Chapter 9: High Praise
Qiu Hengyang didn’t mind the laughter. Once the audience’s chuckles died down, he continued, “One last question: the ad banner on the game over screen.”
“Many novice game designers have a common problem—they don’t take the game’s monetization seriously and never consider it during the initial design phase.”
“Take *Hunter Island*, for example, the second-place entry in this competition. It’s a relatively polished adventure game, but the designer also failed to consider monetization. In my view, that’s a flaw.”
“It’s not enough to just bury your head in designing a game and call it a success. It’s like making a movie—your film might score high, but if it bombs at the box office, that’s not a success either.”
“If you don’t plan a special monetization strategy, your game will just end up on the app store, sold at a standard price per copy.”
“Let’s assume *Hunter Island* sells for ten bucks. It currently has 330 recommendations. Let’s further assume that 80% of those 330 people are willing to pay for it—that’s already a high ratio. Then *Hunter Island*’s revenue would be 2,640 bucks.”
“Now, let’s look at *Flappy Bird*. If it also chose a per-copy payment model, I can confidently say it would be a very failed product.”
“But the designer clearly considered this. He set *Flappy Bird*’s monetization as free to download with paid ad slots. That’s very clever and fits perfectly with the game’s nature.”
“The total playtime for all players is 349 hours. Let’s assume an average death every ten seconds—that’s already on the high side, since most people can’t even last three seconds.”
“That gives us a total of 125,640 deaths. So, in that one-hour trial, the game popped up ads 120,000 times.”
“And note this: the ad targeting is very precise. Anyone who enjoys *Flappy Bird* is definitely a mobile gamer, and a high-quality one at that, because those who stick with it are very patient players.”
“So, if I were the designer of another mobile game, I’d consider buying that ad slot. Let’s say every 30 ad views in *Flappy Bird* attracts one player, and every ten real players generates one purchase. Then, my ad investment in *Flappy Bird* would yield 418.8 purchases.”
“If each purchase is ten bucks, my ad revenue from *Flappy Bird* would be 4,188 bucks. I’d be willing to spend at least 3,000 bucks on that ad slot—that already surpasses *Hunter Island*.”
“Also, note this: *Hunter Island* uses a one-time purchase model. The audience for that genre is already small, and buyers won’t buy again, so its long-term earning potential is weak.”
“But *Flappy Bird*, with its viral-like rapid spread, has the potential for explosive user growth. Plus, the ad slots can be rotated regularly—sell to me this month, to someone else next month. This ensures a certain level of ongoing revenue.”
“So, the earning potential between *Flappy Bird* and *Hunter Island* is actually worlds apart!”
“These are the factors I believe contribute to *Flappy Bird*’s success. The key point is that the author integrated all these elements together and got almost every decision right—that’s what amazes me the most!”
“Honestly, if you gave me 6MB of resources and asked me to make a game that could outperform *Flappy Bird* in earning potential, I’d have to say I couldn’t do it.”
“That’s my review, host.”
Qiu Hengyang turned off his microphone and signaled the host to move to the next segment.
The audience was a bit speechless. Wasn’t this praise going too far?
He couldn’t achieve that level even with 6MB of resources? That would mean the author’s skill level was higher than a B-grade game designer, right? Even commercial flattery should follow some basic rules!
But Qiu Hengyang’s arguments were logical and thorough. Many audience members, following his line of thought, realized that *Flappy Bird*, though seemingly simple, actually had a lot of depth!
Clearly, Designer No. 7 had planned every aspect of the game from the start: moderate self-torture, online bragging rights, and ad slot monetization. It was a highly polished game that could indeed make money!
As the saying goes, experts see the craft. With Qiu Hengyang’s analysis, most of the audience now felt that *Flappy Bird* was far from simple.
Chen Mo unscrewed his water bottle and took a sip, glancing at Qiu Hengyang with a bit more interest.
In truth, Qiu Hengyang’s data on ad slot revenue was mostly speculative. Clearly, he hadn’t delved deeply into that area, which also showed that designers in this era didn’t take it seriously.
Based on data from his previous life, *Flappy Bird* had over 50 million downloads. The creator, Dong Nguyen, earned about $50,000 a day from in-game ads, roughly 300,000 yuan.
Under the banner ad standards of that time, revenue per thousand ad impressions was only about $0.15, equivalent to about one yuan. That meant *Flappy Bird* showed over 300 million ads daily.
If we calculate at one yuan per thousand impressions, the 120,000 ad impressions from Chen Mo’s *Flappy Bird* would be worth about 120 yuan.
Even if you switched to more expensive interstitial ads and multiplied by ten, it would only be 1,200 yuan. Qiu Hengyang had clearly overestimated.
But Qiu Hengyang was right about one thing: the game’s biggest advantage was its explosive viral spread. Especially after Chen Mo added online and ranking features, its spread would accelerate even further, which was the real foundation of its earning potential.
Of course, Chen Mo wasn’t about to correct Qiu Hengyang. He was secretly thrilled as it was.
Chen Mo knew very well that with Qiu Hengyang so enthusiastically backing him up, the championship in this design competition was practically in the bag.
Moreover, Qiu Hengyang had only played for an hour and could already analyze so much, even estimating the rough revenue. To Chen Mo, that was an incredibly impressive feat. Compared to the other two judges, Qiu Hengyang’s skill could grind Shi Huazhe and Lin Hai into the dirt.
This world still had geniuses—it wasn’t all Shi Huazhe-style mediocrities coasting through life.
Shi Huazhe’s expression was sour. Qiu Hengyang’s entire analysis was essentially a slap in his face. How could he feel good about that?
Two judges: one trashed *Flappy Bird* as worthless, the other praised it to the skies. Clearly, only one of them was right, and now most of the audience was on Qiu Hengyang’s side.