NFT Passes
Benefits and Use Cases
Feature Overview
Battle/Season Passes are an integral monetization strategy today in many games, particularly multiplayer games. And for good reason - integrating a battle pass can provide dramatic lift to revenue generation, engagement, and retention.
Adding Web3 functionality on top of an already strong mechanic opens the door to creating even more innovative, fun experiences for players.
Key Benefits
Enhanced Monetization: Introduce a new revenue stream with NFT Battle/Season Passes that provide players with benefits, instant rewards, and access to limited-time game modes and events.
Cross-Game Integration: Web3 enables passes to unlock objectives and rewards across multiple titles - unlocking powerful promotion and UA strategies.
Segment Targeting: Create customized pass bundles and trigger them for the right players!
Flexibility: Want a battle pass? Done. Want a VIP Program? Also done. Configure the pass to suit your product goals.
Supercharged NFTs: Create a pass that can be recharged or topped up - enabling more customized durations and price points for players + innovative new monetization and retention strategies.
Upgradeable: Like a real-life loyalty card, an NFT pass can gain benefits as players spend. Reward your most engaged players who participate in multiple events/seasons with perks and bonuses.
Use Cases
There are nearly as many versions of passes as game genres - below are some examples of how the NFT Pass module can be leveraged in particular scenarios.
Subscription Pass
Create a rechargeable NFT pass to add a highly customized subscription feature that players engage with using in-game currency.
For example, players would be offered a Weekly Elite Pass or Monthly Elite Pass that grants players access to some extra rewards and an additional game mode - essentially like unlocking "paid" access to a game for a period of time.
On purchase the Elite Pass is “Charged” for a set duration, as time passes the charge depletes. Once the charge is depleted the player can top up the Elite Pass for the desired amount of time (7 days, 30 days, etc). How refilling or charging is accomplished can be themed appropriately for the game, whether it be batteries, fuel, gems, etc.
This implementation style is reminiscent of Mario Kart Tour's top-selling IAP, the Gold Pass, which has contributed significantly to its revenue, totalling $293 million to date.
Cross-Game Pass
Another possible configuration is a game pass that leverages cross-game objectives, rewards, and segmented targeting - enabling unique promotional and UA benefits for games within a studio's portfolio.
For example, a studio has two hyper-casual titles - Game A and Game B. Game B has been launched with various improved features and monetization mechanics. The studio can strategically incentivize players from Game A to install and play Game B by creating a game pass with benefits and rewards in both games.
Players in Game A would be served a game pass offer that grants rewards in Game A for trying Game B, thereby driving installs and engagement in Game B and allowing the studio to gather valuable data in Game B without any UA spend.
Cross-game promotion via game passes is also a highly proven strategy employed by the largest publishing and platform gaming companies. Ready's NFT Pass module unlocks this functionality for studios at any level in the ecosystem!
To increase conversion for the game pass offer, segment targeting allows for multiple price points and reward configurations to be triggered for players based on their prior play and spending patterns.
Offering custom price points and bundles based on a player's preferences is a proven method of enhancing monetization & driving engagement.
VIP Pass
Ready's NFT Pass module allows a pass to function as a VIP/Loyalty program in addition to the core pass functionality.
VIP systems are commonly integrated into games to reward and retain spending players. As players spend, they unlock successive tiers of benefits based on the total amount they have spent in-game - incentivizing players to participate in each new season or event to improve the benefits they gain from their pass.
For example, making 5 purchases in-game could unlock a permanent 3% bonus when purchasing hard currency. Making 10 purchases could unlock access to a VIP room feature.
Another possible strategy would be rewarding players with a discounted or free pass for every 5th pass purchase (similar to a coffee shop loyalty card).
Combining typical pass mechanics with loyalty or VIP systems would increase a player's long-term investment into a game as their pass continuously increases in value the more they spend and play.
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