Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
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Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#2Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once.
Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them.
I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games.
Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gaming time is on the subway while commuting.
Another bad part about freemium is that, when they someday shut down the servers, you won't be able to play the game AT ALL anymore. I can still play Super Mario Bros. even if Nintendo goes bankrupt and decides they don't care about the game anymore.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#3Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
You're exactly right. However, back when the NES came out, duplication of an NES rom was beyond the average consumer. Now, say you release a DRM free game (that will be available regardless of internet connection, server uptime etc) -- how do you monetize it when fans will install free copies?
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#4Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
You're exactly right. However, back when the NES came out, duplication of an NES rom was beyond the average consumer. Now, say you release a DRM free game (that will be available regardless of internet connection, server uptime etc) -- how do you monetize it when fans will install free copies?
Those people were never going to buy anyway. There (hopefully) are enough people who want good games and are sick of the freemium garbage, that they'll pay for a game.
I.e., 100k paid sales and 10M "unauthorized copies" is still enough for an indie dev to make a living.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#5This is the best source of numbers I have found in the industry. Especially the CPI numbers and 6 months of buying installs before it paid off.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#6Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
You're exactly right. However, back when the NES came out, duplication of an NES rom was beyond the average consumer. Now, say you release a DRM free game (that will be available regardless of internet connection, server uptime etc) -- how do you monetize it when fans will install free copies?
There's a reason gog.com is making money. Going DRM-free doesn't harm your business, it just respects the users.
If people like a game, they will pay for it as long as you don't have some kind of annoying obstacle preventing them from doing so.
edit: DRM isn't even really a good counter to piracy for the most part. It will be cracked sooner or later (sometimes before the game is even officially released) and the people who wish to pirate it will do so.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#7Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
I think Kongregate's perspective on F2P is a lot more nuanced than your usual F2P mills (Zynga, et al) on the subject, and I say this as someone who could hardly be described as a fan of F2P.
It's worth nothing that Anthony Pecorella, the speaker in the first linked video, also moonlights for an indie game company (Level Up Labs) that's been quite successful while tacking completely opposite to F2P. So in my experience he has a strong appreciation for both sides of the business. And Emily Greer is a super knowledgeable badass that one ignores at their peril -- a lot of her talks have really challenged some of my assumptions about the F2P business models.
Source/Full Disclosure: I know this stuff because I'm Anthony's co-founder at LUL.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#8Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
There is an interesting line in one of those presentations: (paraphrase) "There is a hyper-competitive market for player attention, which has caused the price of a game to fall all the way to zero, but after they're in your [end]game you are a monopolistic provider of the game content, so you can charge any profit-maximizing price."
This is a slightly more nuanced take than mine, which is that F2P games are what gamers have been voting for for years with their wallets, by stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and most of the stuff that was.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're exactly right. However, back when the NES came out, duplication of an NES rom was beyond the average consumer. Now, say you release a DRM free game (that will be available regardless of internet connection, server uptime etc) -- how do you monetize it when fans will install free copies?
There's a reason gog.com is making money. Going DRM-free doesn't harm your business, it just respects the users. If people like a game, they will pay for it as long as you don't have some kind of annoying obstacle preventing them from doing so. edit: DRM isn't even really a good counter to piracy for the most part. It will be cracked sooner or later (sometimes before the game is even officially released) and the peop…
DRM is largely about protecting the new-release window where a supermajority of AAA game/video sales happen. It doesn't have to be effective for all time -- if it delays the first crack until release plus two weeks then it's still worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in marginal sales.
Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games
#10Eventually, the pendulum will swing the other way. People will get sick of freemium games, and go back to games where you pay $1-$10 once. Some people made a lot of money with freemium, so everyone is copying them. I can't stand wait timers, energy systems, and all the other tricks they use to balance freemium games. Many freemium games require an Internet connection to play, which is bad for me because my prime gami…
I make my living off of mobile freemium games. We don't do anything with replay timers or the like - we advertise, mostly, and have fun in-app purchases.
For a couple years we offered two versions of our apps - paid and free, free being ad supported. In a bid to simplify things and encourage more conversions, we switched to in-app purchase to get rid of ads. (Also, app stores had been optimized to push down app results for non-free games - plenty of reading out there about the causes and effects.)
To date, just under 5% of our revenue is paid. Despite playing for years, many people don't believe our games are worth $1.99. If you believe the race to the bottom will reverse itself, I'm here to tell you it won't. It's guided by the walled gardens and they like it this way.
We have had millions of downloads and on our most popular game, have abnormally long retention. Even some of our most die-hard players will not spend $1.99.
Maybe - MAYBE console gaming will one day return from F2P, but I doubt it. At least not in the near future - the industry is still moving towards it.
But in mobile gaming, success is a volume play. And the volumes won't part with $.99 in the traditional way. If they did, F2P wouldn't be a thing. And maybe gamers will pay for games, but the masses? Not so much.