“And, the image of this little bird fits the content of the game perfectly. The bird’s silliness effectively softens the frustration of failing in the game, even making you feel like it’s the bird that’s dumb, not you, right?”

　　As soon as Brian Cooper finished speaking, the audience immediately burst into laughter.

　　Brian Cooper continued, “The second question: why did I ask about the bird’s falling speed and the height it flies after you tap? It’s simple—these are two key numerical elements that directly determine the difficulty of the game.”

　　“If the falling speed is too fast and the upward movement is too high, then the game becomes extremely difficult, and most people won’t score more than double digits. In that case, the sense of frustration is very strong, and most people won’t play for long.”

　　“But on the other hand, if it’s too easy, most people can easily score dozens of points, and soon players will realize the game is very monotonous and boring, and they’ll quickly give up as well.”

　　“So, in my opinion, the game’s numerical design is very clever. It strikes a perfect balance, making the game hard and punishing, so most people can’t get high scores, but still giving you a bit of hope, so you always have that sense of luck that keeps you trying again and again.”

　　“The third question: the designer deliberately made the Game Over screen very simple, so you can restart with just one tap. This is to cut out unnecessary steps and let you quickly start the next round. Through constant repetition, you become numb to Game Over, and you even stop noticing the passage of time.”

　　“As for the online and ranking features, in my view, they are the finishing touch of this game. Without the online feature, its data would be only a third of what it is now, or even less.”

　　“Why? Because in this kind of game, only through comparison does your score have meaning. Otherwise, even if you get 100 or 1000 points, what’s the point if you can’t show off to others?”

　　“When I say show off, I don’t mean showing your phone to someone, but directly displaying it to all players through the leaderboard—look, how awesome I am! How many of you here have, like me, tried to get a high score?”

　　A large number of audience members raised their hands.

　　Brian Cooper nodded, “That’s what I’m talking about—the online and ranking features are the finishing touch of this game!”

　　A member of the front row shouted, “Mr. Cooper, is that why you put your name next to your 39-point score?”

　　The audience roared with laughter.

Chapter 9: High Praise

　　Brian Cooper didn’t mind. He waited for the laughter to die down before continuing, “The last question: the ad banner on the Game Over screen.”

　　“Many novice game designers have a problem—they don’t pay attention to how the game will make money, and don’t consider it at all during the design phase.”

　　“For example, ‘Hunter Island,’ which is the second-place entry this time. It’s a relatively mature adventure game, but the designer also didn’t consider monetization, which I see as a flaw.”

　　“It’s not like, just because you design a game, you’re automatically successful. It’s like making a movie—your film might get great reviews, but if the box office flops, that’s not really a success.”

　　“If you don’t consider special ways to make money, your game can only be put on the app store and sold at a pretty average price per copy.”

　　“Let’s suppose ‘Hunter Island’ is priced at ten yuan, and currently has 330 recommendations. Let’s also suppose that 80% of those 330 people are willing to pay for the game—that’s already a high ratio—then ‘Hunter Island’ would make 2,640 yuan.”

　　“Now, let’s look at ‘FlappyBird.’ If it also chose to charge per user, I can say for sure it would be a very unsuccessful product.”

　　“But obviously, the designer thought of this. He set ‘FlappyBird’ to be free to download, with revenue coming from ad slots. That’s very clever, and it fits the nature of the game perfectly.”

　　“All players’ total play time is 349 hours. Let’s assume, on average, you die every 10 seconds—that’s already a high estimate; most people can’t even last three seconds.”

　　“So, the total number of deaths is 125,640. That means, in just one hour of trial play, this game popped up 120,000 ads.”

　　“And, notice that these ads are very well targeted, because people who love playing ‘FlappyBird’ are definitely mobile game users, and high-quality ones at that, since only patient players can stick with it.”

　　“So, if I were the designer of another mobile game, I’d consider buying this ad slot. Let’s suppose that for every 30 ads in ‘FlappyBird,’ one player is attracted, and for every ten real players, there’s one purchase. Then, advertising in ‘FlappyBird’ would bring in 418.8 purchases.”

　　“If each purchase is 10 yuan, then advertising in ‘FlappyBird’ would bring in 4,188 yuan. I’d at least be willing to spend 3,000 yuan to buy that ad slot—which already surpasses ‘Hunter Island.’”