Is completely free the next generation's F2P?

Bladesway

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BrianPeterson/20140131/209800/What_is_Flappy_Bird_and_how_did_it_get_to_be_1.php

What do you guys think about this? A 100% free game that is viral and addictive?

First my question is, what will happen to the escalation here? Where are we going to end with this? First on Mobile Paid games were doing well, no one could get in, so bam, first 0.95$ game. Then too many 0.95$ games so here comes F2P with Micro transactions. Now totally free with only ads... With the current CPI (Cost per install) of the Mobile market being off the charts high, the ad revenue potential is also sky rocketing.

The second question for me is then, will this trend end in so many free games that the late starters to the party will again miss the bus and CPI will drop down to such a low amount that this business model just won't be worth it anymore?

Either way, I think it is a great opportunity for great designers to have an impact, because the way you can win this race is to start early and make it the most fun and addictive game available.

Boysano

People will always pay for a good game, no matter the model, but question is how to you allow them to test before they buy?
The game has changed in this regard.

iPixelPierre

Boysano said:

how do you allow them to test before they buy?

A free demo?

Gazza_N

Why would I create a 100% free game other than as a hobby? It's great that his game is popular, kudos to him for that, but it won't put food in his gullet. It makes for great visibility, but what use is that if he never sells anything (other than a creator's glee at a job well done)?

As for its supposed effect on mobile gaming as a whole, I'm already of the Interwebz Oppinion (and I implore people to correct me if I'm wrong) that the ever-spiralling mobile price war is indicative of a small to nonexistent mass market. If people won't pay what your games are worth, it means they actually don't give a damn about them beyond being disposable time-wasters for queues and commutes. Go somewhere else, or cater to the niche groups of people who are interested in solid experiences and will pay. There's no commercial point otherwise.

Bladesway

A free demo on mobile was the answer about 3 years ago, but I'm afraid with the amount of f2p games out there at the moment you need word of mouth or viral advertising for people to just notice you on the AppStore or PlayStore (Saying this assuming you don't have a massive marketing budget which can only work if you CPI:Cost per Install is greater than your LTV: Life Time Value). The funny thing is, these days, even featuring doesn't mean that much anymore. With Monster Blade though we managed to get our 1mil downloads in 2 weeks with no advertizing thanks to game forums and pretty graphics which got people talking, which led to PlayStore featuring. So Press could be an answer to some degree if you are doing something unique in someway.

This all said though, you should not be looking at the objective to only be a 1 time download. To build and sustain a game development studio, the objective is to turn your game into a service not just a one time purchase. I know some will disagree on that, and yes there are other ways, but service is the safest way. Advertising revenue is still an ongoing income that can fund your next game and the next and the next if you can maintain a high DAU: daily active user base.

Bladesway

Gazza_N said:

Why would I create a 100% free game other than as a hobby? It's great that his game is popular, kudos to him for that, but it won't put food in his gullet. It makes for great visibility, but what use is that if he never sells anything (other than a creator's glee at a job well done)?

As for its supposed effect on mobile gaming as a whole, I'm already of the Interwebz Oppinion (and I implore people to correct me if I'm wrong) that the ever-spiralling mobile price war is indicative of a small to nonexistent mass market. If people won't pay what your games are worth, it means they actually don't give a damn about them beyond being disposable time-wasters for queues and commutes. Go somewhere else, or cater to the niche groups of people who are interested in solid experiences and will pay. There's no commercial point otherwise.

https://knowledge.tapjoy.com/en/advertiser/types-of-ad-units-and-campaigns
See this for the potential ad revenue.

and according to www.appannie.com awesome new Intelligence function we can see that 2,786,633 is the amount of downloads they got. so if we assume every user only saw 1 ad and quit the game, that means that they made a minimum of $55,732.66 this month for a game most of us could turn out in a month.

I would say some players may drop early, but considering that it does have retention and players keep playing, we can probably assume that they have at least an average ad viewing per player of 3 - 5 which makes the revenue considerably more.

rustybroomhandle

For TME I'll be doing something that goes 100% against conventional wisdom. I'll be charging the exact same price for the mobile version as the Steam / Humble one. It's low-ish at around $5, but that's quite high compared to most mobile titles. And if I only sell to 3 mobile customers, then good on them! Target market will be people who know what they are buying, not impulse shoppers. In addition to that I also want to try to make sure than anyone who buys it has access to all versions of the game on all platforms. Likely makes no business sense, but it just seems like the right thing to do.

dislekcia

So. How many games that are exactly like Flappy Bird are out there for free? Multiply all future plans to emulate Flappy Bird levels of exposure by potential to be the single viral hit out of a population growing at that rate (because you're still competing against all the other unnoticed free games out there, they're not going away).

Bladesway

rustybroomhandle said:

For TME I'll be doing something that goes 100% against conventional wisdom. I'll be charging the exact same price for the mobile version as the Steam / Humble one. It's low-ish at around $5, but that's quite high compared to most mobile titles. And if I only sell to 3 mobile customers, then good on them! Target market will be people who know what they are buying, not impulse shoppers. In addition to that I also want to try to make sure than anyone who buys it has access to all versions of the game on all platforms. Likely makes no business sense, but it just seems like the right thing to do.

I think that is an awesome idea, multi-platform releases and interaction is a solid idea. There are a lot of ways to get exposure and I recon by publicly announcing you will do something like that you might get some press to push through some great sales for you. $5 is actually not that high for the iOS or Android market and it has been said a few times in the circles I move in that Paid might be the only way for indies to get recognition on the AppStore nowadays. The ideal price is supposed to be $3.95 but I think that is a pretty subjective thing, the barrier to entry is to buy at all, if they are willing to buy it for $3.95 they are just as likely to do it for $5, and some games go way beyond that, successfully charging up to $12 for a game plus in app purchases. I think if you get good press, good ratings and your game is something worth talking about, $5 would not be a problem.

I say, why stop at mobile, what about PS4 and PSN, lol. PS4 is in such desperate need for games you might just get great sales there. haha.

Anyway, just my thoughts on it :P

Bladesway

dislekcia said:

So. How many games that are exactly like Flappy Bird are out there for free? Multiply all future plans to emulate Flappy Bird levels of exposure by potential to be the single viral hit out of a population growing at that rate (because you're still competing against all the other unnoticed free games out there, they're not going away).

You are correct yes. And I think that still comes down to good Self Marketing, Great Game Mechanics, Viral Game Design, and Impressive Visuals, all the same ways people have done it in the past, you don't need them all, just two would do. The difference between this and say Candy Crush, is that Candy Crush has to limit its fun to earn money, with this model you would have full freedom to only focus on virality and making the game addictive, which is the edge that I can see for new start ups at least?

edg3

iPixelPierre said:

Boysano said:

how do you allow them to test before they buy?

A free demo?

Well, it also depends on the Store you submit to in this case. W8 and WP8 allow you to set in store whether you allow trials, and offer in the SDK a single Boolean to tell if you are in trial mode or not, which allows you to easily handle it in your game if it is a trial or not. I don't know about other platforms.

That being said, I don't think that a game having adverts is truly free. A good example is on my colleagues phone he played a game (which I cannot remember the name of right now) that was ad supported, and the rate is showed adverts it used >100mb of mobile data in ~15 minutes. Perhaps it didn't just use data for adverts, but it can be way more costly to the end-user than they might think it is.

I have to agree with the sentiment that quality, marketing, and a fun game will all contribute to a mobile game's ultimate success. A game like Candy Crush could make its money by a different model if it was perhaps designed to fit another model. Saying that it has to limit fun to make money doesn't make sense, for it to be successful it needs to be most fun BEFORE you even consider spending any money on it at all. You aren't going to spend money in something that is only mediocre in the hopes that it is better when you pay. It just happens to be that the "crippled" version is fun enough.

You could go and read many success stories using many varying models, there isn't as much a specific factor as they are just good games.

Bladesway

edg3 said:

iPixelPierre said:

Boysano said:

how do you allow them to test before they buy?

A free demo?

Well, it also depends on the Store you submit to in this case. W8 and WP8 allow you to set in store whether you allow trials, and offer in the SDK a single Boolean to tell if you are in trial mode or not, which allows you to easily handle it in your game if it is a trial or not. I don't know about other platforms.

That being said, I don't think that a game having adverts is truly free. A good example is on my colleagues phone he played a game (which I cannot remember the name of right now) that was ad supported, and the rate is showed adverts it used >100mb of mobile data in ~15 minutes. Perhaps it didn't just use data for adverts, but it can be way more costly to the end-user than they might think it is.

I have to agree with the sentiment that quality, marketing, and a fun game will all contribute to a mobile game's ultimate success. A game like Candy Crush could make its money by a different model if it was perhaps designed to fit another model. Saying that it has to limit fun to make money doesn't make sense, for it to be successful it needs to be most fun BEFORE you even consider spending any money on it at all. You aren't going to spend money in something that is only mediocre in the hopes that it is better when you pay. It just happens to be that the "crippled" version is fun enough.

You could go and read many success stories using many varying models, there isn't as much a specific factor as they are just good games.

Sorry, you are correct, in being too quick in my reply I did down play the level of fun that candy crush provides. Candy crush is a fun game that many many enjoy the hell out of. What I mean is that there would be no need for the excessively difficult, unbeatable levels that are meant to weed out non-payers from the game, which is a practice they employ right now. :)