Label

John Battagline

Founder, Owner

24/7 Games, Burger Circus

Hi!I’m John Battagline.

I quit my job to chase a dream…

Now:

I own / operate 247 Games

Starting an Indie Label, Burger Circus!

2010: I quit my job to“Make video games!”

3 Principles for Success

1. Pick a market, pick a keyword

2. Reskin, Reuse, Recycle

3. Burst Campaign with House Ads

Re-Applying Casual Game Principles to Indie Games

10,000,000+ ad impressions DAILY!Several apps featured on app stores!

Front Page on Google Searches

1.) Pick a Market, Pick a Keyword

• Now, several years later, we’re on the front page for solitaire• Over 1 billion PageViews in ~5 years

CardGameSolitaire.com weekly traffic

• Our audience LOVES to play solitaire Monday-Friday (dips on weekends):

1.) Pick a Market, Pick a Keyword

• Start small (low competition)

• Pick a single keyword, on a single market

• Get a small audience

• Repeat… (more on that, later)

• …And, there’s a great tool for this…

Google Trends: Assess keywords

• Relative volume of keywords compared to market (games):

Google Trends - Suggested Use

• Pick a keyword you “know” is successful on a market• “solitaire”

• Compare with similar keywords:• “mahjong”

• “sudoku”

Assess keywords with Google Trends

• Relative volume of ‘interesting’ keywords, compared to ‘solitaire’:

This “Theory” Has Lead Us to Success

• 247Mahjong.com – 12+ million users

This “Theory” Has Lead Us to Success

• 247sudoku.com - 1st page for “sudoku” on Google Search

2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle

• Learned: • re-use my code base to create new products

• capture “corollary keywords”

• Corollary Keywords: • keywords that contain or are often found adjacent to your “main keyword”

• Spider solitaire

• FreeCell solitaire

Corollary Keywords

• Corollary keyword traffic adds up:

Corollary “solitaire” keywords - Freecell

• 123freecell.com – 1st page on Google Search for “freecell”

Corollary Keywords – Spider Solitaire

• Cardgamespidersolitaire.com – 1st page for “spider solitaire”

2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle (advanced)

• We have 14 seasonal variations for every game!

Seasonal traffic spikes around the holidays

• Halloween-mahjong.com traffic spikes around Halloween

Seasonal traffic spikes around the holidays

• Sumermahjong.com traffic peaks in Summer

All combined, the traffic adds up!

• SummerMahjong.com / Christmas-Mahjong.com

Summer Mahjong on Google Play

• We got a huge spike in installs—just by submitting our reskins!

This has happened more than once…

• We’ve had several apps “featured” on various markets• Chrome Store – 247Mahjong

• Amazon App Store – various solitaire / mahjong games

• Etc.

2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle - Opportunities

• Learned:• Reskins allow more opportunities to get noticed by curators

• Occasionally, you get a “slam dunk”!

3.) “Burst Campaign” With House Ads

• “Burst Campaigning:• Push lots of traffic quickly

• Leverage your Users• Use House Ads!

247Backgammon.org traffic:

• First few months… (mostly “House Ad” traffic)

247Backgammon.org traffic:

• Not long later… (mostly “Google Search” traffic!)

247Spades.com traffic

• Again, “Google Search” traffic exceed “House Ad” traffic:

3.) “Burst Campaign” With House Ads

• Learned:

• Helps “climb the charts”

• Operates similarly in other markets:• App Stores: downloads

• Social Media: likes and shares

• SEO: impressions and (sometimes) links.

• Will this work in “Indie” market space?

Ways to Burst Campaign

• “House Ads”• In-Game (my preferred method)

• Email

• Social Media

• Purchase Advertisements• Requires a budget

• IMHO: Spend more acquiring a user than you get out of them.

Flappy Beak (my first ‘retro’ game)

“Flappy Bird” Publicity Flare

• Flappybeak.com – very large spike in traffic, no lasting power

Bashy Birds (my first ‘original’ game)

• “Almost” an original concept

• Still has traffic!

• Inspired Burger Circus

BashyBirds.com – originality ftw!

• Traffic has “come back” since the initial “publicity flare!”

Principles Revisited: Indie Game Market

• Applied what I learned in Casual Games to the Indie market• 1.) Pick a market, pick a keyword

• 2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle

• 3.) Burst Campaigning

Burger Circus: Raw Games, Well Done

• For “Indie Games”

• Different Audience

• LESS than 10million+ daily impressions…• Starting from scratch?

Nacho Daddy

Dumpin’ Donut

Crackula

1.) Pick a Market, Pick a Keyword (Indie)

• I focused on my keywords: Retro, Roguelike RPG

Google Trends Keyword Analysis

• Compared keywords to “Pokemon” to gauge popularity:

Learned: “Roguelike” not very much

Market / Keyword Goals:

• Important Keywords• Retro

• RPG

• Learned• “pokemon” too competitive

• “roguelike” too small

• Goal• Capture “smaller” Indie keywords

2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle (Indie)

• RogueMON @ MagFEST ‘16

2.) Reskin, Reuse, Recycle (Indie)

• Our “sci-fi” themed version of the RogueMON combat engine

Market / Keyword Goals:

• Future Game / Keyword Concepts• Sci-Fi

• Zombie

• Goal• Capture additional keyword audiences

• Dream• get lucky, and get “noticed”…

3.) “Burst Campaign” House Ads (Indie)

• See the relative traffic / growth of RogueMON.com, given House Ads from BashyBirds.com

A / B Testing

• This “burst campaigning” from BashyBirds.com also allows us enough traffic to do some A / B testing…to get the conversions as high as possible

Learned (so far)

• You CAN get traffic from casual -> indie markets• But not a ton…

• Need to increase conversions• Visitors -> Players

• Players -> Regulars

Goals:

• Burst traffic from Casual -> RogueMON

• Determine % user conversion Casual -> Indie

• Develop a small Indie audience

• Use audience to leverage next release

• Reskin, rinse, repeat…

Conclusion and Forecasts

• Paid advertisements (mobile and web) will get more expensive

• “House Ads” will become more essential to succeed

• Those with an audience will find it easier to expand

• Growing an audience NOW is ESSENTIAL• Before it’s too late!

If You Follow These Guidelines:

• You’ll start with a small audience

• You’ll rapidly create more products / opportunities

• You’ll accumulate users with every release

• OCCASIONALLY, you will hit a slam dunk, getting you a TON of users

• This will have an “upward spiral” effect on your traffic…

Have fun—and keep in touch!

• Facebook.com/burgercircusllc

• Twitter.com/burgercircusllc

• www.burgercircus.com

• burgercircus@gmail.com