How Coin Master Disrupted Social Casino And Pocketed $100M

Related to the Attack system – “Shields” are consumables granted randomly through slot machine spins and automatically applied to a players base, so as to block incoming player attacks, protect loot and result in a lower payout for the attacker.

“Shield” reel match and attack blocked by shield screen.

Most definitely, Shields are also lost as a result of incoming attacks. Since a player can only hold 3 Shields at a time, this system also doubles up as a minor retention mechanic to get players back into the game and refill shields through more slot spins. Further, the existence of the Shields system allows CM to be more generous with chances for Attack slot reel results, thereby driving two-way (attacker and defender) engagement through social.

The second PvP oriented spin result is “Raiding”. Similar to Attacking, a player would need to hit 3 raid reel symbols (pigs) to activate the Raid mode. In this mode, a player can bypass protection Shields and steal coins from other players bases.

“Raid” reel match and gameplay screen.

Since the defender has no way to protect his coins during a raid, the odds are balanced for the attacker by limiting the total loot that can be stolen and also fragmenting the total loot across the defender’s base. The attacker has three chances to guess where the coins lie and maximise the loot stolen, with some steal attempts also resulting in no loot gained. Similar to Attacks, Raids also drive two-way engagement through social.

There are two additional systems related to the Raid system. The first is the special “Coin Master” raid. At the top of the slot machine, a Coin Master target is always displayed to the player and on some raid reel matches, it becomes possible to raid this featured target.

Since this is usually a player with a lot of hoarded loot, it is equivalent to hitting a jackpot in traditional slot games – a major win motivator. But more interestingly, the existence of the Coin Master position inversely motivates players to sink their won coins quickly into building upgrades, so that they are not made more susceptible for raiding by being featured as Coin Master.

The second system auxiliary to Raids is the Pets collection mechanic, which lightly drives medium-long term monetisation and retention. Collected pets assist in stealing more loot during raids. Pets are acquired through completing card collections, and cards are acquired through chests that can either be randomly found during a raid or purchased directly from the store.

Base Building and Saga Progression

The base and saga map make up the progression backbone of the entire game. On a certain village base, one uses coin winnings to build and upgrade various buildings. Once all the buildings of the village base have been upgraded to their maximum levels, the player moves up the saga map to a different village level, inherits a new base, and continues to build and upgrade new buildings.

Most definitely, higher village levels unlock newer features and allow higher coin payouts from various slot reel matches. Each village base also has different themes for both the slot machine and base buildings, which become more exquisite and animated as one moves up saga map.

One could argue that the changing of themes along the saga map is Moon Active’s slick solution to retain the same feeling that one gets from playing across different slot machines in the lobbies of traditional slots games – without all the lobby-style cognitive load and DLC woes. At the same time, since nothing but the theme and potential payout amounts change, it cannot be considered as an absolutely new slot machine and therefore maybe a lost opportunity to slightly vary gameplay and keep things even more fresh as a player progresses deeper.

Base building follows the same rules as mid-core games, but continues to be a light implementation to fit the playing audience nature. It feels more effortless cognitive load wise due to limiting the number of buildings to just 5 in each village and via prominent “Fix” prompts appearing on each building after its attacked by other players.

Following the “Fix” prompt UX design, we could also see a world where the “Village Shop” could’ve been incorporated onto the base view screen itself, so as to further reduce cognitive load, clicks and screens, as the repeated actions taken to upgrade base buildings does become tiring over time for an experienced player.

Strong Social Hooks to Drive Meta Engagement

Adding light combat and base building might have felt superficial and ineffective, had it not been for the strong social and revenge loops created with friends and other players that CM keeps rubbing in.

The feeling of being attacked and having hard earned coins stolen, urges one to come back to the game ever more often and do the same to other players, and more interestingly to friends playing the game. Most definitely, these loops also help drive organic user growth and retention. Some key features that drive the social and revenge loops are shown in the diagram below.

Apart from these, there is one bonus feature that almost feels like an easter egg – it is possible for a player to be attacked/raided while playing the game, making the screen shake to let them know!

All in all, the array of above mentioned features are not really “cutting edge social”, but they are simply well-implemented within the core and meta gameplay. Not only do they do a great job of allowing players to invite their friends to a unique slots experience, but also fuel the building of a solid sense of relatedness, competition and cooperation inside and outside of the game. By making for a wholesome social experience, CM is able to drive both short term session-to-session engagement, medium-to-long term retention and organic user growth simultaneously.

Read more about the power of viral mechanics to fuel organic user growth in our HQ Trivia deconstruct.