A Closer Look at MyBrute
April 26, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzA couple of weeks ago a member on my poker forum created a thread linking to his MyBrute character, challenging anyone to try to fight his character and beat him.
Always up for a challenge, I checked to see what the site was all about. The first couple times I played it I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Now I now can’t get enough of this stupid little flash game.
I thought it would make for a good blog post if I deconstructed the site and analyzed why it is so popular and how easily it could be monetized.
Now, this type of game is probably the last thing you’d ever find me playing, and once I explain how it works to you, you probably won’t understand how anyone with an IQ over 45 could like it either. But I bet that a large portion of you who actually try it will end up being addicted to it and levelling your character. You may not like it at first, but addiction might take over and you’ll soon be writing a blog post about it like I am 🙂
How It Works
MyBrute.com is a very simple and free online game in which you create a character that fights other characters made by other people.
After choosing a look and name for your character, you’re done and ready to start your first fight. Your character starts off with a couple random abilities, stats (Strength, Agility, and Speed), and weapons.
You can then enter the Arena (or choose to fight a friend if you know their name) to choose to battle somebody else’s character. This is where the real surprising aspect of the site is, for you get absolutely no control over your character! The fighting is all done automatically for you and all you can do is simply sit back and cheer your character on.
While I love games of skill, there’s still something oddly satisfying with the game even though all you’re really doing is clicking a button (Fight!).
If you win you get 2 experience points, and if you lose you only get 1. When you get enough experience points (which incrementally increase each level, making it harder to level up each time), you level up which will again randomly give you a new ability, increase your stats, or give you a new weapon.
You can also gain experience points by referring other people to the site. This is one of the main reasons why the site has taken off, as addicts of the site will do almost anything to get more referrals (called pupils in the site).
What’s most frustrating about MyBrute is that you can only fight up to 3 times per day. The limit seems rather ludicrously low (since each fight takes about 30 seconds), but at the same time it also has a weird effect of making you be sure to remember to visit the site everyday so you can get your allotted 3 fights in.
The limit also encourages you to refer others to the site since that is the only other way you can gain experience.
Why It’s Popular
MyBrute is less than a month old but has already taken the web by storm. Just check out the Alexa stats below:
I know that Alexa is an unreliable metric tool to say the least, but even so, gaining a ranking of 300 only two weeks from launching is insane.
I can promise you that there will be countless MyBrute clones in the not-too-distant future popping up everywhere. In fact, I bet Elance is crawling with dozens of such requests right now.
I think MyBrute is popular for 3 main reasons:
1. It’s Simple and Easy to Start Playing
There’s a lot to be said for creating sites that are very simple in nature, at least to the user. I know of a little site named Google that will agree. People are just inheritably lazy.
MyBrute made creating an account incredibly easy. All you need is to create a username and select a randomly designed character and you’re done. They don’t even ask to enter your e-mail or choose a password. Later, if you wish to save your character (which you will), you can enter a password. The whole process of changing from visitor to player takes literally 10 seconds.
In addiction, the actual mechanics of the game are simply as well. The fighting is all automatic and you can’t choose what weapons, skills, or abilities to focus or improve on. While it’d be nice to have some control over the latter, I actually really like how the fighting is automatic.
This is the perfect type of game to kill 5-minutes a day with.
2. The 3-Fights per Day Limit is Frustratingly Addicting
Since you can only fight up to 3 times per day, you become clearly aware that you need to visit the site once a day to take advantage of those precious 3 fights. As far as I know, the numbers don’t roll over, forcing you to visit everyday if you want those fights.
3. The Levelling Up Concept is also Addicting
The process of levelling up has always been a very addicting concept. Just ask any World of Warcraft player. Some people can be so addicted to levelling up, in fact, that I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen more use of this concept from other games looking to take advantage of that fact.
The desire to improve and/or want more is part of what makes us human. We always want more or to be better. We’re rarely ever satisfied. I’d be very interested if somebody can take the levelling up concept and use it primarily for the use of making money online form it.
This Could Be a Money Making Machine
For some odd reason, MyBrute doesn’t appear to be monetized in any way.
I don’t know just how big MyBrute is, how many members it has, or their traffic. But I’m sure that if they monetized the site they could be making 6 figures a month if not 7.
The only ads on the site appear to be linked to other games that the parent company Motion-twin.com owns and operates. And from what I can tell, none of those sites have any advertising either, so it’s not as though they’re just trying to drive extra traffic to their other games. Even so, why not monetize the site anyway?
MyBrute is free and doesn’t collect any contact information such as e-mail addresses, so I’m really confused why it’s not being monetized. It would be incredibly easy to do so.
One of the best ways I can see, other than simply slapping on some banner ads, would be to offer paid memberships. Even if all the memberships did was raise the number of fights per day, it would see hordes of signups.
For example, a Silver membership could cost $5/month and give 10 fights per day instead of 3. I know that I’d personally pay for this, since I’m so addicted to the game. And for the real hardcore players, why not offer something like a Platinum membership at $50/month for 100 fights per day?
If 800 people purchased the Silver membership and 150 the Platinum, that’s already $11,500 a month. I’m sure their hosting costs are expensive, so why aren’t they monetizing it? I’m really curious.
Fight Me
My addiction to MyBrute dictates that you must fight me. My brute’s URL is: http://kidred.mybrute.com, and after signing up you can try fighting me. Although, I’m currently a level 6 so it wouldn’t be a fair fight… 😉
Haha, nice concept.
And I enjoyed your analysis. I’m looking forward to reading more posts like that in the future.
It’s wierd to see no ads or subscriptions there… I agree with you when you say a paid monthly subscription could make them 6-figures easily.
And the really strong point of the game, in my opinion, is the viral part, where you gain points for referring the game.
Yeah dude, I was wondering if you knew when a new mybrute day begins?
I have a brute with a bear who got it 1st level after pupiling another brute with a bear, so I think that theory works.
If anyone wants to try it out with me, pupil me at:
http://sonarobject.mybrute.com
Haha great post Tyler!
I have a MyBrute as well, and was considering posting about this phenomenon as well.
Fight me here: http://www.koolfundz.mybrute.com
Whoops! Looks like the “www.” part throws it off!
http://koolfundz.mybrute.com/
Not bad, level 5! I’ll fight you later today when I can again.
I got 19 pupils out of this post so far, finally got my bear 🙂
STICKYCARROTS WINS THE FIGHT
I thought you were going to beat me because you have some pretty big stats already. Good match 🙂
never heard of this game but does look fun…for me the 3 match rule is great since I am too busy to play traditional vid games.
You can challenge other Brute’s at FightMyBrute.com. Good luck Tyler!
STICKYCARROTS WINS THE FIGHT
It was an epic battle, but in the end you cannot defeat me 🙂
LOL – that was BS, I watched the fight. One hit kill 😛
Wait until I have more HP… 😛
Let’s see what you got!
Already killed you this afternoon. I levelled up to level 8 which gave me 9 more HP which helped.
Yeah, I’ve been doing a little recruitment myself and now have 24 Pupils. They need to make the fight history longer so I can see our fight from earlier.
I’ll be attacking you as soon as I can 🙂
Reminds me of Ragnarok…lol. I subscribed to that for a year and just gave up. I wanted to sell all my “MONEY” in the game, but got banned. I was lucky that it ended though because it totally KILLS time.
Now Ragnarok is pretty much dead..
-Mike
I just signed up. Got the name web 2.0 as well. hahahaha.
[…] Cruz made a post about MyBrute yesterday and resparked my interest for the game. It’s a really simple game and a good time […]
How come you got a level 9 with just 2 days?
Mind fighting mybrute?
http://paulubiadas.mybrute.com
I’ve actually had my guy for close to two weeks, and I got to level 9 from the 62 (so far) pupils I signed up by writing this post 😉
Enjoyed the analysis! I hope we can look forward to more of this type of analysis in the future.
You can really see the psychology behind the ‘3 plays per day’. Very interesting.
I guess their initial plan was to draw traffic to their other paid games (e.g DinoRPG). Or maybe possible upon reaching a certain level you’d have to pay to continue leveling up.
i dont think you play this game..just a review
I’ve become pretty addicted to this game as well. Feel free to challenge me at http://herzkonig.mybrute.com
Good luck! 😀
yeah like most people that have replied i am too finding my self becoming a mybrute junkie. i thought it was a nice things to no adds on the site (in reference to the artical above) gives it a nice clean what you see is what you get, if you know what i mean.
however if i do have one gripe it is that the site seems a little unstable i seem to get an error message every couple of clicks, this is fixed by refreshing the page but still a little annoying.
i also have to agree with Tyler Cruz on the 3 fights a day issue, i would also pay $5 a month for some more fights, however i like the fact its all free so to pay for it might push people away from playing it on a regular basis? may be it would just need a wee update to allow at least 6 would solve this gripe
any way watch this space i do think this game will be big
please join my team
http://junglist808.mybrute.com/
happy hunting
Jake
Yeah, there are some errors at times, but it appears to be around 3PM Pacific time when the system resets for a ‘new day’. A lot of addicts (like me) tend to log on at just after 3pm which inevitably causes a load on their server causing the error messages.
Also, the site goes down for maintainance once a day around 8pm-10pm.
Hard to believe I got a 100 pupils from this post… 🙂
Taking on all challengers @
http://gteag.mybrute.com
Join as my pupil to receive a dragon pet when you hit lvl 3! ^^
Join as my pupil to receive a dragon pet when you hit lvl 3! ^^
http://run-dll.mybrute.com
There’s no dragon pet ya dumbass.
Try to pupil http://igottagetit.mybrute.com to get a wolf within 4 levels.
http://run-dll.mybrute.com
Join as my pupil to receive a dragon/bear/wolf pet when you hit lvl 3! ^^
[…] new flash based game called My Brute. I was over at a fellow internet entrepreneur’s blog Tyler Cruz and read about My Brute. MyBrute is a Flash game where two animated characters fight each other in […]
[…] new flash based game called My Brute. I was over at a fellow internet entrepreneur’s blog Tyler Cruz and read about My Brute. MyBrute is a Flash game where two animated characters fight each other in […]
http://run-dll.mybrute.com
Join as my pupil to receive a dragon/bear/wolf pet when you hit lvl 3 ^^
haha this thing looks awesome.
If i get bored later, ill check it out.
You should – but kiss goodbye to your productivity xD
Challenge me 🙂
http://run-dll.mybrute.com
I’m not sure if they were there when you reviewed the game, but they have some small ads running on their pages now. Shows either guys or marketing naivity to release it without ads 😐
The game’s got me hooked, but nothing more than the usual 5 mins per day, which is awesome. I hate games that suck you in too hard, I can never get into doing anything until I’m finished with them 😛 (and as is the case with most, they never end, so it’s a bit of a deadlock).
Oh and fight my wimpy brute if you wish 😐
http://tudike.mybrute.com/
Edit: that was “either guts or marketing naivity” not guys 😛
[…] Cruz made a post about MyBrute yesterday and resparked my interest for the game. It’s a really simple game and a good time […]
that’s right man .this game makes me addicted to play and play everyday.
who wanna fight with mybrute kertasi.mybrute.com
or you can be mypupil i have a wolf.
http://lone-renegade.mybrute.com
test me.
http://bigjim31.mybrute.com I will pupil you back
The game is great you can make as many characters as you want until you get one you like it’s very interesting to see how abilities effect the course of battle
Yes, i am addicted to it, i admit :/
It it hard, because I’m level 12, and it took me like two weeks or so, to level up.
http://test-bunny.mybrute.com/
Pupils Galore! Fight me if you Daaare
[…] too long ago while perusing the news on Tyler Cruz, I came across his review for My Brute. Intrigued, I accepted his challenge and gave his character a run for his money. He quickly […]
[…] too long ago while perusing the news on Tyler Cruz, I came across his review for My Brute. Intrigued, I accepted his challenge and gave his character a run for his money. He quickly […]
psolias.mybrute.com
test my brute