What Product On Hay Day Gives You The Most Money

Remember when farming games were a large deal a couple of years ago?

Well, i of them remained quite successful to this day – Hay Day.

One of the things that makes this game assisting in the sea of other similar games is its well-thought-out monetization.

Developers behind Hay Mean solar day monetization set a smashing instance for all game developers to follow, so permit's analyze it.

How Successful Is Hay Twenty-four hours?

Hay Mean solar day is brought to u.s. from a manufacturing plant of super successful games similar Disharmonism of Clans and Boom Embankment – Supercell.

The game falls into the coincidental and simulation genres. It simulates a farm and comes with uncomplicated gameplay and a coincidental design. And it'southward no secret – the market in these genres is very crowded and competitive.

Remember Farmville that you could only play on Facebook? Hay Day was Supercell's successful answer to information technology in the form of a mobile game.

And here'south merely how successful.

Unless stated otherwise, the information in this article comes from an internal source.

This game get-go appeared in 2012, and it didn't accept long for it to hit the top charts. For this game, 2014 was the twelvemonth. This year alone brought $268.55 million to the game. For comparison's sake, in 2020, the game generated 'only' $94.77 meg.

Nonetheless, Hay Day is not one of those games that got their 15 minutes of fame and then disappeared.  Yes, afterwards its tremendous success in 2014 and 2015, the numbers decreased. Yet, the game has been maintaining a really decent revenue stream over the years.

To this mean solar day, the game got 327.26 million worldwide downloads. The revenue numbers are equally impressive – it fabricated a total of $one.15 billion over the past eight years!

The Us players seem to be virtually into farming, every bit they make up for the biggest part of the game'southward revenue – 37.ane%.

1 of the things that helped this game become and then successful was its user acquisition strategy. Supercell created many memorable Hay Twenty-four hour period ads. If you desire to larn more than about how the game advertises, make sure to read our Hay Solar day advertising dissection.

Wondering what is it most the game that drives all this acquirement?

This is exactly the question we'll reply. I played the game myself to analyze Hay Day's user experience, gameplay, and monetization strategy.

First Impressions

When you first launch the game, yous are given a backstory.

Your uncle has decided to retire and left you a farm. This ways you volition accept to learn to take care of farm animals like chickens, pigs, and cows. You lot volition as well learn how to grow and harvest your own crops.

Fix to go a farmer?

Fine art Style

If I had to explain Hay Twenty-four hours'southward art way in a single expression it would be feel-skillful .

A farm is simply that kind of place, and Hay Day really successfully brought the feel. The game comes in casual art style and high-quality 2nd graphics.

I of the first things you discover are the game's detailed landscapes and warm and vivid color palette. The whole simulation of the farm – from landscapes to characters, animals, and features comes in animation style.

This kind of cartoonish fine art style makes the game lightweight, attractive, and funny.

UI/UX

The controls in this game are just like the game itself logical, natural, and smoothen.

Allow's say you want to harvest your wheat. All you have to do is tap and drag your fingers over your fields. The same gestures apply to well-nigh of the features such as collecting eggs or milk. These kinds of controls make the feel both quick and enjoyable.

As a player, yous spend nigh of your time at your farm, and there'southward enough of things yous tin can do around there.

The peak right corner shows you how well you're doing in terms of the games' two currencies: coins and diamonds. At the acme middle of the screen, you lot tin come across how many stars y'all nerveless. It works as a progress bar to permit yous know how much more it takes to level upward.

The bottom right is where you lot can become social, connect with your Facebook friends or fellow farmers.

In the bottom left corner, you enter the game's shop. This is where you will get everything y'all need to upgrade your farm – from animals to production buildings.

Game Tutorial

To help yous with the basics, y'all become a helper, a scarecrow called Mr. Wicker.

This talkative helper guides y'all through a step-by-step tutorial. The tutorial is interactive and teaches you about farming equally well equally the basic game features. Kickoff, it shows you exactly how to make an action (e.k., harvesting) and so you get to try information technology out yourself.

For a newbie such as myself, this stage felt logical and easy to learn, simply similar it should be.

Main Game Mechanics

The farm works just like in real life. Your animals have to be fed, you grow and harvest crops, and make products out of them.

The game'south core loop consists of:

1. Planting crops
2. Harvesting, feeding animals, and producing
3. Collecting the manufactured products
4. Selling manufactured products for coins
5. Buying new production equipment and animals

This is a never-ending procedure. If you repeatedly do all of this, you can level upward to unlock new and exciting meta-features.

To make the whole organisation heady for players, Hay Day uses many different mechanics, and these are some of them.

Timing Mechanics

Timers have an important office in Hay Day: they bring players back to the game, but too bulldoze its revenue.

For example, when you plant your crops, you will accept to wait a while for them to grow. You lot fifty-fifty get to run into them grow in existent-time, which tin can feel satisfying. Product manufacturing also comes with wait times.

Nonetheless, everything comes with its own wait times. It may accept you lot 2 minutes to grow some crops and as much as 20+ hours to build production plants.

The only way yous can skip wait times is by using diamonds. They piece of work as the game's hard currency so you get a small amount of them from the game.

Idle Mechanics

In Hay Solar day, we can see idle mechanics in relation to the timers.

What this means is that you lot don't take to actively play the game while the timers are counting. You tin go offline to consume, sleep or exercise anything else really, and the countdown will proceed.

Thanks to this mechanic, you can progress even when you lot're not interacting with the game.

Collectible Mechanics

Almost every action you take in the game will bring y'all stars (experience points). Your stars collection is what tells you how far you lot are from reaching the adjacent level.

At present, the but way for yous to collect coins is by selling your products to other farmers.

You likewise collect diamonds, and they are almost nowhere to be constitute (except in the game'south shop).

Achievement Arrangement

The game has an achievement arrangement based on – well, achievements. Once you complete an achievement, yous will exist notified. If y'all tap your farmhouse, you tin meet a list of bachelor achievements and how shut you are to completing them.

For example, you will get an Egghead achievement in one case you collect 12 eggs. Each time you lot achieve some kind of a goal, you tin can claim a reward for it.

Completing an accomplishment is a large deal considering it brings you the rarest jewels of all – diamonds.

Social Features

Hay Day e'er encourages yous to get social. For this reason, it gives you i default friend, Greg, to teach you all near the value of in-game friendship.

You lot tin visit your friends' farms and trade crops with them. If yous connect with Facebook, yous get to do the same with your actual friends.

If yous don't want to practise then, y'all can befriend random players in the newspapers or your neighborhood.

All of these are the skilful old coincidental game mechanics. So what is it so that makes the game stand up out in the sea of farming games?

Here's what one of the product leads at Supercell, Timur Haussila, (interviewed by Deconstructor of Fun) thinks on the bailiwick:

"I believe the success can also exist linked to our approach, as we avoid teaching players how to play the game. There are no forced tutorials, missions or quests in Hay Solar day. And in that location's no "right way to play" the game or penalization for playing the game in different fashion."

And I couldn't concord more on this ane.

I was surprised to come across the game doesn't punish you lot for non logging in. If you lot don't play the game for a while, your crops don't dry out and your starving animals somehow stay live. It really is a experience-skillful game.

Hay Solar day Monetization Strategy Dissection

It'south no secret – casual players only desire a simple and enjoyable gameplay feel.

In this case, the audience consists of players who just desire to kill some time, relax, and do some farm work.

The question is: how to monetize them?

Typically, coincidental games make more revenue from in-app purchases (71%) than in-game ads (29%) (Unity). Withal, there are a lot of games that combine these two models.

Here'southward why.

This manner, the non-payers get to enjoy gameplay for free. On the other paw, the players that want to progress faster relish the convenience of making in-app purchases. Another central thing is to integrate in-app ads properly.

Which Monetization Models Hay Day Uses?

Hay Day monetizes with a smart blend of in-app purchases and in-app ads. The game recently added a subscription feature equally well.

Co-ordinate to Supercell'southward production lead, Timur Haussila, the game is extremely not-payer friendly.

"This might sound crazy, only nosotros designed the game so that information technology could exist truly played for free without ever having to pay in social club to progress."

"We wanted to give our non-paying players a chance to earn some hard currency and ads were the perfect solution."

Is information technology really like that though? Keep reading to detect out.

Hay Day In-App Purchases Strategy and Setup

Players that want to make in-app purchases in Hay Day have enough of options to choose from.

At the heart of it, Hay Solar day monetization is assail a pay-to-skip arroyo.

Let me explain.

The affair is, a lot of features in the game revolve effectually diamonds. Their main purpose is to skip wait times. And equally I mentioned earlier, wait times are all over the identify. Other than skipping wait times, diamonds can become y'all almost anything.

Ran out of corn? Can't notice it anywhere? Utilise a diamond.

Unlike other in-game resource, diamonds aren't piece of cake to get from the game. And when y'all do get them (from achievements or level-ups), you by and large get just 1.

This is why the game'south shop offers a multifariousness of diamond packs for yous to purchase.

As well these, the diamond shop lists offers and weekly deals. When you beginning begin playing, they are locked. You volition be able to access them once you level up a bit.

However, they are not the simply detail sold in the game. The game'southward store also sells coins. You lot will use coins to buy items from the game's store. For example, for ownership more animals or product buildings.

Unlike diamonds, coins are easier to earn in the game. Yous get them for each product from your farm that you tin sell. But hey, at that place is no such thing equally likewise much coin, correct?

Pricing Structure for In-App Purchases

The #ane rule of setting upwards prices for in-app purchases is to create a wide range of offers and price points.

Some other skillful practise is that the minimal price betoken shouldn't be beneath $2 (DeltaDNA). Besides, as the prices increase, the offers should get more and more valuable.

Hay Solar day is a textbook example of how to properly set an in-game store.

The offer of diamonds comes in six different sizes and prices. They range from $1.99 for a Pile of Diamonds to $99.99 for a Body of Diamonds.

When it comes to coins, the offer is various too. There are six different offers: from $0.99 for a Pile of Coins to $79.99 for a Body of Coins.

Wondering which ane of these the players are most likely to buy?

Diamonds are the game's bestsellers. Here is a listing of top in-app purchases amidst the Apple App Store users:

• Pile of Diamonds ($1.99)
• Bag of Diamonds ($four.99)
• Sack of Diamonds ($nine.99)

How In-App Purchases Really Work in Hay Day

At present that we've got the basics covered, let me take y'all through my farming feel.

I've played Hay Day for seven days to figure out exactly how their money-making machine works.

Days ane, ii, and three

When I started playing Hay Day I was awed.

The thing is, I've been playing the game for 3 days. In fact, I have already progressed to level seven. I unlocked a bunch of new features and enjoyed endless gameplay. But in that location were no clues of IAPs whatsoever.

I kept wondering, what's the catch?

Only after I spent all the diamonds that I received at the beginning, mild hints of IAP monetization started appearing. I was taken to the game's store, right to the diamond section.

Day 4

When I reached level 8, I got the outset special IAP offer in the game.

It didn't come as a pop-up, but every bit a minor notification side by side to the diamond shop icon.

Patently, I unlocked the offers segment in the store and got a special bundle offering.

The offer says it comes at a price of $i.99 and with a 24-hour timer. According to the offering, the discount is as loftier equally 76%.

Mean solar day 5

On the side by side twenty-four hour period, the IAP offers continued. Another one appeared every bit a ticking timer placed underneath the store icons.

Information technology is named the Farm Pack and brings a lot of resource at the price of $0.99. However, you only have 24 hours to make a purchase. This was the nearly generous offer I've seen in the game and then far.

Twenty-four hours 6

When I reached level 11 I unlocked the Farm Pass – Hay Day'due south subscription feature.

Farm Pass runs every calendar month for the whole month, for players at level xi or higher. And there are two versions of it, free and paid.

The free version grants you rewards, simply they are limited. On the other hand, the paid version gives you access to all the rewards during a month's time.

Finally, I was offered to buy the Farm Pass at the price of $4.99.

Later that, the Farm Pass offer was included in the Diamond Shop'due south offer section.

Solar day vii

On Day vii, the Farm Laissez passer offering was included in the game'south store.

It replaced the previous offer, so I learned that the offers here really are time-limited. Unlike other games, the timers in Hay Day are not only a cheap trick.

On this day, I finally unlocked the diamond shop's terminal locked category, the Weekly Deals. There are three bundle deals – and you can only buy them with diamonds.

And yous already know how hard it is to become diamonds naturally, so your only pick is to buy them.

Hay Day In-App Ads

When you take a lot of non-paying players, you take to notice a way to monetize them as well.

And this is where in-app ads come to the rescue.

At the same time, including ads in your game means skating on thin ice. The primary take chances is obvious – they tin can ruin the gameplay experience. You lot don't want a agglomeration of angry comments about this across the app stores.

Hay Twenty-four hour period's developers are aware of this, so they carefully approached advertising monetization.

Which Ad Format Is Used in Hay Solar day

Hay Day uses the players' favorite ad format – rewarded video ads.

Dissimilar interstitials and banners, this ad format is hardly going to injure the gameplay experience for anyone. In fact, allow'due south go over some statistics that tell us well-nigh how players perceive rewarded video:

• 68% of players say they like this ad format (TechCrunch)
• 32% of players think they are useful, 27% find them interesting, and 12% recall they are enjoyable (Facebook Audience Network)
• They are seen as the to the lowest degree confusing advertisement format – simply 24% of players find them confusing (Facebook Audience Network)

Bonus: the players who lookout man them are 6x more likely to make in-app purchases! (ironSource)

Now let's get into more details on how Hay Day included rewarded video ads in the game.

How Ofttimes Ads Appear

The craziest thing about ads in Hay Day is – they don't chase you, you accept to look for them yourself.

Here's a worried role player's annotate from Supercell's forum: "Why does HayDay have optional advertisements? Are they not earning every bit much income as the other games?"

Aye, they are that unobtrusive.

The possibility to watch rewarded video ads opened upward when I reached level ten. I wasn't even introduced to the possibility, merely had to detect it myself.

Here'southward how information technology works.

Information technology comes in the form of a movie theater ticket that is placed correct by your farm'southward mailbox. Information technology takes you lot to the Night at the Movies and you picket a Trailer to get a random daily reward. The trailers are really ads for other games.

At that place were 2 ads for the same lucifer three puzzle game, one for an adventure game and one for a strategy game. All of them were thirty seconds long, so I had to look that long to merits my rewards.

Yet, you can't watch endless ads. I watched four ads and reached my daily limit. If you want more daily rewards, y'all have to return tomorrow.

It is besides interesting that paying players don't take to sentry ads. After you make your kickoff purchase, y'all won't be able to see ads. Instead, y'all tin only come to the movies to claim your daily rewards.

I would dare to say that the game could afford to exist a bit more than obtrusive with ads. For example, at least past presenting the rewarded video advertising selection once in a while.

User Retention in Hay Day

For a monetization strategy to piece of work, the game has to be able to retain players. It is well known that players naturally tend to lose involvement in games early on.

According to Benchmarks+ platform by GameAnalytics, even the summit two% of coincidental games lose roughly one-half of the players on the very first day. After 7 days' time, only near 23.v% of them keep playing.

Boilerplate casual games accept it fifty-fifty worse. On the outset twenty-four hour period, they keep an average of 23% of players. After a week, they are left with only iv% of players

This is why the first-fourth dimension user experience has to be flawless.

To go on the players from churning, in that location must be something new and exciting to keep them coming back all the time. This is why Hay Twenty-four hour period never stops upgrading the game and its user retention techniques.

Tutorial

The first contact with the game, the tutorial, is done well. Information technology doesn't overwhelm y'all with unnecessary information just provides an easy-to-larn feel. Information technology is interactive, uncomplicated, and logical.

Activities

Some other thing important for user retention is always keeping the player busy. And even though look timers are all over the game, that doesn't mean you have nothing to practice.

Exactly the opposite. You can catch up with the newspaper, buy products you might need, put your products upwards for auction, visit your friends' farms, go to the movies, etc.

Nonetheless, these activities are not as exciting as upgrading your farm and progressing. For this reason, you volition probably exit the session at 1 point and render once the timers do their thing.

Events

You become to unlock events at level 9. At this point you lot've proven – you're an engaged role player.

And to appoint you even more, they let you participate in different in-game events. If you lot participate, you tin get bonuses, boosts, or rewards.

For example, I participated in a global Truck Deliveries effect that encouraged me to make as many truck orders in a short amount of time every bit possible.

Social Features

The social features in the game like neighbours, friends, and Facebook friends give players a sense of community.

Also, the social media features tin can boost word-of-rima oris and organic growth.

Unlockable Features

Not everything is revealed to you at once, so you are curious to see what your next level upward will bring you.

This is ane of the things that motivates you to continue coming back to the game and progress.

Button Notifications

Once you go out the game and go dorsum to real life, push notifications will exist at that place to remind yous about your farm.

And here's my feel with push notifications in Hay Day.

In the first few days, there were just a few messages per twenty-four hours.

Afterward, as I played more than, they got a bit more frequent. Basically, I was notified when the timers take washed their job.

Over the grade of seven days, the content was pretty much the same. I got messages like Milk is gear up to exist collected, Dairy construction finished, and All crops are set up to be harvested.

As you tin see, they were all related to my subcontract's progress, nothing else. In that location were no IAP offers or even result notifications.

5 Things You Can Acquire From Hay Day Monetization Strategy

If Hay Day created a manual called How to Monetize, I assume it would wait something like this.

Permit's sum upwardly all the best practices we've learned from Hay Day monetization.

1. Use the Winning Monetization Combination

If you're in search of a promising monetization formula for your game, hither's 1.

In-App Purchases + Rewarded Video Ads + Subscriptions

In-app purchases accept been the #one monetization model for a long, long fourth dimension. Even after all this time, they are nonetheless the most popular one – 79% of games use them. (Business of Apps).

And so there are rewarded video ads. This advertizement format is an excellent fit with in-app purchases, and tin fifty-fifty increase them. If that doesn't happen, you still monetize your non-payers.

It'southward interesting that subscriptions were added to Hay Twenty-four hour period subsequently 8 years of existence. Why now? Well, the word in the manufacture is that subscriptions are the hereafter of monetization, and Supercell recognized this.

Finally, best practices are no guarantee that you will successfully monetize your game. What makes Hay Twenty-four hour period monetization so successful are constant upgrades and listening to their players.

ii. In-App Purchases Shouldn't Be Annoying

This is the nigh shocking thing nearly Hay Day Monetization – information technology's not pushy at all. When you lot start playing, you already expect some popular-ups and beginner packs.

However, Hay Twenty-four hours has a different approach. Start, they become you hooked on the gameplay. So when yous're hooked to the bespeak where you might want to make IAPs, you lot will know where to find them.

The offers never come in the form of pop-ups and discount signs jumping all over the place. Instead, they come as small marks or timers – enticing you to check them out.

Hay Solar day could fifty-fifty make their IAP strategy a scrap more aggressive, and it probably wouldn't hurt the game.

3. Make Special Offers Valuable and Time-Limited

In Hay Day, special offers pay off significantly more than standard offers. Another not bad exercise they use is combining different items and putting them into bundles.

When these valuable offers are time-limited, this makes them even more attractive. But only when they're non fake. The players are not naive – they will figure out when they are deceived.

For this reason, Hay Mean solar day'southward timers are real. If the players miss the offers, their only choice is to expect for the next ones.

4. Subtly Integrate Rewarded Video Ads

Getting casual gamers to make in-app purchases is not an like shooting fish in a barrel task. A vast majority of players are never going to pay for anything in-game.

But they will expect for free ways to progress faster, and they volition discover rewarded video ads.

Hay Twenty-four hours made a smart move and saved rewarded video ads for college-level players. But but for those who make the effort to discover them. In that location is not a single pop-up that directs players to sentry the ads.

When the players find the ads and sentinel through them, they receive a random reward.

Information technology is important to mention that the ads are limited. After the players hit the daily limit, they will strive for more rewards. This is the thing that will make them come back tomorrow and the twenty-four hour period afterwards that.

5. Add a Subscription Feature

"It'due south a manner to get actually absurd stuff in the game just by playing.", this is how Hay Day describes their subscription feature – the Farm Pass .

And if you want the coolest stuff – purchase the subscription. The Farm Pass comes in the form of seasons that concluding for one calendar month. They don't even call it a subscription, but information technology definitely is. More precisely, it is a non-renewing subscription.

Wondering what makes a player desire to purchase the next flavour's Subcontract Pass?

Hay Day took care of this by designing special rewards – perks. These rewards only last until the cease of a season. If the players don't want to lose their privileged in-game life, they will purchase some other subscription.

Finally, the choice of even getting the Farm Laissez passer opens up to players at level eleven and to a higher place. Therefore, the subscription is targeted at semi-experienced and experienced players.

Wrapping Information technology All Up

Every bit y'all can see, money doesn't grow on trees (or farms), even for high-quality games such as Hay Day.

Monetization can be a tricky and complicated process. Even Hay Twenty-four hour period monetization is still getting regular upgrades, merely like the gameplay itself.

If you feel like you lot could use a hand in finding the ideal monetization strategy for your game, experience free to contact us.

P.S. If y'all like this commodity, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter for more than game analyses!

Source: https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/hay-day-monetization

Posted by: nashpitand.blogspot.com

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