At last week's meetup we almost got into a discussion about freemium during Ed's talk. I personally think it's quite disappointing that there seems to be a generally bad view of freemium from the community in general. As with many things there are good and bad ways to go about it, and these days depending on your target platform and demographic freemium can almost be the only sensible option.
For those of you in the "all freemium is evil" camp, I urge you to listen to this Walled Garden Weekly episode:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/walledgardenweekly/~3/U7oxfS0RpUQ/46840276270
It's a panel discussion from GDC on just this, by some indie devs that (I think) walk the line pretty successfully. They have games that use freemium monetization without hampering great gameplay.
For those of you in the "all freemium is evil" camp, I urge you to listen to this Walled Garden Weekly episode:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/walledgardenweekly/~3/U7oxfS0RpUQ/46840276270
It's a panel discussion from GDC on just this, by some indie devs that (I think) walk the line pretty successfully. They have games that use freemium monetization without hampering great gameplay.
Comments
That being said, I would love to have some good information on how to monetize your game. Even though this community is about making games in both the hobbyist form and commercial I feel that we still need some good info on the commercial side of things. I'll give the talk a listen some time today and give my thoughts on it. Though it might be along the lines of "I like it" :P
My own feelings so far about this is that there is definitely a "good" way and an "evil" way to do this. My best example on how to do it good is League of Legends. I haven't played a lot of it, but the way I see it you have the game that you can play for free and that has value for the players. But the players get to buy stuff with in game earned points so they are not forced to pay money if the want most of the features. But they do need to play more, which adds value to OTHER players because then the community is more active. Also because of the rotation of the hero's there will be a week where you don't have your favourite hero on he roster. BUT you can pay to always have your favourite hero available, which adds value to the player.
So the way I see it the developers have to ask themselves the question "is this purchase adding value for the player?".
This seems like an obvious thing to do, but it's easier to ask the question "is this purchase adding value for us(the devs)?" which leads to the evil way of doing freemium.
Just my thoughts(with little to no experience :P)
I lean towards an anti-freemium stance. Apart from demo/lite model of free play, I don't currently see freemium as a good thing (I may change my mind after reading/listening to the link supplied).
My main issues with the freemium model are pay to skip the grind, pay for health/powerups etc, continuous waiting, and being relentlessly hustled for my money, which only serves to break immersion.
I haven't played a great deal of freemium games, so I may be unfairly judging the model, but the above-mentioned issues are rampant and I am automatically wary, if not actively repulsed from downloading such games.
I will check out your link and see what there is to consider. Thanks for starting this thread.
The current model of F2P involves tinkering with the core gameplay loop so that at a point the player will be grinding to progress. This model is what I like calling pay-to-skip since the player is PAYING TO PLAY LESS OF THE GAME.
Jenova Chen actually brought up the issue rather recently that a good IAP is one where the player pays because they want to play more of the game.
If I am playing your game, and I give you money I get to play less? This simply does not make sense. If Ridiculous Fishing had IAPs it would be a terrible game. Though I am rather sure that Ridiculous Fishing is a statement about the value of premium, and the triviality of current IAPs knowing those guys.
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I think the reason IAPs tends to be rather divisive is because there are people who find an intrinsic value in making games, in trying to share the joy that they have experienced through play with others I think these people generally identify as Indie.
The other hand there is the view of games serve a lack of purpose without the ability to produce a fiscal return, and that fiscal return should be as optimized as possible.
That's not to say that those who make games for intrinsic reasons cannot, or do not, use IAPs Triple Town is amazingly good, and has IAPs, but the core IAP is "Buy Unlimited Turns" which is paying to play more. Also with TT limiting the amount of things you can buy per game: there is a limited effect of the IAP gold purchase on a competitive player. But there are cosmetic items which players who like the game can buy (through either IAP or in game currency).
Though I have to say for every Triple Town there are 5000 games that get IAP wrong.
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@aodendaal I kind of have to wonder if the JHB community meet would be the best place for such a talk. I mean how many people there are actually making finished games. I know @dislekcia oft emphasises the need to finish a game before thinking about it's marketability and selling points. So conflating you must add IAP to your game might give some people just starting out the wrong message, and could potentially cause less games to emerge from the community.
@retroFuture I have a different view on being able to pay to skip grind. I feel as long as the 'normal' route to completing that grind isn't obscene (where it's obviously a pay wall), giving players like me whose time is worth far more than a couple of bucks of IAP a choice to pay is fine.
As an example I will probably never play WoW, because I don't have the time to grind to a point where I'm powerful enough to play what i think would be the really fun parts-the massive raids. If I could legitimately pay to skip there, it would maybe be a different story.
The keys for me are that a) it should really not feel like you can't play without paying and b) paying shouldn't result in a broken, boring experience with no challenge. There should still be something worth achieving if you pay to skip.
Buying power ups can meet these criteria as well, a number of endless runners do this well (Temple Run 2, Into the Dead). Their upgrades and weapons may be locked and require completing certain in game challenges, but paying to skip those challenges doesn't take away the still-fun core game loop.
Not all games need IAP. But every month the market is going more and more towards that route, and if you are a small developer trying to live by making your own games, IAPs are not something that you should be dismissing out of hand without knowing how they can be used properly and effectively without destroying the experience of the game.
Then again, with this being such a new field of game design, nobody really has a proper answer to this problem yet :)
Also I kind of feel that those people who would kind of be the target for such a talk would already know enough about IAPs to decide if they need it in their game. I mean the amount of effort and work that it takes to bring a game to market is massive so you kind of have to know what you are doing in order to make it work.
Also with IAPs and game design Danc, who was one of the Triple Town devs, wrote a rather excellent piece in which he said that (and I paraphrase) I have only been making games for 15 years, perhaps in another 15 years I will actually feel comfortable teaching game design to others.
Also I think even designing from the ground up with IAPs can still not work, if you look at the Zynga style IAPs. Since they essentially screw with the core gameplay loop to monetize it. I think it takes a real kind of mastery to look at the mechanics in a game and add make it enjoyable enjoy that one might wish to purchase in the game, and then making it more enjoyable and more gameplay, because you bought something.
Also thanks for the vid @rigormortis (that was not there because I kind of played Triple Town while writing my post) but the free mode of TT is essentially what the classic demo is. Though I think if anyone does enough reading on Danc's stuff they will come to realize why TT is rather different from most F2P games, since he kind of has some really different views on how to work with it.
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[Edit] Can I also add that we please put the name of the person we are quoting in it would make life a lot easier when we are talking on the forum.
And yes, monetization should ideally be part of the design from the get go. Perhaps not always from a balance point of view (for example, Nimblebit do IAP-less beta programs to balance difficulty) but the mechanisms should be figured out as early as possible (those same Nimblebit games being beta tested without IAP already have the IAP in place and tested with a smaller group).
@mattbenic I agree that there can be ways to make the grind more balanced and not an obvious paywall. My contention with this (and most other IAP) is that it turns an otherwise immersive game into a storefront. I see value in having items like extra level packs as IAP (provided you only see it as an option in the menu screen, not as a constant in-game reminder.) but having items like health/gold/powerups and other consumables as IAP turns the game into a bottomless money pit.
Just downloaded your linked podcast, listening to it now.
@mattBenic, although I understand and agree(to a degree) about what your saying about how different players value time and money differently and how they would rather spend one than the other, I don't think I like the WoW example. This is speculation but I don't think you would get the same pleasure from paying to raid than grinding to raid. Players that grind feel more deserving of the experience because they jumped through the hoops to get there and the raid experience is their reward. If you could pay to jump there I think it would quickly become boring. Also, because it's a multiplayer game other players will feel cheated.
I'm not sure if there are good examples for games that you pay to skip grinding, but I definitely think that it only works in single player games. It's especially bad in competitive multiplayer games.
I think the best way to implement any in game purchases are to allow players to buy things that will only change HOW they play and not make them strictly better or skip content. Take for instance Team Fortress 2(no, I'm not gonna talk about the hats). The weapons you can buy are balanced to such a degree that it doesn't come down to who has the bigger gun it's still about who plays best, but the players can decide how they want to play. Best example is the swords vs grenade launchers for the Demoman. Both play completely differently but don't give you an overall advantage against other players.
A very different example is described really well in this Dara O Brian stand-up clip, and exactly mirrors how I feel about it:
The relevant bit at 3:35 if you want to skip, but the whole thing is great :)
What you have to open yourself up to however is that there are millions upon millions of game players out there who *don't* want to play games for the sake of building up their characters or abilities or whatever. They aren't life long gamers who appreciate and / or have the time for that. They have 5 or 10 or 30 minute windows to play games while on the bus or train or supermarket queue, and they want to press buttons to make cool things happen. Their ultimate goal is the payoff, not the satisfaction of having the payoff down to how much time and effort and energy they put into the game in order to get to that point.
The entire mobile gaming market exists today because of players like this; that alone means that if you plan on competing in this space, you can't discount them and what makes them tick, and ultimately what makes them want to pay you money for all of your hard work.
There is a distinction I want to make because "grinding" seems a bit ambiguous to me. Grinding in the sense that the game tells you to go kill x amount of monsters but can just as easily give you the same rewards with only killing one monsters seems totally fine to pay to skip. Grinding in the sense that I have to level my character from level 1 to 10k by playing the game and unlocking new weapons and content can't be paid to skip.
With that being said, paying to skip the first type of grinding is fine because the player pays to play "more". The pay to not have to do the "boring" parts of the game, but it does leave the players that don't want to play with options to unlock the content without paying, although I would argue that this is punishing non-paying customers instead of rewarding paying customers.
As far as the second one goes it almost feels like the player is looking for something else to play. A statement like I would totally pay to only play like 5% makes me think that that player should probably look for a game that is 100% like the 5%. Hopefully that makes sense?
It's hard to discuss monetization without taking the game design into account. For me at least...
Not to say that I don't get what you are saying personally... I often struggle between "just paying" for an item in the Diablo 3 Auction House (Gold, not Real Money) versus the satisfaction of grinding my way to finding an item of similar power through my own sheer will of time and mouse aptitude.
A more hardcore example which is probably a bit of a stretch is something like the modern Final Fantasy games. Some people love the gameplay and see the cutscenes as a bonus over the progression. Others (myself included) find the gameplay and progression horribly tedious and just want to see the Pre-Rendered Pretty, and would quite happily pay for something that would help speed up the playable parts-maybe some kind of powerup or even a direct skip.
Another pretty common FTP mechanic these days is a the ability to pay to prevent loss of progress. So if you've had a particularly good run in Temple Run and you think you might hit some high point you haven't reached before and it's really unlikely you'll easily get there again, that paid continue option when you die is really tempting. And really, this is identical in every way to the original FTP games-coin operated arcade machines. For some reason it makes "hardcore" gamers cringe, but those of us that grew up on arcades got used to having to pay to progress :)
Even though I'm sounding like I'm anti-monetization I'm not. I just think that there is a fine line to walk when doing this. Also...I'm probably overthinking it anyways.
[quote = mattbenic]this is identical in every way to the original FTP games-coin operated arcade machines. [/quote]
This actually came up in a conversation at one of the meet ups and I actually thought it was brilliant. If you think of a game as a series of meaning full choices then giving the player a choice like this is AWESOME! You give the player the ability to decide whether continuing is worth the "extra coin" that they have to spend. Which means it becomes part of the game, it isn't just layered on top of it.
In terms of F2P design, I've spent quite a lot of time over the past couple of GDCs talking about what it's like to design for F2P and what that means for your actual game. Everything from hearing EA people defending the facebook Sims and SimCity implementations, to hearing how people believe Real Racing's monetisation strategy isn't as bad as some of the other F2P racing games out there which makes it not as bad, to how so many indies are against F2P ideas in general.
Personally, I dislike the way loads of F2P games put elements into their gameplay that merely exist in order to be taken out (by paying). That sort of offends me from a game design perspective, it's the complete opposite of elegant design. That's what energy systems are, that's what grind tasks are too, it doesn't matter if they're relatively obscured by stored currency mechanisms (that's another technique that's manipulative, but not always alarmingly so) if things are being added to a game in order to be removed later in order to improve the experience - chances are you're going about it the wrong way. Or at least, you're trying to create value for the player in a way that's at odds with the way we enjoy getting better at stuff as human beings.
There are other F2P mechanics that I have issues with from a psychological perspective as well, but I feel like the solution is pretty simple: Just don't do them. Every single good game has a ton of ways you could turn it into something that makes money, the trick is finding a way you can pull off with your current resources. You have to understand what your game is like first though, even if you end up rewriting parts of it later...
I'd mention the name of guys like Billy Mitchell, but I don't want to ignite a 30 year old flame war. Watch 'The King of Kong' and 'Chasing Ghosts -Beyond the Arcade' for more about classic games and the elite players.
@retroFuture that transition is actually a pretty good one to compare the current market to. I'd love to know how players handled the move from super-hardcore one-coin-one-play, to the more "casual" pay to continue (or pay to win). Did they fight against it as hard as some people fight against supposed pay-to-win FTP implementations? My guess is only those at the very top of the leaderboards that felt all their investment in honing their skills really didn't like it-in other words the vocal minority just like today.
@Rigormortis I know the FF example was an extreme one, I said as much up front, but I think it also illustrates how different elements of a game can appeal to players in different ways. And that those different players would like to bypass some elements to get to others. Also, as extreme as it is, it's not even unique (for me, anyway), another franchise I see in exactly this way is Mass Effect. I am one of the few players who just hates the gameplay.. but I love the conversations and cutscenes. I would happily pay to just have those elements. Exactly, and very often FTP offers just this, meaningful choices about the gameplay experience you want. As one of the GDC panelists in the podcast I linked mentioned, imagine if console games were all FTP, and instead of paying R600 up front for those games, you could just pay for the experience you wanted (if you even wanted more of it), I'd probably save a fortune in the long run, and the creators of the games I actually enjoy would get more of my money than those of games it turns out I didn't play past the tutorial.
I would give an example of why F2P doesn't work, but @dislekcia really wrote what I was thinking better than I could.
Not to put words in @dislekcia's mouth, but as I understand his post he's not saying FTP "doesn't work", he's pointing out specific types of FTP mechanics that he dislikes. I agree with him there, though I'd refine it to say I don't like FTP mechanics (or any mechanic for that matter) that are forced onto a game they're not suited to.
As an example, if you take the pay-to-skip aspect out of the equation, timing mechanics actually make sense in some games anyway. Think of something like a (non-FTP) empire builder, typically building structures not only costs resources, but takes time. It's part of the design that you have to wait for this, but in this case it's not derided as "waiting to play the game". The difference here is that the whole game is balanced around you sitting down and playing a single session over a relatively long period of real world time (a couple of hours). A typical mobile city builder employs the same mechanic, but instead of being balanced towards fewer, longer sessions, it's geared to give you stuff to do in lots of shorter sessions. Whether a given player prefers one approach or the other is really, really subjective but neither is an outright good or bad approach.
Now put the pay-to-skip back to either of the above and give the player the opportunity to speed up these timers with in-game currency. Is this inherently wrong? Is it different to adding a "speed up" spell or ability? Now I know your next question is likely "sure, but do you charge for the speed up spell?", and I agree that's a tough one. And really, why not if it's something only some players will use, and your game is free anyway?
As a proponent of 'games-as-art' I feel that IAP has a tendency to make games feel more like metric driven business models. I also second @Karuji that the comparison to the 'continue' feature of arcades is not really relevant to a game that you own.
@mattbenic If you want players to have the freedom to skip ahead and access the as yet out of reach content, why not just implement the skip option as a feature of a premium game instead of charging them for the privilege?
More recommended articles on the subject by Adam Saltsman on Gamasutra
Contrivance & Extortion I
Contrivance & Extortion II
I think that, in general, there are a limit number of models of F2P that are being applied in a blanket manner which does not suit their games. This is why I agreed with AngryMoose that you have to design from the group up with F2P in mind.
So with the pay to skip: it's not that some 40 year old in line has the money instead of the time. It's that the gameplay loop has been altered so that it is less fun if you don't pay. When these kind of things occur it makes the sense of flow in the game seen really off. Diablo 3 had this problem with the RMAH, the loot drop was off. Diablo 2 you would continue playing because there was that expectation that the next epic loot was always around the next corner. Diablo 3 you wouldn't really continue playing as much. From Jesse Schell DICE 2013
So more often than not these mechanics hurt the general gameplay, and the aesthetics of the game. Which is why I loved dis's point because it expresses what I believe so eloquently: F2P is not evil or bad, but the implementation leaves me feel lacking. I think the difference between Ridiculous Fishing and Ninja Fishing drives home why so often the IAP doesn't work.
Given that assumption (that the ownership line is already blurry, and the game you're dealing with could be considered a service, not a bought-and-paid-for product), I still think the comparison to coin-ops is totally valid. Even in the case of bought-at-premium-price games, I think there's room for IAP (DLC) though I agree the idea of paid continues there is a tough match :)
Games-as-art is a great ideal, and I'm also a supported of the idea, but even art is allowed to earn it's creator a decent living :) I don't think FTP/IAP needs to detract from that ideal, though greedy implementations are capable of doing that. Again I would point to Into The Dead. It is, in my opinion, a wonderful experience as a game, one I would love to experience on other platforms. It's also a typical FTP runner, with all the mechanisms you'd expect: paying to skip unlocks, payed for perks, etc. I haven't payed for any of these items, and I'm having a great time with the game-I also wouldn't have a problem paying for an unlock once I get to a point where I feel it would be worth my while. Exactly, why not? :) The examples I gave above are cases where I would have welcomed that opportunity. Traditionally, it wouldn't even be considered in game design, but again the more I realize how much I value my time, the less tolerant I am to sit through parts of a game I'm really not that interested in to enjoy the bits that i really want to see. In a premium game, by all means, give it away for free. But I'm not talking about premium games, I'm talking about free or almost-free games.
(Thanks for the links, added to my reading list, will get to them when I have a chance :))
I'd like to know, those of you that are anti-FTP, what is your range of experience in playing FTP games? What are you basing your dislike for them on? Is it reading about Farmville, or is it playing a diverse range of titles that use different FTP mechanics?
Personally, I play a large number of mobile games (both because it's my field, and because I've always enjoyed the format) and there are a number of FTP games that I enjoy (e.g. Into the Dead, CSR Racing, Real Racing 3, Tiny Tower, Temple Run 2, Words With Friends, Pixel People, Jurassic Park) as well as some that I really dislike (e.g. Rage of Bahamut, Clash of Clans, Puzzles & Dragons). I think those lists already segment quite easily into what a lot of people see as good vs evil freemium, but there are some in the "like" set that some would probably dump in the evil category (CSR, Real Racing, Jurassic Park).
This still leaves actual content IAPs, like DLC or new hats, totally untouched. I think that would encourage studios to make more content for successful games instead of simply re-selling the same virtual goods to the same "whales" every week. Not only does that mean more content for everyone to sample, it would still mean that studios can make part-money from people only wanting to try a game instead of drop cash up front on something they're not sure of, but it neatly stops the kind of exploitative, gambling-like design that so many F2P games suffer from.
I almost see the current kind of F2P super-monetisation of a small number of players as a temporary state of affairs that's only possible until legislation catches up and we develop stronger senses of virtual ownership as a society.
P.S. @mattbenic: Interesting that you should mention CSR and Real Racing. We were talking to Paul Barnett recently and he was of the opinion that Real Racing's monetisation strategy wasn't evil because CSR's was so much worse... Obviously he's coming from the perspective of making money out of a game, in which it kinda doesn't matter what you do to players, provided some of them will pay. But we did wonder if maybe the different points on the spectrum were perceived differently depending on where you started. Many F2P players really haven't experienced anything other than F2P systems, so why should they want anything different... After all, loads of people gamble, right?
Found this semi-parody article by the legendary Stuart Campbell, who in light of learning about Real Racing 3's IAP structure decided to advocate for even more aggressive freemium.
Premium content that shortcuts the game: it allows you to get something you could get playing normally. This includes buy in-game items for cash, buying power-ups that let you level faster, be more resilient, or simply lets you skip a puzzle. This is analogous to cheat, and I'm not saying cheats are bad. Cheats are just a way to alter the game to your tastes.
Premium content that is unavailable to others: it allows you to get something you cannot ever get in the game. This includes strong(game breaking) weapons, extra character slots. This is analogous to DLCs. It is a way to get more out of the game.
I think people are over-reacting on both scopes a bit though. In WoW, you have to buy an expansion (DLC) to increase your level cap. People who don't have it will never reach the same level you can, they will always be behind. They just used real life money to get an advantage over you that you will never get in game. But I see more people calling these kinds of premium content "evil" than people calling the new WoW expansion "evil". Even though they are essentially the same thing.
With the cheats variety of premium content, there is also disproportionately more people calling it "evil" than cheats. I know someone who finished Mass Effect using Godmode and money cheats. He loved the story, and enjoyed playing it a lot. I didn't cheat. Seems like there should be no problem right? But he killed the thresher maw in ME2 in minutes, it took me several tries. I may feel a bit cheated that he skipped a mechanic in the game and achieved the same thing. The difference is I enjoyed defeating the Thresher Maw without cheats. He couldn't care less about the Thresher Maw fight. This should only be bothering me when I play games where we share a "world", where the competition is more implicit.
Now I remember a couple of years ago I had a LAN, and we played Diablo 2. We had a day, and we wanted to finish, so we cheated our levels a bit. I didn't have to, my character was already on level, but some of the people I played with did to get to the same level. We played, we had lots of fun. Now cheating wasn't a problem. But the next weekend we held duels in Diablo 2. Now the people who cheated their levels started bothering me. We still all enjoyed it, but I think if they had to be slaughtered by my character because they couldn't cheat to the same level, they would have had an awful time and I likely would not have enjoyed the lack of challenge much either. Yet again, cheating made the game more enjoyable for all involved. How is this different from my friend who just started playing APB, who got premium subscription which brings faster levels and easier money?
Now here's the important part. If premium "cheats" are balanced, they seem to be ok. But R150 for a gun for me is not the same as R150 for a gun for someone else. R150 for a gun is outside my scope. I just don't earn the amount of money to justify throwing away R150. Some other guy doesn't think so. How do you balance it then? Real life is NOT balanced, but it is introduced now.
And I really just can't see why people complain about the premium "dlc". Or rather, I can understand why they complain about it, I don't think it's fair either. But why is that not ok, but WoW's next expansion is?
To extend that idea a little further: DLC or expansion packs tend to have separation to them in multiplayer. I couldn't have played Brood Wars with friends who only had normal Starcraft, the new units would have basically been cheating because they didn't have access to them. That sort of separation makes sense, but it's exactly what premium pay-to-win IAPs are against! In order for a premium IAP to have value like that, you have to be competing against the vanilla players, otherwise why would anyone buy something like that if all it did was make you play against others who had the same leg-up?
Also, I reckon there's a big difference between paying to have more options and areas for progress in a game, like getting a higher level cap in a WoW expansion, and simply paying to suddenly get those levels without having to play the game at all.
I think it's fair to assume that most people play a game to have fun, and there's something wrong with the system in the game is too easy or too difficult. If buying premium content makes the game to easy for you or too difficult for other people, then there's something wrong.
Of course there are people who don't play the game to have fun like normal people, and they tend to skew the system, but yet again, if the system allows for such exploitation through exploits or premium content, it is a problem with the design.
As I see it. Successful FTP games are almost all games that have long and compelling gameplay loops. I can't think of one successful FTP game that doesn't have a fat meta-game.
And people on these forums aren't really working at getting those skills (please correct me if I'm wrong). A lot of the focus of game design learning here seems to be to do with the shorter, more fun orientated gameplay loops.
So I'd be a bit weary of recommending to any South African developer right now that they pursue FTP. Or rather, I'd recommend that anyone thinking of going that route practice their meta-game design skills with a few prototypes, and prove that they can create a compelling game, before they worry about in-app-purchases. It really doesn't matter what you're planning on selling as in-app-purchases unless you've got the skills to get people playing your game for 10+ hours and to get people to being covetous of your virtual stuff.
Does that make sense? I'm definitely pro FTP where applicable, but it's a big game design challenge. Like @AngryMoose says, it's a new field of game design. Presuming that our boxed model game design knowledge will translate well is going to end in tears.
(I'm hoping that a few people here seriously consider practicing their meta-game/long compulsion loops/interlocking loops design. I see that as the first step for designers towards developing successful FTP games in South Africa)
I mean you can look at Diablo 3, and Blizzard have more money than anyone knows what to do with, and they still couldn't pull off the right balance between their IAP and gameplay loop. Those Saltsman articles that @retroFuture linked are <3 and I feel that money and elegant design often are at odds with each other.
I'm not sure if that answers what you are asking?
But I think that looking at this topic from a view that your monetization has to come from the point of a compelling meta-game is a bit shortsighted. I think that if you are implementing a monetization plan you can't just look at something else and decide that that will work for you. You have to have feel like an intrinsic part of the game. That's not to say the meta-loop is bad, it just depends on the aesthetic context of the game, and there are games where the IAP model is completely ill-equipped to function as a way to monetize the game that will make the players happy and give you enough money to work on the next game.
It was one of Chris Hecker's talks that set me off on this but the meta-loop, as I currently see it, is an extrinsic reward for playing. It is gamifying games: that not always the case, but in the broad application it's what I see it doing. Much like how IAPs focus on an extrinsic stimulation that detracts from the intrinsic stimulation. Is it possible to design a compelling meta-loop? I believe so, but I think it takes a mastery of design prowess to pull this off.
So should be practising these skills? Yes, well actually maybe. If your goal falls in line with creating games were the gameplay aesthetic uses or calls for a meta-loop then yes, otherwise not really. It is likely a good skill to have in all cases, but if it not core to how you want to progress as a designer then what is the point.
I think my advice was that we should be advocating people to make games because making games is in and of itself something good. And that we shouldn't add further depth and complication than is necessary I kind of view this in a similar light as why I was against starting out with c++ coding. Yes at some point it is a good skill and may well advance your career, but it should in no way be advocated to those without the prior knowledge to make use of that information.
Also I am currently sitting here wondering how best to define the meta-loop. Would it be that which brings you back to the game, or that which causes you to continue playing, but that is honestly the topic for another thread, and I would be happy to continue a discussion about it there!
In addition to that I think I may have been talking past you I think I have been staring at the post for a bit too long. So feel free to shoot me a mail of sumin if you feel that I have so I can address that.
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@MattBenic I'm rather platform agnostic. Though I prefer PC less shit to get people playing my game. So I'm just going to throw out a list of games here. League of Legends, Dota2, TF2, Tribes: Ascend, Guild Wars2, Spiral Knights, Tripple Town, Lane Splitter, Jetpack Joyride, Middle Manager of Justice, Hero Academy, Punch Quest, Puzzle & Dragon, Tiny Towers, Ninja Fishing, CityVille, and Ravenwood Fair (which I got to talk to John Romero about at GDC, so that was rather fun.)
So I hope that there is no contention that I haven't at least tried a range of games with IAP.
But of DotA2 and LoL I prefer DotA, that probably has to do with me playing it way too much when I was in high school. But I also know that if I take a 6 month break from the game, which I currently have, I won't come back to a slew of heros that I have never seen and played, and have to wait to play them to see how their mechanics work so I can go and play a game and not be an idiot against a hero I am not that familiar with.
Another case would be Canabalt and Jetpack Joyride (JJ). With JJ I soon stopped worrying about trying about trying to get further in the progression of distance, and decided that it would be more fun to just play and get the achievements. This is the checklist that Adam Saltsman refers to. There is no actual challenge to trying to get these achievements, it's a simple combination of luck and persistence of play. But this can be simplified these complaints can be simplified rather elegantly. I played Canabalt because it was intrinsically fun, jumping over things and not dying was fun simple and of itself. With JJ it was initially intrinsically fun, but once I played for extrinsic reasons, the achievements, the motivation to do something for an intrinsic reason is no longer there. So the achievements and goals where part of the monetization of JJ and once those aspects of the game appeared to me it became a lesser game, to me, when compared to its counterpart.
So when I look at what a typical F2P game is: it is, generally, a hollow skinner box that keeps you interested with checklists until you hit a point where you can no longer progress at a pace meaningful for the gameplay to be interesting unless you pay.
Also somewhat tangentially, but still in your post. I think it is really short sighted to say that you are making a game and that's that. History is an extraordinarily important part of human culture in general, and video game's history no less. We have already lost huge amounts of our history, as game developers, to the fact that games can only be played on certain hardware and, the the assets to make a game disappear once the company closes, and we can no longer port them. So I think we should take every effort so that when someone 50 years from now ask where did games in South Africa start they can be shown the history which we are making.
It seems to me that the compulsion loops are a massive factor in those games' successes. I really don't think that is in dispute. Are we talking completely past each other here?
I was advocating that people practice creating games that could have FTP monetization applied to them before they consider adding actual monetization (and weighing the relative ethics of doing so).
Like the way people should not spend all their time debating what platforms they'll be releasing on before they have a game anyone wants to play. It's not productive.
Building perceived value for a virtual object in a game is at the core of FTP success surely? And surely that has everything to do with interlocking/long compulsion loops and closely related to time spent in the game?
I really don't see how that is contentious. Actually I don't see how FTP is even possible without those things.
If you have examples of successful FTP games that prove your point that I'm not aware of please post them here.
What might be contentious is that I'm saying that I don't see a much effort from South African developers to learn those skills at the moment. And that I'm saying that talk of what one should monetize in games (and the ethics thereof) is somewhat premature amongst a bunch of people who aren't actively learning how to make games that could bear FTP monetization. I think I was pretty clear about saying IF you want to make IAP games then this should be a concern. Obviously IF you want to focus on boxed model games then you should focus on those skills. I think most of your disagreement comes from a totally different idea of how players are motivated to purchase virtual stuff (though I'm not certain what your idea is). That or you have a very weird idea of what a meta-game is or what compulsion is.
I also didn't say that a meta-game was the ONLY way make a game that could bear IAP. You seem to be arguing specifically against meta-games, which is just plain off the point. I was trying to be fairly compulsion agnostic in my post. Like AngryMoose says. It's a new field. If we mean to work in it we need to equip ourselves with the skills necessary. Those aren't going to be the exact same skills we've been learning for boxed model games. I'd like us to work towards something here.
Having said that, I am a bit off topic here. This is an ethics discussion and I'm trying to discuss a path to making good games that don't fail financially (which I suspect was close to the topic of Ed's talk).
Compare this to something more traditional/hardcore/whatever - a hack and slash RPG like Torchlight perhaps. The core combat loop (repeatedly click on monsters till they die) is pretty basic and mindane. Sure there's a bit more depth in there as you switch out weapons and spells, but you wouldn't really keep at that activity unless there was a larger structure compelling you to keep at it. If you looked at the base combat on it's own, Torchlight would strike you as a pretty dismal game indeed-but once you add in the extra layers of the game, the whole makes for a really great experience. Who is "you" here? I really didn't read this into anyone's posts-and I certainly didn't mean to imply it in mine. Related to this, something I should have mentioned above when "Games as Art" came up: Art is not necessarily persistent. Some art (performing arts in particular) are experienced, and then cease to exist other than in the memories of those that experienced it. So having a game, or anything else for that matter, not be forever available for people to experience does not disqualify it from being art. I totally get your point of the value of having a history of games, as with any other art form, but imposing the limitation of a game having to be forever available for historical purposes could also prevent the creation of games that don't make sense to be persistent but are artistically just as important. Personally, I found the balance just fine. I've run up against the wait mechanic maybe once or twice, and at no stage did it frustrate me. I'm sure I'd feel differently about it if this was a console game, where I would set aside a couple of hours to play-but I mostly play mobile games as I think the majority of mobile designers expect their players to: in short sessions spread over the day. When I think about mobile game design that's the pattern I think about as well, and while it may not match all players (no approach will) I think it's appropriate to the vast majority.
Even in the case of CSR racing, I got to the last racing tier without paying a cent, and without the paywall/waitwall impacting my play too much. When CSR introduced their multiplayer though, the wait/currency barriers were really extreme, and obviously targeted at already-paying customers. And that's fine, at that point they want a paying customer, and I've more than got my $0.00 worth out of the game :) Very, very likely. These are games aimed at the mass mobile audience, and for the majority of these players their prior experience of games may well be freemium titles on Facebook which offer the same kind of mechanics. Also, because of the massive selection of games on the platform it's very possible most players just don't play these games long enough to hit any kind of paywall-they're downloading new free games just about every day, they get their kicks out of it and move on. The few that stick around are enjoying themselves enough to be prepared to pay a few bucks to continue the experience.
I actually think RR's IAP is pretty thoughtfully laid out. A non-paying customer can get a lot of gameplay out of the game, without too much waiting, and by the time the waits start to hit, they would have enough currency for a new car and could alternate between events, essentially removing the wait altogether. Their packs are also smart, allowing a player to unlock for example 3 new vehicles and 6 new events for $10. For anyone that hasn't played the game-that's A LOT of playtime. I do think it would have been good to see an "unlock everything" pack, even if it was steeply priced (based on other packs, probably $30-$40). At that level, a player is getting the same kind of playtime out of the game as a PGR or Gran Turismo, and having that kind of price cap to reflect that would be (IMO) fair.
Though I brought it up in the first place because I think that most of us (including myself) are at best amateurish at designing long compelling (meta-)gameplay, I think most of us are more versed in the shorter loops. I think we need more practice at the long loops if we intend competing against the now fairly established freemium marketplace, and the good vs evil thing is kind of moot if we can't make good FTP gameplay to begin with.
Something Dislekcia mentioned, that it's likely that some legislation may be enacted to protect consumers from (at least the worst of) FTP abuses.
This has happened in Japan against the "kompu gacha" scheme. Which of course was incredibly abusive.
And given that freemium games make the most of their money off of the people least able to make good financial decisions (just like gambling) I think it's pretty likely some degree of consumer protection will be enacted regarding FTP in the West.
Though I wonder how much?
Wow, letting people pay to add blocks?
Then... letting people pay to remove blocks?
That thing went from a self-proclaimed experiment to crack pretty quickly. It's utterly useless as far as "gameplay design" goes, and it's still going to get people's money?
Are people playing and paying because of the Molyneux name?
I think the good vs evil is till a valid discussion though, just because something still fits within the legal framework doesn't necessarily mean it'll qualify as not being evil :) I would say this qualifies as evil IAP.. but I don't know that this thing even comes close to being a game :/
I was on board when he was calling it a social experiment, but now I'm actually starting to feel guilty for liking the other games he's made. :(
Freemium content broke down into basically 3 groups in DDO :
Vanity Items - Has no in-game effect, enjoyable just for the novelty or showing off for friends. Essentially the same as monetizing extra Quake skins.
Shortcuts - This one only works, for me, if you don't feel like they add grind/roadblocks to the game just so that you can pay to remove them. For DDO, I felt the progression was pretty fast normally, so bonus XP potions didn't feel like something I had to have, more like a boost if I wanted to run another class through content I'd already played. Likewise, stuff that gave you special henchmen to tackle mp content solo, or added stats temporarily.
Extra content - Basically an in-game store for delivering expansion content. I really don't mind this, if I feel like laying down ~$30 would get me a complete experience and storyline. It ends up being similar to playing a free demo and paying to unlock the rest of the game, in that case.
Bad freemium :
- Energy mechanics, usually combined with random rewards. This is essentially the gambling loop. You pay to have another pull of the lever, another throw of the dice, and combine that with one of the strongest psychological motivators/addictors known to man - random, unpredictable-but-regular rewards. This creates compulsion loops. A compulsion loop doesn't necessarily make a bad game, Diablo is all about that loop, but monetizing the compulsion loop directly tends to result in the designers being tempted down the road to evil. It's too tempting to tune your game around maximizing the presses of the "buy energy" button instead of maximizing player enjoyment.
Compulsion is not really the same as fun, though it can feel somewhat like it due to the way our brains are wired with regard to rewards. It's a fine line, but most people intuitively recognize it when they experience it.
- Pay to win/buy gameplay advantages. It's like hosting a sporting event, but one where the referees of the game sell steroids to the athletes, all of the athletes. Obvious conflict of interest, and creates an exploitation loop where players have to pay more and more to stay competitive.
The line basically boils down to building a good product, and then offering more value to people willing to pay more vs exploiting human weaknesses in regards to how the brain works.
It's why sports stadiums are generally seen as less seedy than casinos. You can certainly make money off of creating fun, but there is a line most of us instinctively recognize where it crosses into being manipulative/exploitative.
Molyneux seems to have built the world's first experiment in monetizing trolling. It's a vaguelly interesting psych experiment, but I honestly think he's gotten lost in the world of chasing quirky experiments with human nature over making good games.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky I'm wondering if long term playloop would be a more apt description since meta is kinda "That which is of but not part of" Like metadata is data of data, but is not inherently part of the data itself. So if it is part of the game I don't believe it can be meta. Though I think we can move a taxonomy debate to a thread I shall soon be creating. And once we are talking about the same topic things should be quite a bit less baffling. My view of extrinsic motivation being lesser stems from a talk that Chris Hecker gave at GDC 2010. The part that I really take out of that for this is that if a task is interesting that we would do it without the need for further motivation then adding the further motivation will reduce our willingness to that task.
Also that an extrinsic motivation will cause a person to perform worse on a task than if they had to do it for purely intrinsic reasons.
Now this is just for tasks that are inherently fun. Adding extrinsic motivators to tasks that are not by themselves fun can and often does make them fun, but when it goes to social/freemium/iap this is convoluted into a loop that is there to optimize profit That quote really expresses my feeling towards most of these games, and I believe there are a substantial amount of them out there.
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I find it odd that you compare Jetpack Joyride(JJ) to Torchlight. They work on a very different scale of reward systems.
Firstly you kind of missed the gameplay of Torchlight, and most ARPGs/Hack-n-Slash games work on a augmenting (positive) feedback loop, you kill a monster monsters drop better weapons use better weapons to kill tougher monsters tougher monsters drop even better rewards, repeat until toughest monster is dead or best loot is acquired. While the dropping of the reward in these games is an extrinsic reward it is an endogenous reward which reaffirms the core gameplay. Diablo 3 kind of fucked this up since hey I just spend 3 hour and got the Sword of Doom but you can spend $1 and get the Ultimate Sword of Doom so it screws with the Flow of the game, and it breaks the fourth wall, I am sure those are both twinkie denial conditions.
Now with JJ the rewards don't feedback into the progression of the game. There are very few items which purposefully allow you to progress further and achieve a higher score. Very often achieving a higher score comes more down to luck than to how much effort you actually put into that run. If you get a boost at the start, and life when you die, and an atomic blast you are far more likely to get a further distance than if you didn't.
But also the internal achievements for the game are not focused on progressing further in distance there is nothing incentivising you to get a further distance, focusing on the achievement to get coins for unlocks is a lot more prominent than just about any other aspect of the game.
Canabalt expresses what I would call beautiful play, or beautiful design, its focus is singular its gameplay tight and engaging, and its motivation? Simply to have fun. I find it rather hard to argue against that considering that it was one of the games selected to be in the MoMA. By you I did mean @mattbenic ;) what I wrote was in response into what I read, if I read something that was not what you intended then I apologies.
Art may not always be persistent. But videogames certainly can be! Much like even after a play is no longer being show the script still remain, and potentially videos, so it can be seen studied and recreated. So even if the Galaxy S3 is gone if the source for its games remains, and much like the script for a play it can be recreated or studied at a later point in time.
There are some games which are done and then experienced; with only the ghostly articles about their existence that remain. If I recall correctly Vlambeer did this, that when the game had run its course it would delete itself and source code, but that game was intended to be a performance piece from the start. In the case where the game can be preserved I find it really boggling why it would not. Which is kind of what I was getting at originally. If it just requires saving some data and documents why not do it. (Though this is drifting off topic so I am not really expecting a response to it since I would like the thread to keep on track)
http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/24/iphone-garbage-super-monster-bros-by-adventure-time-pocket-free-games
Yeesh.
Kinda makes me despair that we're spending so long building something we consider "worth" asking people for money for...
Yeah, It hink it would be very hard to find anyone other than the devs that would try and place that in the "not evil" camp.. No, I didn't miss the point. It's exactly why I picked on Torchlight. The weapon drop loop is one of those extra layers I was referring to. It's not the core combat gameplay at all, it's a layer on top of that. It's that management layer that adds enough to the underlying basic click-repeat gameplay to keep it interesting. Totally, again as with any design consideration, some things are only applicable to some games. In this case, I'd say the dynamic nature of many of these FTP titles' content is exactly why they're valid examples of games that should be "allowed" to not be persistent. Puzzles and Dragons "built in" dungeons are really only there to get a player started, the real meat of the experience is in the daily- and other special- dungeons. These are content that exist for a short period of time only.
An xVille type game not only has similar dynamic content, but the game experience fundamentally depends on the social aspect, which is something that also won't (and can't) persist. They are based on an underlying dynamic infrastructure (the player's social graph, and the activity of others in that graph) that just doesn't lend itself to persistence.
These elements are a major part of enjoying the experience of these titles, and while this argument certainly doesn't apply to all FTP, it's relevant to a lot of them.