Michael Khripin

Game Shop best practices in Royal Kingdom from Dream Games As I'm writing the book on Game Shops in f2p mobile games, I check many top games for best practices. And for bad ones, too.Let's see today, show many of them are presented in Royal Kingdom's game shop (and how it is different from Royal Match):✅ Shop again just called "Shop", which is obviously not too much creative.✅ Close button is not needed, because now it is accessed from the bottom menu. You can just swipe left to get out of it.✅ Coins counter is there, always good to know how rich I am.✅ Sections now have titles, and they are separating special offers from bundles. ✅ Offers come first, then bundles, so as many as possible players will see it. Visibility is the king. Robert? Richard? ✅ Sorting from […]

As I'm writing the book on Game Shops in f2p mobile games, I check many top games for best practices. And for bad ones, too.Let's see today, show many of them are presented in Royal Match's game shop:✅ Shop has a title, but just "Shop", which is obvious. Could have named it in some fun manner?✅ Close button is on its traditional place, no habits broken.✅ Coins counter is there, always good to know how broke I am.✅ Bundles come first, so as many as possible players will see it. Visibility is the king. Richard? Robert?✅ Mini-version of the Shop is shown first! That's great. No overwhelming for newbies.✅ Mini-version is showing price range $2-10, which is for casual spenders, not whales. Cozy cheap place, not scary at all.✅ Sorting from low to high prices. Same idea - carrying about […]

It all started with a big gameplay misbalance.Back then at Nexters, we were developing the new game mode, called Brawls. The feature team was responsible for that, and in LiveOps team we were keeping an eye on them. The idea was to create modifiers for the regular arena mode, so player would build their hero teams according to some custom rules. Like 5 clones of one hero. Or one particular hero to use mandatory. Or use only female characters.When they were ready, we discussed the risks and decided to launch it first as a time-limited event, not the full scale feature release.And boy we were right!We’ve made 3-days event out of it, and when players saw it, they got so excited that they completed the whole event in 15 minutes.We were shocked. The event stayed there for two more days, […]

Ever wondered who’s really behind the LiveOps curtain? In free-to-play mobile games, LiveOps is where revenue is made, players are retained, and content never sleeps.But the magic doesn’t happen on its own.From strategic minds to sharp analysts, from the ones who write copy to those who ship code, it takes a village.I created this visual guide to break down key roles in LiveOps teams: what they do, how they collaborate, and why every one of them matters.✅ Use it to review your current setup✅ Share it with your team✅ Or pin it as a reference if you're building a LiveOps function from scratch 📌 Bonus Tip #1: Always assign a LiveOps owner per event. When everything’s everyone’s job, nothing gets shipped on time. 📌 Bonus Tip #2: QA in LiveOps isn’t optional. One broken timer or misconfigured segment can tank […]

What even is LiveOps — and why does it matter so much? If you work in game development, you've probably heard the term thrown around.But LiveOps isn’t just a buzzword.It’s a full-stack strategy that separates stagnant games from those that evolve, engage, and monetize long after launch.It’s the engine behind:- Retention that compounds- Monetization that scales- Content that players actually come back forAnd yet... most teams don’t have a clear, shared understanding of what LiveOps really involves.So I broke it down — from team structure to tooling, analytics, segmentation, events, offers, and more.👇 Here’s a complete visual breakdown of the LiveOps ecosystem — built for both product leads and hands-on practitioners.

Daily login streaks: reward… or illusion? I recently saw a post praising a mechanic in This is Blast! by Voodoo Miss a day? Watch an ad to recover your streak.On the surface, it’s clever.Re-engagement and monetization all in one.But here’s the thing — it feels wrong.If I missed a day, I missed it.Watching an ad won’t make that not happen.It starts to feel like everything can be bought.And when I see someone with a long streak now, I’m no longer impressed.Did they show up consistently… or just pay not to break it?⸻Want to make streaks fair and engaging? Try this:Display three values:- Current streak- Max streak- Number of resetsLet those stats speak for themselves.A clean profile (max = current, resets = 0) becomes something players are proud of.No money needed to impress.Optionally, add achievement tiers:- “Flawless streak”: never broken- “Comeback […]

Just stumbled on this game “Reviver: Butterfly” in the Game of the Day section on the App Store recently. There was a short article about it: The article made me feel curious. The art style is so unique for these days. Point-and-click quest, with a time travel twist. Managing not only locations, but different timelines. I loved the design and the story. The whole experience is so different from the majority of games I see today in the top charts. It’s like a breath of fresh air. But who are these brave developers? CottonGame, the developer behind Reviver: Butterfly, was founded in 2013 in Shanghai. They’ve carved a niche in the world of atmospheric, story-rich indie games — especially on mobile. Their past works include the quirky Mr. Pumpkin Adventure, the haunting Dad’s Monster House, and the philosophical Isoland series. […]

“Fail fast” is one of those startup mantras that sounds smart, until it isn’t. I’ve seen teams fail fast.And then fail again.And again.And again.Not because the product was broken.But because the thinking was.In one case, a team I worked with tried to rapidly iterate on monetization features.Every two weeks, a new offer, new layout, new pricing.No segmentation. No goals. No understanding of player behavior.Each version failed.So they failed faster.By the end of the quarter, they hadn’t learned much.But they had definitely shipped 12 different failures.And confused their players in the process.But you should know:🚫 Failing fast without a plan isn’t iteration — it’s noise.🚫 Speed without clarity just gets you lost quicker.If you want to fail fast and actually grow, here’s what to do:✅ Set a clear hypothesis for what success looks like✅ Track the right metric (not just revenue […]