Harpagia · B2C · idle RPG game
Focus on keeping players coming back before worrying about making money
Founder credits it; no separate numbers
Unknownretentionfeature-development
What they did
In the early stage, didn't worry much about monetization; prioritized retention and building a game people wanted to keep playing.
- Stage
- Early
“I also didn't worry much about monetization in the beginning. My focus was retention first and building a game that people wanted to keep playing.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Harpagia: Post screenshots of your rough game on Reddit and stress it's free to playRevenue jumped from ~$1K to ~$10K a month almost overnight, despite harsh comments
- Harpagia: Share big game updates on Reddit every few months, within subreddit promo rulesEach post brought a jump in new players; revenue rose from $10K to a ~$18K/month peak
- Harpagia: Price in-game purchases between $4.99 and $9.99Players buy readily in that band; above $9.99 converts worse. No test numbers given
- Harpagia: Make the game free and sell optional extras that speed up progress~6% of downloads pay (games typically 2-5%); over $3 per active user a year
- Harpagia: Launch after 6 months no matter what, and let real players shape the gameFirst $10 sale within days; ~$150 in month one, ~$1,500 total by month two
- Big 2 Wild: Build a tiny practice app in 6 weeks to learn launching before the real oneTaught AI-assisted building and app store approval; lessons fed the main game