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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

#41

Post by toyg »

cactusface wrote: post #40
toyg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know much about other industries then. Both gambling, food and drink sectors are optimized to build addiction and maintain it over the longest possible period. They call it "fidelity" but it's the same thing. I personally think f2p is essentially a branch of the gambling industry and will eventually be recognised as such in law. After all, it was the case for coin-ops (at least here in Europe), which had ba…

His point was that in other industries they don't optimize their products for a tiny percentage of their clients.

In Las Vegas, they certainly optimize their "products" for big spenders.

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#42

Post by zyx321 »

themartorana wrote: post #10
fsk wrote: post #2

Eventually, 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 resul…

>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.

That's an optimistic statement almost bordering on naive. What the market seems to be moving towards is adding F2P mechanics to $60 games. GTA V lets you buy in-game money for the multiplayer mode. Mortal Combat X has easy fatality mode where you get the famous "fatality" animations after every game (costing $0.20 every time it triggers). Almost every AAA game on the market lets you change the look of your character for a few dollars.

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#43

Post by hellbanner »

freditup wrote: post #15
patio11 wrote: post #14

Emily Greer (CEO of Kongregate) has a very good presentation, not to my knowledge already linked in this discussion, about F2P whales: http://www.slideshare.net/emily_greer/dont-call-them-whales-... Partially it's an apologia for the business model, but it is dripping with useful facts and commentary.

I used to be a moderator on Kongregate and had a decent amount on interaction with multiple of the administrators. I also was somewhat involved in the flash game market (just casually as a hobby). When I found out how Kongregate specifically worked with developers to help make games that target the 'whale' spenders, I was pretty shocked. Making games that are not enjoyable, just addictive, in order to take in thousan…

"I spend several hundred dollars a year on my game. My first upgrade was to get a membership. Then I purchased new equipment. After playing for a bit, I upgraded to a better equipment so I could score more points in my game"

"..surprise, my game is Competitive Figure Skating. Games are hobbies. People spend large sums of money to compete in physical games, why the stigamtism against digital games?"

--paraphrasing Emily Greer.

Personally I find that a great argument of why freemium isn't inherently evil. Pay-to-win already exists in physical sports.

Japan, however, banned certain freemium games where you pay for increased chance of good rewards in a random check: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BetableBlog/20120525/171124/W...

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#44

Post by hellbanner »

the_af wrote: post #31
freditup wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few more thoughts on the matter of whales: On Kongregate, 2.1% of users buy virtual goods. Of these, about 4% (the whales) have spent over $500 and bring in about half of Kongregate's revenue. Top spenders often spend $50K-$80K. Emily's premise is this: that people who spend lots of money on games (whales) are people who healthily enjoy the games as hobbyists. Her most interesting points, in my opinion are as follo…

> The issue comes down to if games are a legitimate, healthy hobby or not. For me the issue is not whether "games are a healthy hobby", but whether F2P games are. I think they are not, or rather I should clarify: the kind of games usually called F2P or "freemium", which base their gameplay on grinding and which try to make you spend money to buy coins, which are powerups that essentially "speed up" the boring parts o…

Please see my comment above which discusses Emily Greer's rationale for why freemium isn't inherently evil - people already spend large sums on physical sports. Buying better equipment is paying-to-win.

That said, in most sports your equipment augments a skill. The skill of mindlessly clicking (or not clicking -- see the "idle games" genre) isn't particularly fascinating to you or me so we shouldn't make those kinds of games.

Ian Bogost received death threats for removing Cow Clicker online. Was that a fault of his stunningly addictive gameplay, or a flaw in primate psychology that we as a species can work to correct (genetically, or perhaps through social conditioning eg. teaching people not to gamble)?

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#45

Post by wordbank »

fsk wrote: post #2

Eventually, 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…

> Eventually, 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.

Freemium was a response to the market. Most of players are not willing to pay anything:

http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/05/monument-valley-developer-...

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#46

Post by hellbanner »

grrowl wrote: post #24
cat9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less effective at even that much than it could be, e.g. any game released on Steam can be cracked in a largely homogeneous fashion. (Which is exactly the value point I'd be working to improve if I was working at Steam and trying to convince more titles to release there.)

Steam has cultivated a culture of paying for games, because it's easier than pirating, which is easier than buying physical copies. Given their success, I don't think they need to change anything, especially if it makes anything harder for the end-user; plus its bedrock is smaller, more indie titles who can't afford to implement DRM anyway — so the platform treats them very well. * http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comme…

I agree with this - low friction is what makes Steam successful. (Personally I stick with HumbleBundle as the Steam client has traditionally sucked ram).

Steam lets players join multiplayer games with their friends -- seamlessly merging a friend list with game servers across all games. That's a strong incentive to use Steam.

So what about other forms of content without online multiplayer like say, TV shows?

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#47

Post by chii »

hellbanner wrote: post #43
freditup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a moderator on Kongregate and had a decent amount on interaction with multiple of the administrators. I also was somewhat involved in the flash game market (just casually as a hobby). When I found out how Kongregate specifically worked with developers to help make games that target the 'whale' spenders, I was pretty shocked. Making games that are not enjoyable, just addictive, in order to take in thousan…

"I spend several hundred dollars a year on my game. My first upgrade was to get a membership. Then I purchased new equipment. After playing for a bit, I upgraded to a better equipment so I could score more points in my game" "..surprise, my game is Competitive Figure Skating. Games are hobbies. People spend large sums of money to compete in physical games, why the stigamtism against digital games?" --paraphrasing Emi…

> game is Competitive Figure Skating

but the problem is that figure skating is an established "game" (aka, a sport). The rules haven't been made such that you _need_ to spend the money.

A freemium game is designed in the very core mechanic, to be unfun unless you paid up. that's what i have a problem with - game is an art, and if an artist wouldn't put in a certain mechanic except under coercion (say, by the threat of non-payment), then i'd say it's not part of their original design. I only want to play the pure, original design of a game, unhampered by business requirements. Freemium games are choking the air out of the market for such games unfortunately, and that's why i hate it.

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#48

Post by aphrax »

GeneralTspoon wrote: post #29
welly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not what I would ever describe as a gamer. Well, I was massively when I was much younger in the arcade, 8 and 16 bit days but now, not so much/at all. The problem I have with many freemium games is for me they have absolutely no lasting appeal. I would estimate that 75% of freemium games I've installed, I may have played a sum total of half an hour and then got annoyed/fed up/bored and removed it. Adverts, replay…

This is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve with Curated[1]. The Play Store is filled with low-think, one-tap junk these days... Finding a good game on the Play Store is almost as hard as finding a science show on the Discovery Channel. It's optimised for the unthinking masses, which makes sense for Google from a monetary perspective, but for anyone interested in a deep game, then either Google's algorithm needs…

really good, I like how you've done this: clear layout, shows the sort of stuff I'm interested in. Good job.

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#49

Post by martincmartin »

patio11 wrote: post #14

Emily Greer (CEO of Kongregate) has a very good presentation, not to my knowledge already linked in this discussion, about F2P whales: http://www.slideshare.net/emily_greer/dont-call-them-whales-... Partially it's an apologia for the business model, but it is dripping with useful facts and commentary.

I once had a job where I did data analysis of casino data, specifically slot machines. It turns out, casinos also make half of their money from a small number of people who gamble a lot. I've heard alcohol stores are similar.

Re: Kongregate: the science behind the massive profits of F2P games

#50

Post by _ea1k »

toyg wrote: post #41
cactusface wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His point was that in other industries they don't optimize their products for a tiny percentage of their clients.

In Las Vegas, they certainly optimize their "products" for big spenders.

Yes, and there are plenty of people who would argue that is a bad thing.
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