Doing Free to Play the Wrong Way...and the Right Way

The folks at Extra Credits produce some of the most thoughtful and insightful videos on game design, gaming culture, and the game industry. In this latest video, they cover the topic of free to play games (aka 'freemium') and the ways that many companies create poorly designed freemium experiences that not only aren't engaging for players but also hurt the bottom line. As it turns out, though, it is possible to create a freemium game that provides a great experience for players and encourages players to pay for that experience.

Bonus:

Much Ado About In-App Purchases and Arcades

Drew Crawford, over at Sealed Abstract:

See, in the in-app purchase model actually predates phones. It predates video game consoles. It goes all the way back to the arcade, where millions of consumers were happy to pay a whole quarter ($0.89 in 2013 dollars) to pay for just a few minutes. The entire video games industry comes from this model. Kids these days.

Crawford's post was in response to an article by Thomas Baekdal about in-app purchases destroying the gaming industry with the latest example being Electronic Arts' (EA) butchering of the classic videogame Dungeon Keeper. (Both Crawford's post and the original post are worth reading, and I think it is especially valuable to view a few minutes of the two videos in the original post.)

I've written about freemium as a damaging force in modern game design, so my opinion on the original Baekdal post should come as no surprise. I do appreciate Crawford's post for its content on modern app economics and Crawford's musings on potential developer strategies for navigating the various issues with app-based businesses.

However, where Crawford's post goes off the rails is the segment (highlighted by the quote above) attempting to relate today's in-app purchasing model with the arcade model of yesteryear.

The two models could not be more different.

The only similarity to be found, if you squint really hard, is in the vague notion of paying for an amount of gameplay time. The critical difference--and this is at the heart of the problem with modern freemium design--is that the in-app purchasing model has nothing to do with player skill.

Think about those old arcade games. Pac-Man. Galaga. Street Fighter 2. All of those games could be played and conquered with a single quarter if the player was skilled enough. The amount of money that a player had to pay was directly tied to his or her own skill level. By comparison, no amount of skill is going to help you acquire those Smurfberries any faster. Only cold, hard (digital!) cash will suffice.

Even the worst 'quarter munchers' like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Simpsons arcade games had an element of skill involved. Nothing was quite as sweet as seeing how far you could get on a single quarter.

Admittedly, racing games generally fell into the 'pay more play more' model, but that was often mitigated by the game having a 'winner gets to race again without paying' feature.

Folks, claiming that yesterday's arcade business model is essentially the same as today's in-app purchase business model is akin to saying that receiving a high five is essentially the same as getting a slap to the face. I don't think I have to tell you which one is fun and which one hurts.

In-App Purchases are a Hot Topic

John Moltz had an interesting take on the topic of in-app purchases, summed up nicely by these quotes:

Well, sure. Ask a heroin addict and they’ll probably tell you the same. In-app purchases are just like the proverbial drug pusher, giving the first go round away for free in order to get you hooked with each subsequent high giving the promise of an even better one the next time.

...

What we should be asking is simply whether or not we’re spending what the app is worth. We’ve spent a lot of time decrying the race to the bottom in app pricing. Now we’re complaining because app developers have found a way to make more money.

I've previously written about in-app purchases and the culture of freemium and how both are hurting modern video game design (as well as apps in general). To be fair, I do think that there ways that in-app purchases can be designed in a way that isn't abusive towards users.

In his post, Moltz gives a fair assessment of in-app purchases. While they are often disdainful, in-app purchases are not inherently evil. He is correct when he makes the comparison to drugs and gambling. People with addictive personalities will be easy prey for exploitive tactics, while others will not be directly impacted much at all.

Folks, be mindful of the difference between good and bad in-app purchases (developers, this includes you too).

Pay for Your Apps, Folks, or We All Suffer the Consequences

Gentlemen! , available on the iTunes App Store and Google Play, is the latest example of how tough the app development business can be. The app has received some very good reviews for its unique style and gameplay. According to Killian Bell at Cult of Android, the developers of Gentlemen! have noted that the game "has over 6,000 players on Android". Sounds great, right? 6,000 players is a nice number for the early days of an app. The problem is that of all those people that have played the game, only 50 people paid for it.

Let that sink in for a while. Fewer than 1% of the people who downloaded and played the game were paying customers. To put it another way, over 99% of the game's players were freeloaders.

As I've noted before, creating an app isn't necessarily the path to riches. However, this is ridiculous. The game is priced at roughly $3 in both stores, which isn't a large amount of money by any measure. There really isn't a good reason for this game to be pirated so much when the price is low and the quality is high. By not paying for the game, the message sent to the developers is that it either isn't worth their time to develop the game or that they must employ the sleazy techniques used in many freemium games.

Folks, we all want to play good games. The best way to ensure that new good games are created is to pay for them.

You Don't Have to Trick Users Into Buying In-App Purchases

I received some excellent feedback for my post on freemium's negative impact on video game design. Part of that post was about in-app purchases, and some folks had the impression that I was against in-app purchases as they relate to game design. That is not the case. I don't think that in-app purchases are bad per se, but I do recognize that they have been misused in recent years (especially in freemium games).

If freemium games are littered with examples of 'bad' in-app purchases, then what kinds of in-app purchases could be considered 'good'? 'Good' in-app purchases are the kind that add to the player's enjoyment without being detrimental to the player or to gameplay. To put it another way, game designers should always strive to make in-app purchases fun and fair .

Here are some examples of good in-app purchases. Please note that I am sometimes referring to a particular in-app purchase in isolation from other 'bad' in-app purchases.

Character Customization

The iOS game Punch Quest has a good example of in-app purchases related to customizing the player's character. By default, a player has a limited set of options to choose from (male/female and a few colors). If a player wants to use a different garment color, add a hat, or choose a different face then they can buy an in-app purchase for their character. Their character is not impacted by these selections in any meaningful way, thus maintaining balanced gameplay. People often want to customize their in-game avatar, and this is a good way for devs to fulfill that desire in a profitable way without resorting to tricks.

New Songs/Levels

Having in-app purchases that allow players to buy new songs or additional levels to play can be a good way to provide ongoing customer satisfaction. Magic Guitar comes with several songs preloaded, and users can purchase additional songs that they wish to play. These types of in-app purchases help keep players engaged in the game without going into addiction territory.

Unlocking Levels/Chapters

Another way to make use of in-app purchases is to let users unlock all of the levels/chapters in the game. Rock Runners, for example, normally requires users to complete levels in order to unlock new levels. There is an element of chance and choice to how its game map works when users unlock levels. An in-app purchase that lets the user unlock all levels is a good way to balance the needs of skillful players (who can earn their way to all the levels) and the needs of less skillful players (or players that don't have quite enough time to master the game). The latter can still gain access to all that the game has to offer, but without any significant sacrifice in game balance or fairness.

Folks, in-app purchases for games aren't all bad. In fact, some of them can be quite good for devs and players alike. Just remember to keep things fun and fair.

Freemium is Hurting Modern Video Game Design

If anything has hurt modern video game design over the past several years, it has been the rise of 'freemium'. It seems that it is rare to see a top app or game in the app stores that has a business model that is something other than the 'free-to-play with in-app purchases' model. It has been used as an excuse to make lazy, poorly designed games that are predicated on taking advantage of psychological triggers in its players, and will have negative long term consequences for the video game industry if kept unchecked.

Many freemium games are designed around the idea of conditioning players to become addicted to playing the game. Many game designers want their games to be heavily played, but in this case the freemium games are designed to trigger a 'reward' state in the player's brain in order to keep the player playing (and ultimately entice the user to make in-app purchases to continue playing). This type of conditioning is often referred to as a 'Skinner box', named after the psychologist that created laboratory boxes used to perform behavioral experiments on animals. The folks that create the Penny Arcade - Extra Credits series of videos have a good video describing the use of the Skinner box in video games that is recommended viewing on this topic. The use of this type of design is at best ethically questionable and at worst deplorable. It is one thing to create a game that is so fun that players don't want to stop playing, and another thing altogether to create a game that preys on its players using behavioral tricks.

Freemium games are often examples of some of the laziest and most poorly designed games. They usually include some sort of 'energy meter' that is designed to limit how much time the player can play the game before they either have to wait long periods of time until the meter recharges, or pay to continue playing immediately. This often results in nonsensical gameplay elements such as the player's character getting 'fatigued' without any in-game recourse other than plunking down cash to instantly recuperate. Similar to this design is in 'endless runner' games where the player can 'revive' their character after colliding with an obstacle (which would ordinarily end the run). Another troublesome freemium design is to encourage users to 'pay to win'. The player can simply purchase the most powerful weapon/item/whatever in the game rather than earning it via playing the game. This has implications on game balance in competitive games, and raises questions about whether players are actually playing a game if they can just convert money into victories. In all of these cases, the game is designed to keep the player from playing the game unless they open their wallets.

Freemium is currently having noticeable negative effects on the video game industry and will have negative effects on the industry in the future. Perhaps the biggest impact is that freemium skews the market's perspective on pricing. Users are becoming accustomed to app and game prices that are unsustainably low. It's depressing to see complaints about games being 'too expensive' when they are priced at five dollars or less. (Michael Jurewitz, by the way, has an excellent series of blog posts on app pricing and why low prices aren't the only way or even the best way to achieve profits.) Zynga's rise to prominence was partially based on its use of freemium design, and its fall can be blamed in part on an over-reliance on freemium. It simply isn't sustainable to have such low prices, and the result is that legitimate game dev shops go out of business while the sleazy game dev shops create games that aren't really games but instead elaborate psychological traps.

Folks, games should not be designed by spreadsheets. You can do your part to support good game design by paying for games that are truly fun. Don't get trapped in the Skinner box.

Sonic Dash is a Good Example of Freemium Done Right

I've recently been playing an iOS game called Sonic Dash, and it is a good example of how to do freemium right. While not the most original game (it is--at its core--a Temple Run clone), it is a fun game that distills the core experience of Sonic the Hedgehog games--running, jumping, and loop-the-loops.

That speaks to the fun, but what about the freemium? Well, that can be summed up by saying that Sonic Dash, while clearly trying to sell in-app purchases to the player at various points throughout the game, makes its sales attempts in a way that is much classier and more enjoyable than many other freemium games.

Take Words with Friends as an example. It not only has a user interface filled with distractions (mostly ads), but degrades the user's enjoyment by taking over the entire screen with ugly ads. In the worst cases, Zynga takes the cake by forcing users to load a video ad.

*Words with Friends is an example of poor user experience caused by intrusive ads.*

In contrast, Sonic Dash integrates in-app purchases in a more sensible manner. When a user loses, they see this screen:

The user is presented with a sales proposition (in this case, to purchase tokens that let them continue their current 'run'). Notice the difference from Words with Friends. The ad is something that helps the user continue in the game, rather than being an ad for something completely unrelated to gameplay. As well, the ad can be quickly dismissed by tapping the green arrow.

Tapping that green arrow, by the way, presents the user with the following screens:

The user is presented with items that can be purchased using 'currency' that can be earned via gameplay (in this case, collecting golden rings). As well, the user is shown their score for the current 'run'. Tapping the 'X' on the hint window will take users to the final screen, where they can share their experience on social networks, see a list of items that can be purchased, or simply play again.

It's important to take note of the fact that not only is the for-pay portion of Sonic Dash more sensible in the context of the game, its ads are also much more pleasing to the eye than the typically garish ads displayed in Words with Friends.

Folks, SEGA has done a fine job of producing a freemium game that is fun to play and sells items without being distasteful about it.