23. Finding Your Unique Selling Points and Value Propositions
Discussion and exercise example for finding USPs and Value Props for your game.
How deep you usually go for defining your game’s unique selling points (USPs) and value propositions (value props)? Do you just play a competitor game quickly and scratch the surface of this layer, or do you go deeply in breaking down your competitor games?
This article focuses on discussing USPs and value props for games and why they matter — as well as giving an example exercise (one way among many) on defining USPs more better, if you haven’t ever done it thoroughly (which you should always do).
Why USPs and Value Props Matter
In today’s industry, where competition is fierce and player expectations are ever-evolving, the importance of USPs and value propos cannot be overstated.
USPs and value props aren’t just marketing buzzwords — they are the DNA of your game’s success. They guide development, attract the right players, and create the emotional connection necessary for engagement and monetization. By crafting and communicating these effectively, you’ll build a game that stands out, delights players, and thrives in the competitive gaming landscape.
Side Note: Commercialization and sentiment around it is a big thing on current mobile games’ landscape — where USPs and value props definitely have their place. You can find more about current state of Mobile Games market here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/16-mobile-gaming-cycles-commercialization):
Standing Out in a Crowded Market
With thousands of games released each year, a strong USP helps your game cut through the noise. It’s what makes your game memorable in an ocean of similar options.
Differentiation isn’t just about being better; it’s about being different in a way that matters. A clear USP can position your game uniquely in the market, targeting an underserved niche or providing a fresh spin on a popular genre.
Delivering Fresh Experiences
USPs and value props should highlight what’s new and exciting about your game. Players are constantly seeking novel experiences — whether it’s an innovative mechanic, a groundbreaking art style, or a unique meta gameplay twist.
Freshness not only attracts players but also creates word-of-mouth / self-propagation, fueling organic growth.
Engagement and Monetization
When your game offers a distinctive value, it becomes attractive to players. This attractiveness fosters stickiness — players engage longer because they feel your game offers something they can’t find elsewhere.
Over time, this engagement can evolve into monetization behaviors, whether through IAPs, Ads, or premium content. A strong USP ties directly to a player’s willingness to invest time and money.
Side Note: Interested to learn more about what ties players’ willingness to invest time and money to your product? Read more about Intrinsic Monetization strategy and approach here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/intrinsic-monetization-alternative):
Enhancing Marketing Effectiveness
Your USPs and value props are the foundation of your marketing strategy. Ads, trailers, and store pages that communicate these clearly can drive CPIs down by capturing the attention of the right audience — and, usually, when you do your creatives strategy right, you’ll get more engaged audience into your game.
When players instantly understand why your game is worth playing, they’re more likely to install, engage, and monetize — improving conversion rates across your campaigns.
Want to learn more about how USPs and value props can be tied to marketing? See my article about this here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/24-unlocking-the-power-of-intrinsic):
Building Long-Term Player Loyalty
Beyond acquisition, USPs and value props create a sense of identity for your game. Players who resonate with your game’s unique qualities are more likely to stick around, become brand advocates, and contribute to a loyal community.
How to Find your USPs and Value Props?
The topic asks the question: How you can find your USPs and value props? This is a question that usually gets answered with ton of juniority in the answer, where something has been done usually quickly on defining USP — which usually leads on poor game USP with lack of depth on understanding how it resonates on market, audience and competitor levels.
This is where you can do better, for which I’ll be sharing here a simple framework on how to scratch this layer a bit better.
Note: This introduced framework is just an example, which you should use in your product strategies with your best judgement. In addition to this model, there are multiple other ways to do and achieve same things and outcomes, which you as a reader should acknowledge as well.
Step 1: Start from Your Direct Market Segment
To get the ball rolling, you should start (by using any tool of your choice, which you think is best for this) by looking into some of the top games within the segment you’re directly aiming to enter (and, obviously, understanding on which segment you’re going to enter is the required starting point before this step — which I’ll leave for you to define).
The first step in this exercise is to basically deconstruct / break down each of those top games’ features, mechanics, USPs, value props, etc. you identify and estimate how effective (/ineffective) they are on e.g., engaging and/or churning users (or using other measurement factors you think are better). You can (/should) also, beyond breakdowns and impact estimates, gather each chosen title’s audience data, KPIs, player profiles, etc., which can be useful during further steps in the exercise. Below image will demonstrate to great extent what you should be defining and listing out.
Image demonstrating Step 1.
Once you’ve deconstructed enough games from the direct segment you’re aiming to enter with your game, you can move to Step 2, which is a continuation step to Step 1.
Side Note: In addition to archetypes and other audience profiling approaches, you could use some principles of psychology and physiology in this exercise, if you have good gasp over these things. To get started on this front, you can read more about use of physiology and psychology in games here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/8-physiology-and-psychology-how-they):
Step 2: Compare Competitor Differences and Their USPs and Value Props
Second step in the process is to continue with the Step 1’s work.
Here, on this step, you should simply spend your time in comparing your chosen titles and their features, mechanics, USPs, value props, and the like — and making notes between them to find out how these games differ and position themselves between each of them. Below image illustrates what I’m after here.
Image demonstrating Step 2.
When you’re doing Step 2, you’re building new type of understanding over each top game on the segment — as well as understanding over how they position themselves within the segment.
By understanding both layers, each game’s breakdown as well as their positioning and differentiating factors from each other, you start building actual strategic visibility within a segment, which you can use in defining your USPs not just on per-game level but also on a whole segment level. The understanding built here will be crucial for Step 3.
Step 3: Defining your USPs and Value Props
After completing Step 2, you should have more extensive view not just on a per-game level but on a segment level about what are their top games’ USPs and value props and how they compare between each other — positioning and differentiating them within the segment. This is an actual point, where you actually can first time, with more sophisticated understanding, to start defining your USPs and value props in the ‘right way’ vs. how you would have potentially done it the other way around.
Above said, this step is basically all about defining your USPs and value props and marking your notes over / between the chosen games. By doing this at this level, it will give you already much better chances on positioning your product within a segment better. Image below will visualize this step.
Image demonstrating Step 3. In this image I’m giving couple examples around USPs but you can also add here your value props as well as other notes around game mechanics, meta, etc., which you think would be useful.
As you see from the above image, in connection with defining USPs and value props during this step, you can also make notes that tie-in your USPS and value props with the other data (e.g., audience data, KPIs, audience profiles, etc.) you’ve placed into your model — which is something I’d recommend deeply, as by connecting your USPs and value props with e.g., audience understanding you’ll make your USPs and value props much more effective within the segment you’re going to enter; which, furthermore, also helps building more thorough understanding about your segment and audience profiles within it.
For some developers and publishers, this layer could be all they need. For some others, additional depth and understanding might be needed to be added, e.g., a comparison between multiple segments. For this, those wanting to go deeper, they can follow optional Step 4 below. Others who’re fine with this level, they can jump to ‘Going Further’ part of this article.
Step 4 (Optional): Comparison Between Segments
For some games, where you need to understand not just one segment but multiple ones, this Step 4 can act as a needed step. Practical example of this type of need comes from e.g., genre-mixing — for example, through combining MMORPG and ARPG gameplay together, where within both segments certain competitor games could be also interpret to have foothold between these two comparable segments.
On this step, basically the idea is to compare what Step 1, 2 and 3 have produced as outcomes for multiple segments, and make notes between different segments / sub-segments you think are necessary to be studied. Image below illustrates this.
Image demonstrating optional step, Step 4.
On your notes here, the goal should be checking through if your USPs 'hold tight’ between segments and/or if you would figure out new USPs and value props out from multiple segments or your existing USPs and their notes between multiple segments. For example, in the MMORPG and ARPG segment, a base building mechanic could be unique, which would translate between segments and retain its USP and value prop value.
Side Note: Interested more about MMORPG mobile segment and its future? Read my article and predictions about these things here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/mobile-mmos-innovation-opportunities):
Going Further
Going further from the above steps basically can include things you see necessary, e.g., from combining / summarizing your USPs and value props to defining how they translate more deeply to in-game features and how those features e.g., serve your audience data, player profiles and benchmarked KPI targets.
Side Note: Interested about to learn how to benchmark your products better? Read my article about mobile games benchmarking here (https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/p/7-early-stage-benchmarking):
From those points onward, you’re able to use all the findings and notes you’re making in further defining your game’s fundamentals and pillars so that it would actually hold much stronger position from the ground up — from game design choices to product level strategy to go-to-market plans to engagement and monetization design as well as LiveOps strategies; which are all points I’m recommending diving deeply into with your USPs and value props, if you really want to win over your chosen segment(s). If you’re skipping these kinds of things in your product processes, you’re making gaps to your produced outcomes / deliveries, which results to debt you need to pay out at some point (or won’t even reach a payment point if things just don't work out for your game).
Final Thoughts
As the article states, in today’s industry, it’s crucial for success to understand how you’re going to position your game in the market.
What this article coves, weaponizes you with some great tools and methods over figuring out things you need to have in your game, to make it unique and really stand out.
What is good thing always to remember is the fact that execution counts as well; which is as important as understanding what you’re going to make — as poor execution with a great idea leads to poor business where even a great execution over a poor idea overcomes that.
Hope this article helps you to make your game stand strong in the market!