Dissecting the monetization of World of Tanks. This is my most booked talk from the past and has been held in various edits on GDC USA, Nordic, Casual Connect & more. The talk finds the cause why World of Tanks has such a high conversion of 25-30% and sheds light on their systems and monetization mechanics.

1. Game Analysis
By Teut Weidemann
Online Games & Monetization Consultant

2. Who am I?
 Working on Games since the 80’s (yes, I mean since 1980!)
 Over 100 titles on C64, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Consoles, Online
…
 Jobs: Graphic Artist, Programmer, Designer, Development
Director, CEO, CTO
 Now consulting as an Online Games & Monetization Expert
 Senior Online Games Supervisor @ Ubisoft Blue Byte
 Also teaching “games” at various Universities
 Companies: Rainbow Arts, Softgold, Lucasfilm Games, Apple,
Microsoft, Wings Simulations, Psygnosis, Jowood, CDV,
Ubisoft
 Katakis, R-Type, Turrican, MUDS, X-Out & many more

3.  All free to play MMOs
 Running in all internet browsers
 Technology: Adobe Flash
TheSettlersOnline.com
Creating Online Games:
Anno-online.com
Heroes-Online.com
SilentHunterOnline.com

4. Further Involvement
 PvP monetization & pricing (AC4)
 Post Launch monetization strategy (Anno 2070)
 Online Mechanics & Monetization Supervision (Panzer General Online)
 Monetization optimization The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot
 F2P Education & Training for Ubisoft world wide
panzergeneral.com

5. OVERVIEW
Nutshells

6. WoT game play in a nutshell
• World War II
• Tanks as “classes”
– Light, Medium & Heavy
– Tank Destroyers (TD)
– Self-Propelled Guns
(SPGs or Artillery)
• Team Arena PvP gaming
– 15 vs 15, 7 vs 7*
– TDM, CTF
– ‘Slow-paced Counterstrike’
• Groups limited to 3
players
– But why? (answer later)
• Progression based
– Tech tree
– Tank modifications
– Crew progression
• No avatar or levels
• Multi-match feature
• Clan wars
Teut: “WoT is a Counter Strike for old men”

7. Runs on medium performance machines
Wargaming: ‘40% of our users run below recommended system specs’
Low System Specs key to wide reach
Latest version 9.0 scales nicely to high end as well

8. Tactics

9. Key to tactics and depth of WoT:
1. Visibility & LOS system
2. Camouflage plays a major role!
3. Spotting & Radio signaling to team members

10. Maps
Map availability by tier
Game modes varies by map and per map
Some maps are cycled in and out
Major patches bring new maps while deleting old

11. Hit Zones

12. Clan Wars (beta)

13. Battle Report & Medals

14. THE METRICS
PR vs. Metrics

15. WoT Traffic metrics
Source: CMK Paris, January 2014
**MUV= Monthly Unique Visitor
Careful how Comscore measures traffic!

16. WoT Traffic metrics
Source: http://wot-news.com/stat/server/eu/norm/en
Registrations per month
Players per month (5% error)
EU:
RU:
US:
EU+RU+US+SEA: Total players: ca. 33m
WAU: 7.4m
(status Q4/2013, no new data available)
CN: no data
SEA: see below

17. WoT Traffic metrics
Source: http://wot-news.com/stat/server/eu/norm/en
Registrations per month
Players per month (5% error)

18. WoT “PR” metrics
Source: Wargming.net & their PR 848 000 + 1.5m on vk
78 000 000 1 284 000

19. WoT PR translated
• 75m players = registrations, not active users
• 1.1m PCU in RU → ca. 4-5m monthly active users in RU
– Including EU & US & SEA that PCU is ca. 1.7m
– Rule of thumb: ~4-5x PCU = MAU
– i.e. 1.7*5 = 8.5m MAU
• 25% conversion rate → ca. 2.1m payers
• → 52m monthly revenue (~ $630m/year)
– assuming ARPPU of $25*
– Confirms CEO’s “double digit million revenue” statement

20. Another calculation
• Their ARPU is assumed $7.58
• With 8.5m MAU leads to 64m monthly revenue
• Or ca. $768m per year*
• Matches earlier calculation
• ** assumes ARPU is identical globally (it isn’t)
Source: Superdata Research
$7 confirmed by Wargaming CEO in an interview

21. Research Source:
• Careful with these WoT numbers
• WoT is Western only (i.e. w/o Russia)
• SuperData later corrected this by posting
PCU/ARPU Data of WoT
Source: Superdata Research

23. Main Game Flow

24. Tech Tree
Progress Loop
Until new (better/different) tank unlocked:

25. Tier IVTier IIITier IITier I
Progress Loops
XP is basically their currency for progression!

26. Tech Tree
Here: German Tech tree
There are currently seven: DE, CH, RU, US, UK, FR, JP

27. Tech Tree Zoom
Collected XP for this tank
Elite status,
i.e., XP goes into free XP
Gold Tank = paid
Credit price
XP price to unlock
Tiers (10, i.e. I-X)

28. Tech Tree Unit Mods
Unit in detail and its mods

29. Tiger I Excerpt from WoT Wiki

30. Tank Crew

31. Crew Skill & Perks

32. Tank Service

33. Tank Service

34. The Matchmaker
 Balances tank Tiers +/- 1
 i.e. no player skill balancing!
 Some Gold tanks have preferred match making
 Also balances user platoons!
 Also balances Premium tanks → allows selling of power items!
Matchmaker “tiers” WoT power nicely
 even has exclusive maps for certain tiers
 In PvP team vs. team games the match maker is key to success!

35. But sometimes …
Sometimes randomness can produce
crap match making
Happy
player!

36. MONETIZATION
25% conversion rate, wtf?

37. Gold Tanks
• “Power items” for Gold
• Crew does cost extra!
• Generate more free XP**
• Not modable / upgradeable
• Jump start to earn credits
• Giftable to other players

38. More Space
Barracks need space to crew not being used.
Same with the slots for tanks: the more the merrier as you can earn more XP
faster due to the “daily mission XP”
This is only a minor part of their revenue and due to server load savings
Crew training
If you don’t grind your crew 200 Gold per crew member gets you Elite status
to start to train perks (which can’t be paid)
Again this is minor revenue as players don’t use this often per month

39. Consumables
“Gold ammo” generally does identical damage (“Fair play”) but has higher
penetration. Note: Use Credit OR Gold to pay for Premium ammo, keeping it
fair!
Premium consumables are better and have passive effects.
Note: since end of 2013 many of these can be gained as mission rewards

40. Convert XP to Free XP
As XP is in fact a currency to be spend by the player AND is the main
progress driver This money sink is huge over time.
Convert Gold to Credits
•Tanks become more and more expensive and need to be maintained
•Equipment is very expensive (up to 500k credits) and demounting it costs 10 Gold.
•Economy tips over after Tier VIII (i.e. battle expenses > credit income)

41. Premium Accounts
Their key to 25% conversion rate: as XP and credits is the main progression
currency the premium accounts 50% gain is a major speedup. Note their
cost/time acceleration!
Why 50%?

42. Clans
Founding a clan costs 2500 gold
Wargaming create their own league with $2.5 million prize money

43. Sales Estimates
Estimates of revenue percentage of their key monetization
Sales
XP Conversion
Premium
Gold Tanks
Credit Conversion
Consumables
Crew Training
Garage
Notes:
Premium Accounts are conversion drives, not monetization drivers
Premium is their mass monetizer in value (low ARPPU, high reach) while
XP conversion is their whale monetizer (high ARPPU, smll reach)

44. Q & A?
Lets play this thing
@Teut
Teut.blogspot.com

45. Appendix WoWp Traffic

46. ARPPU Trends

47. WoT Interview Sources
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-08-the-russian-invasion-meet-the-man-bringing-free-to-play-to-xbox
- Microsoft needed convincing about F2P principle for consoles
- he sees F2P on consoles as “the beginning of new era”
- XboX WoT won’t be totally F2P, as players have to pay Microsoft the Live Gold
5 USD per month subscription
- average player spends 3 hours per day in WoT
- global average monthly payment per user is 7 USD
- the Japanese players spend the most, followed USA and China
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/09/with-1-3b-tanks-obliterated-and-30m-players-wargaming-net-plans-to-conquer-the-online-gaming-world-
interview/
Kislyi: It differs a little bit across China, Russia, Europe. I guess our average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) is somewhere around
between 30 and 40 dollars.