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Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

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Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#11

Post by BEEdwards »

cavanasm wrote: post #5
Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

I'd similarly call out Warframe for this. No required buy ins, but their premium currency can be used for inventory expansion, crafting instant completion (although you can simultaneously craft as much as you want), or trading with other players. Meanwhile they continually improve the game. The trading component also means people with time but not money can still get premium currency just by trading valued loot.

Warframe is a grind designed to make you spend money.

If you like grind then it's free, if you hate grind and won't spend money the game is bad.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#12

Post by pochamago »

I'm not wholly convinced that it's actually a problem. Collectible card games pretty consistently beat out living card games in popularity. Needing to grind, collect, and sometimes pay more for the things you want increases your investment in the game. I hear a lot of criticism about how these things exploit our natural desires, but isn't that sort of the point of games in general? Isn't creating an addictively fun game the goal? I sometimes feel like reducing our interactions with these things to their chemicals and base psychology ignores the human experience and the reasons we've spent so much time pursuing things that people will enjoy to the detriment of other things in their life. WoW seems like a good example. We have lots of stories of people who were unhealthily addicted to the game, but it seems like those are expected outliers for a game that could create such a passionate and invested playerbase.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#13

Post by tempestn »

This is a good article, and I very much agree that the second trade-off is the really dangerous one. I play Clash Royale, and I enjoy the game, but it does strongly exhibit these qualities, I definitely notice that ladder play is consistently irritating, because (being a decent player) I'm always stacked up against players with higher level cards at the same ladder level as me. So, most of the games I lose are against less skilled players with stronger cards, which is frustrating, and most of the games I win are vs less skilled players as well, which is better than losing, but not as much fun as winning against an equally skilled opponent. The only way around this is to reach the 'top' of ladder, where everyone has maxed out decks, which requires a lot of grinding or spending money. Tradeoff one in action.

More pernicious is tradeoff two though. There are myriad timers in the game to unlock various rewards; if you want to take advantage of everything you're playing something like an hour to 90 minutes a day on average, but it's spread out in little 3-6 minute chunks so it feels like less—but you're having to log into the game very regularly. This aspect is not fun, and it can tend to keep it back of mind all the time, just like the article describes.

I deal with it by just not worrying too much about optimizing everything, but that's mildly irritating too. If it gets too much so, I'll likely just stop playing. Really do miss the pre-FTP days though, when you bought a game and then you owned it and could get the full experience without any of this bullshit.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#14

Post by willis936 »

BEEdwards wrote: post #11
cavanasm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd similarly call out Warframe for this. No required buy ins, but their premium currency can be used for inventory expansion, crafting instant completion (although you can simultaneously craft as much as you want), or trading with other players. Meanwhile they continually improve the game. The trading component also means people with time but not money can still get premium currency just by trading valued loot.

Warframe is a grind designed to make you spend money. If you like grind then it's free, if you hate grind and won't spend money the game is bad.

The game didn’t feel like a grind until about a thousand hours in, when I quit. Up until then it was a fun series of learning curves and minmaxing builds. It’s a grind from day 1 if the gameplay doesn’t interest you.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#15

Post by wormslayer666 »

Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

If you approach it as a casual single-player game, it is certainly a wholesome free-to-play model. For everyone else, microtransaction tabs are 100% mandatory to progress without spending inordinate amounts of time managing scarce inventory space.

Since 2.4, many of the 3-month content updates (which are always either good content or at least good-faith mistakes) have introduced mechanics which effectively require more microtransaction purchases (see 2.4, 2.5/3.7, 3.1).

Sure, you can technically play through all the content without microtransactions, but have fun organizing the 159 different maps, 104 essences, 42 (ordinary) currencies, endless cards, and all your actual items with the four default 12x12 tabs. Even then, your best bet for listing items for sale without premium tabs is to use a 3rd-party tool to generate a forum thread.

Not to say that PoE isn't one of the better F2P models out there, but GGG shouldn't get away with pretending to be a small indie studio when they have >100 employees and sold a controlling share to Tencent for >100M NZ$. They have (rightfully earned) one of the best reputations among game developers, but their insistence on selling (what should be) standard game features as $15 microtransactions is absurd.

Looking through the store now, what I would consider to be "mandatory" for someone investing significant time into the game comes out to about $70. The free trial is wonderful though!

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#16

Post by Pistos2 »

This article would have been significantly easier to comprehend if the author had given the tradeoffs names instead of constantly referring to them by "first", "second", and "third" tradeoff. (Granted, he finally does so at the end of the article.)

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#17

Post by Svenskunganka »

Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

How about Dota 2? There's nothing you can buy that can affect gameplay. Steam Workshop is used by community artists to submit their cosmetics, which gets voted into the game by the players. Steam Marketplace where players can buy, sell and trade their cosmetics. 25% of all Battle Pass[0] spending goes directly towards the prize pool of the yearly The International[1] esports tournament, with this year's tournament boasting a $34,330,068 USD prize pool, the largest to date[2].

[0]: https://www.dota2.com/international2019/battlepass/

[1]: https://www.dota2.com/international/overview

[2]: https://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#18

Post by xbkingx »

Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

I have ~80 hours in PoE and started because it looked fun and the microtransaction system seemed reasonable. I stopped because it's pretty clear that what their system lacks in straight gambling mechanics, it more than makes up for in sly psychological tricks.

PoE's "micro"transaction system is much closer to a paid mod or DLC model. Yes, they're mostly cosmetic and QoL items for sale, but they certainly don't feel optional if you've ever played any other RPG or loot-heavy game. Like you mentioned, prices are stupid high and there's nothing "micro" when decent cosmetics run $40+ and a single full effects set is $150+.

The main story takes 20-40 hours, and pretty early on you'll almost HAVE to buy additional loot storage. It's a loot heavy game with no easy way to sell loot that doesn't require storing it (no gold or credits), so they're banking on people getting annoyed by their stash system (which really sucks) and purchasing the added storage. Rolling a new character uses that same storage, so you feel the pinch at each playthrough.

And even if you complete the story, store bought armor at level 2 looks infinitely better than anything you can actually earn through skill or play time. I mean, they already sell "supporter packs" with effects/pets/etc you can't buy a la carte or earn, so the whole facade of these cosmetics "paying to support the game" is already cracked.

They also play that game where you have to buy a custom currency (points) in $5 increments and the vast majority of the items are priced at odd increments, so you're almost always leaving money on the table.

They could offer multiple monetization schemes, like an unlock with each expansion to allow earning some variation of the nice skins and additional storage, while still keeping the game F2P (though I'd love to see them lock applying purchased cosmetics behind a level requirement). I'd be happy to pay $60 for the game and $30-40 per expansion, but I'm not going to just start dumping money into a game to get past the artificial stash constraints or rent worthless digital paint jobs.

There are too many sneaky little quirks that just happen to favor spending money for me to feel good about the game.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#19

Post by xbkingx »

cavanasm wrote: post #5
Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

I'd similarly call out Warframe for this. No required buy ins, but their premium currency can be used for inventory expansion, crafting instant completion (although you can simultaneously craft as much as you want), or trading with other players. Meanwhile they continually improve the game. The trading component also means people with time but not money can still get premium currency just by trading valued loot.

I dunno. Warframe feels "cool" from the start, while PoE requires $50 to not walk around with tin pot on your head and bad renfest garb at max level, even though the level 3 next to you is creating and destroying dazzling universes of light because they paid $250.

Re: Free-to-Play Games: Three Key Trade-Offs

#20

Post by pmtpmt »

Svenskunganka wrote: post #17
Konnstann wrote: post #4

Path of Exile, which is mentioned in the article, stands out as one of the only, and from my viewpoint the best way to do free-to-play. The only things that affect gameplay are specific stash tabs which offer additional storage, with the rest of the microtransactions being cosmetics. Even the lootboxes are time-exclusive, with all of the items moving to the store individually a few months after the box comes out. Peo…

How about Dota 2? There's nothing you can buy that can affect gameplay. Steam Workshop is used by community artists to submit their cosmetics, which gets voted into the game by the players. Steam Marketplace where players can buy, sell and trade their cosmetics. 25% of all Battle Pass[0] spending goes directly towards the prize pool of the yearly The International[1] esports tournament, with this year's tournament bo…

if anything its basicallay pay to lose as some of the purchaseable interactive items are distracting to the user like those balloons and treasures
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