What the Pyramid Gets Right — and What It Misses About Ad-Monetized Games

Nicholas Lovell's framework changed how I think about F2P design. But his pyramid has a blind spot: it was built for IAP games, and most casual games don't monetize that way.

The Pyramid of Game Design by Nicholas Lovell is one of the best books on F2P game design. If you haven't read it, the core idea is simple: a successful service game has three layers stacked like a pyramid.

The Base Layer is your core fun — the moment-to-moment gameplay that makes the game worth opening. The Retention Layer is what brings players back — progression, levels, loops, social features, appointment mechanics. The Superfan Layer is where monetization happens — where your most engaged players spend real money on things they value.

It's elegant. It's useful. And when I first read it, it fundamentally reframed how I thought about designing games that last.

But here's the problem: the pyramid was designed for a world where players pay with their wallets. In my world — casual ad-monetized games — players pay with their attention. And that changes everything about how the pyramid works.

What the pyramid gets right

Before I criticize anything, let me be clear: the base framework is genuinely good.

The Base Layer concept is bulletproof. Lovell's insistence that the core gameplay needs to be fun independent of any monetization or retention mechanic is something I apply every single day. At Corochti, before I touched the ad system or the economy, I spent weeks making sure the core loop — the fundamental thing you do every session — was satisfying on its own. If the base layer isn't fun, no amount of retention tricks or monetization optimization will save you. Lovell gets this exactly right.

The Retention Layer as the heart of service games is correct. Lovell argues that in product games, the base layer is everything — you buy it, you play it, it's done. In service games, the retention layer is what separates a flash-in-the-pan from a long-running hit. This matches my experience completely. The casual games I've worked on that succeeded weren't the ones with the most innovative core loops. They were the ones with the best progression systems, the most satisfying unlock pacing, and the clearest reasons to come back tomorrow.

"There is no right answer, only trade-offs" — this line from Chapter 1 should be printed and stuck on the wall of every game studio. Design is about trade-offs. Monetization is about trade-offs. The moment you think you've found the "right" answer, you've stopped thinking.

Where the pyramid breaks: the Superfan Layer doesn't exist in ad-monetized games

Here's where Lovell's framework and my reality diverge.

The Superfan Layer — the top of the pyramid — is built entirely around IAP. Lovell talks about variable pricing, about letting your biggest fans spend $50, $100, $500 on things they value. He discusses cosmetics, power, content, social status. The entire monetization model assumes a small percentage of players spend a lot of money, and the game's job is to create enough value for those superfans to justify their spending.

This model works brilliantly for Clash of Clans, Hearthstone, or Candy Crush. But it doesn't describe the games I work on.

In casual ad-monetized games — zombie shooters, Vietnamese-themed action games, simple puzzle titles — there are no superfans spending hundreds of dollars. IAP conversion rates in these games are typically 1–3%. The vast majority of revenue comes from ads: interstitials, rewarded videos, banners, native placements. Revenue comes from everyone, not from a small group of whales.

This means the top of Lovell's pyramid — the part specifically designed for high-spending superfans — is largely irrelevant for ad-monetized casual games. And since that's where his monetization strategy lives, it means the pyramid's monetization advice doesn't apply to a huge segment of the F2P market.

In ad-monetized games, monetization isn't a layer — it's woven through the session

This is the biggest conceptual shift. In Lovell's pyramid, monetization sits on top. Players progress through the base layer (fun) and retention layer (reasons to return), and eventually some of them reach the superfan layer and spend money. The monetization is separate from — and layered above — the gameplay experience.

In ad-monetized games, monetization doesn't sit on top of anything. It's embedded inside the session itself. Every ad placement is a design decision that affects the base layer and the retention layer simultaneously.

When I design an ad system, I'm not thinking about superfans. I'm thinking about the session flow for every player:

When do I show the first interstitial? Not in the first session — that kills D1 retention. After the first session, I need to find the moments where an ad interruption does the least damage to the player's emotional state.

Where do I place rewarded videos? At moments where the player feels a natural desire — they want an extra life, they want to double their rewards, they want to skip a timer. The RV isn't monetization layered on top of gameplay. The RV IS the gameplay in that moment — it's a choice the player makes within the game's economy.

How do I pace IV frequency across a session? Too aggressive kills session length. Too passive leaves money on the table. The right pacing is different for a D0 player than a D30 player, different for US than India, different for organic than paid.

None of this fits into Lovell's layer model. The monetization isn't sitting above the gameplay. It's threaded through it — inseparable from the base layer (the ads are part of the play experience) and the retention layer (ad pacing directly affects whether players come back).

The pyramid needs a fourth dimension: the ad system as session architecture

If I were redesigning the pyramid for ad-monetized games, I'd add something Lovell doesn't discuss: the ad system as a structural element of session design, not a revenue layer.

In my work, the ad system includes:

First-session delay. No ads in session one. The player decides they like the game before they ever see an ad.

Session pacing. The number and type of ads a player sees per session isn't fixed — it's calibrated to their behavior. New players see fewer ads. Engaged players see more. The system scales with engagement, not against it.

Placement design. Every ad placement is designed in tandem with the game design. A rewarded video after a boss fight lets the player celebrate their win and get a bonus — the ad enhances the moment. An interstitial during a loading screen fills dead time without interrupting flow. An interstitial mid-gameplay breaks the experience and kills retention.

Network dynamics. This is something Lovell doesn't touch at all, and it matters more than most designers realize. Ad networks send your game a queue of ads to show. If you don't show them all, the network deprioritizes you — your eCPM drops. This creates a design tension: you want to show fewer ads for a better player experience, but the network wants you to show more. Managing this tension is a design problem, not a business problem.

These aren't monetization decisions layered on top of a fun game. They're design decisions that are inseparable from the game's session structure. And they're completely absent from Lovell's framework.

The metrics chapter is directionally right but outdated

Lovell's Chapter 15 on metrics gets the fundamentals right: CPI needs to be less than LTV, downloads are vanity metrics, and slavish devotion to a single metric leads to boring games. All true.

But his numbers are from 2018, and the ad-monetized landscape has changed substantially. His CPI range of $1–5 for mobile users doesn't reflect the reality of 2025, where casual CPI in the US can run $2–8 and midcore can hit $25+. More importantly, he doesn't discuss the metrics that matter most for ad-monetized games: IMPDAU (impressions per DAU), eCPM by network, fill rate by ad format, and the relationship between ad load and retention.

The concept I wish Lovell had included: ARPDAU decomposition. In IAP games, ARPDAU = conversion rate × ARPPU. In ad-monetized games, ARPDAU = IMPDAU × eCPM / 1000. These are completely different equations that require completely different optimization strategies. If you're trying to improve ARPDAU in an ad game using IAP-era thinking, you're solving the wrong equation.

One thing Lovell does get right in the metrics chapter: his "Guessing Game" exercise, where team members predict which metrics a feature change will impact before building it. I use a version of this at Corochti. Before any design change ships, I write down what I expect to happen to D1 retention, session length, IMPDAU, and ARPDAU. Then we A/B test and compare predictions to reality. It's the fastest way to calibrate your design intuition with actual data.

The pyramid is still the best starting point

Despite everything I've said, I still recommend this book to every game designer I meet. The layered thinking — base, retention, monetization — is a powerful mental model even if you need to adapt the specifics for ad-monetized games.

The base layer advice is timeless. The retention layer breakdown (Lovell catalogs 18 different retention mechanics) is the most comprehensive list I've seen anywhere. The production and launch chapters are genuinely practical.

Where you need to go beyond the book is in understanding that for ad-monetized casual games, the pyramid isn't three clean layers stacked on top of each other. It's three systems interleaved within every session, every screen, every moment of the player experience. Monetization doesn't sit on top waiting for superfans. It's woven into the fabric of the game from the first interstitial to the last rewarded video.

Lovell built the blueprint. Your job is to adapt it to the building you're actually constructing.

This is the fifth in a series about game design, data, and monetization in F2P mobile games. I'm Du Che Anh — Product Owner & Lead Game Designer at Corochti Studio, previously at VNG Corporation. The Pyramid of Game Design is available from CRC Press. Read it, then argue with it. That's how you learn. anhdc@corochti.vn