At this year’s Appfest, Gal Fisheloviz, Director of Business Strategy at ironSource Astra, introduced the innovative gaming model of Play & Own (P&O) and unveiled ironSource’s end-to-end solution for it - Astra. As Gal explains, Astra enables developers to integrate player ownership into games easily and intuitively, ultimately generating more value for the entire ecosystem. Read here how it works or check out the full video at the bottom:
First, what is P&O?
P&O places an emphasis on fun while adding a layer of player ownership to gaming, enabling players to own, trade, and manage their game assets. For you, it represents even more ways to generate value from your games.
How player ownership gets you more value from your games
#1 Increase your revenue from IAP
Currently, only 2-3% of users make in-app purchases. P&O gives you the opportunity to increase this amount by giving users more bang for their IAP buck. That’s because, in P&O, IAPs function as assets that can be rented, traded, or sold outside of the game in the secondary marketplace - they’re assets instead of just expenses. This changes the way players see and interact with IAPs and encourages them to make more purchases which, in turn, results in more revenue for you.
#2 Access a new incremental revenue stream from royalties
In just the last year, Nike made $185M from the sale of hoodie and sneaker NFTs - 50% of which was generated through royalties. The royalties from your assets’ movement on the secondary market represent a substantial and additional way for you to monetize your games. For each transaction users make in the secondary marketplace involving one of your game assets you get a cut, giving you incremental and passive revenue from the secondary sales of your assets.
#3 Increase retention and engagement
More invested players create more engaged communities. Giving your players ownership of their in-game assets builds investment in your game. This means better retention as invested players stay and play longer - granting you more opportunities to leverage royalties, offer IAPs, and monetize your players through in-app advertising.
#4 Create new UA opportunities
One of the strongest selling points of the infrastructure behind P&O is its openness and interoperability. Because P&O is decentralized and transparent, you can leverage the openness of the infrastructure to see which assets players own from other games and offer perks in your own game that utilize these assets to bring them to your app. You can also use that information to tailor your UA for users who are already playing games similar to yours - making your campaigns more precise and your CPI lower.
Astra’s solutions for plug-and-play player ownership
Now that we’ve covered why P&O gets you more value from your games, how do you integrate it? Astra gives you a new way to add player ownership to your games at scale - its solutions are simple, mobile-first, and offer easy integration with support for multiple infrastructures. To enable this, the Astra team developed three unique products for player ownership integration, creating an easy entry point for any game to get on-chain and start creating more value:
#1 Astra platform
The Astra platform is where you can create and manage your game’s token assets using a no-code interface. Inside the platform, you can distribute your game’s token assets to users, transform your in-game assets into tokens, and access important data on player experience with performance analytics and metrics like revenue and active wallets.
#2 Astra wallet
Wallets are essential for players to hold and access their game assets. The Astra wallet sets itself apart by putting the focus on keeping the player experience intact. The wallet is built for users with features like using the same social login in your game, in the native app, or on the web. Plus, it’s custom to your game, meaning that the look and feel of the wallet keep your players immersed in the world you’ve built.
#3 Astra marketplace
The Astra marketplace makes trading easy without negatively impacting the gameplay experience. By making the marketplace available in-game and customized to the game’s look and feel, player immersion is kept unbroken. On top of that, the marketplace is crypto-free, ensuring your game stays compliant with the App Store and Play Store policies.
Want to learn more about adding player ownership to your games? Get in touch with us.
