Free to Play Model (Developer’s Corner)
Free to play is the newest model for income-producing games. Here are some authoritative articles to help familiarize you with this new game model. No cases, since free-to-play is so new, especially to the North American model.
Game design as marketing: How game mechanics create demand for virtual goods, download link: Cite as: Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2010, Juho Hamari and Vili Lehdonvirta
The most notable quote, “they also suggest a radically new perspective to marketers of ordinary goods and services: viewing marketing as a form of game design”.
“Conclusion: Based on the findings, we assert that game designers, by creating and modifying the rules and mechanics of the game, SNS or other online hangout, have an essential, but sometimes unrecognised role in planning the marketing of virtual goods.”
Here is an oldie but a classic of game design: I Have No Words & I Must Design:Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games, by Greg Costikyan.
A notable thought is “A game’s structure creates its own meanings. The meaning grows out of the structure; it is caused by the structure; it is endogenous to the structure.” The article is worthy of a full read, but for my purpose let me give you his conclusion. “But your changes of getting that beautiful, wonderful, superb game will be much higher if you begin with intentionality, begin by thinking about the experiences you want your players to have, understand what makes a game, and understand what pleasures people find in them.”
This is the best article I’ve found by far about a detailed model for free-to-play. It is by Matthew Warneford, permission granted to share. (By the way, you should read some of his other ideas, too).
Free-to-play on Apple’s Iphone?
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And a couple of dissenting voices, and warnings of challenges, amid all this harmony.
Top 10 free to play growth killers
The Power of Free to Play: a recap of Adrian Crook’s presentation at the GDC (Gamer Development Conference) Most importantly, he notes the pink elephant in the room. “First, there are virtual property challenges. At some point that’s going to be decided by the courts.”
Shuttering Free-to-Play Servers Most shocking quote; “Nexon is pulling its disappointing ZerA and taking an unexpected road: repaying the people who purchased virtual items for real money”
MMO billing headaches, covering billing issues of free-to-play versus subscription based games.
The most important quote about the metrics of free-to-play is “And although it is much more difficult to calculate the average customer’s lifetime value using this model, Hoffman points out another way to measure the financial success of a free-to-play game.”"Another good approximation of the revenue success of a FTP model is charting the growth in average revenue per player, per month -– this would also account for the players who pay nothing,” he says.”
Finally, some notes about free-to-play from Asian, and also European markets, where free-to-play is more prevalent because of more extensively implemented broadband networks (among other factors).
Download link: Game Design on Item-selling Based Payment Model in Korean Online Games Gyuhwan Oh and Taiyoung Ryu Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference © 2007 Authors & Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA)
The most surprising and important quote, “Finally, we discuss game design issues to efficiently accommodate item-selling based payment model in online games: how to balance betweenitems obtained by game-money and items purchased by realmoney, how to abstract the function of such items, and how to strength events and communities.”
A great slideshow (and transcript) about the European model of free-to-play games
Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.
Tags: Asian, Developers, European, free-to-play, microtransactions, security, virtual goods, virtual worlds
