Welcome to the Future of Gaming, where in-app purchases cost more than a game does today.

I just saw this really depressing (to me) blog post about how Angry Birds is making a lot less money than a lot of Free to Play games on iOS: http://www.treysmithblog.com/the-fal...

The problem is not Angry Birds is going down - I weep no tears for Rovio. The problem is that the most successful games are now free to play with in-app purchases.

Right now, 18 of the top 25 grossing of all apps are Free To Play Games (72%). Also, it should be noted that 22 of the 25 top grossing apps are in the games category (88%), confirming the fact you need to be into games if you want to have the biggest potential payout. The reason for this is people have a stronger emotional attachment to games than any other type of app, therefore they are more likely to spend money.
CSR Racing (currently ranked #9 on the grossing charts) just released some data on their top grossing numbers.

In the last month, this single game generated over $12,000,000 on iOS alone.

From the CSR Racing App Store page, here's a list of top in-app purchases for that game:

  1. A FEW CHIPS - $2.99
  2. HIGH ROLLER - $4.99
  3. Super Nitrous - $2.99
  4. EXECUTIVE CASE - $9.99
  5. POCKET MONEY - $2.99
  6. ALLOWANCE - $4.99
  7. VIP VAULT - $19.99
  8. SALARY - $9.99
  9. SAFE INVESTMENT - $19.99
  10. GOLD TRUCK - $59.99

I find this whole phenomenon really depressing. My experience with free-to-play games is that generally they suck. Instead of being designed to be fun, they are designed to get you to buy stuff. Rather than focusing on making fun games, developers now must focus on how best to suck the cash out of players' wallets. Building a game to be addictive and entice players to buy things is a very different focus than building a game to be fun to play.

Maybe it's misplaced, but I don't feel too cynical about this trend. Like Facebook games (Zynga) before it, there's going to come a point where most users peek behind the curtain and realize they're stuck in a skinner box. Or at least they get bored with the somewhat limited game designs that really push the in-game purchases.

The cream will rise to the top. I think the mobile/FTP game space is still in a gold rush where users and game makers are in simpatico. I don't think it will last.

I like how Skinner box is entering people's normal vocabulary lately.

Like all things market-related, FTP is just a way to design monetization. Right now, skinner box designs reign supreme on iOS because they are the most efficient at drawing desired behaviors from an audience flush with novelty. However, unless the market is composed largely of people who only respond well to skinner box designs, it is not going to be a long-lived trend.

Games designed to be addictive-not-fun ultimately drive away their markets for the simple reason that people eventually gain self-awareness given a long enough period of time. If they're not having fun, they eventually realize it and move on to spend their time and money on things that they do find fun. If the bad game is all they know about games, it drives them into other pursuits.

If nothing else, it induces people to eventually spend their money on therapy for addiction problems.

The best FTP modeling is based on the thinking that everyone's time is limited, and that everyone has a set amount of disposable income which they will willingly spend on the activity that most has their mind-share. You don't need to ask for that money upfront. If people enjoy your product enough, they will throw you that money without any further encouragement, provided that you put out a big enough hat to catch all of it.

This doesn't depress me at all.

If a company produces an actual game, then has in game DLC to expand and refine the experience I would be more than happy to pay for interesting content.

If a game is just a Cow Clicker or something rubbish like Tiny Tower then paying money to make a timer go faster makes no sense to me. I'd rather move my attention to something else. But if people really want to pay money to expand their sushi bar, I'd say it's their prerogative.

This sort of thing will only cease to depress me when we get alternative like this:

(A) BIOSHOCK 3 ($19.99 single player campaign only. No f*cking online for you. It's just you, and the game.)
(B) BIOSHOCK 3 ($59.99 (includes co-op play, deathmatch, match-making, facebook integration, voice chat, achievements, capture the flag, seize the biscuit, puncture the colon, "trap" the hamster, global statistics, local shin-boards)
(C) BIOSHOCK 3 ($0.99 add one add-on of your choice!)

I'll Take Door A. GIVE ME ANOTHER SIR.

Puce Moose wrote:

This sort of thing will only cease to depress me when we get alternative like this:

(A) BIOSHOCK 3 ($19.99 single player campaign only. No f*cking online for you. It's just you, and the game.)
(B) BIOSHOCK 3 ($59.99 (includes co-op play, deathmatch, match-making, facebook integration, voice chat, achievements, capture the flag, seize the biscuit, puncture the colon, "trap" the hamster, global statistics, local shin-boards)
(C) BIOSHOCK 3 ($0.99 add one add-on of your choice!)

I'll Take Door A. GIVE ME ANOTHER SIR.

No Hide the Salami mode? No, thanks.

Nicholaas wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:

This sort of thing will only cease to depress me when we get alternative like this:

(A) BIOSHOCK 3 ($19.99 single player campaign only. No f*cking online for you. It's just you, and the game.)
(B) BIOSHOCK 3 ($59.99 (includes co-op play, deathmatch, match-making, facebook integration, voice chat, achievements, capture the flag, seize the biscuit, puncture the colon, "trap" the hamster, global statistics, local shin-boards)
(C) BIOSHOCK 3 ($0.99 add one add-on of your choice!)

I'll Take Door A. GIVE ME ANOTHER SIR.

No Hide the Salami mode? No, thanks.

Argh! I thought I'd worked a 'Shelter the Salami' into my paranoid rant, but looking back at said rant, it was absent! Modified Rant!
..and the locusts, and the plagues, and various prophecies, etc.(B) BIOSHOCK 3 ($59.99 (includes co-op play, deathmatch, match-making, facebook integration, voice chat, achievements, capture the flag, seize the biscuit, puncture the colon, "trap" the hamster, global statistics, sequester the salami, local shin-boards)

I hate free to play games. My wife tried some of them and she got annoyed by them . I told her "If you want something good you should pay for it". She found a game with a demo and bought the full price version, and enjoyed it. The old model works.

I have no problem with the free top play model but what I hate about it is the fact the game pushes you to pay them money by long wait time for upgrades and advancement. If the game is designed to suck money out of my wallet I just pass it. I'd rather have a smaller game with expansion . You play the demo first and if you like it you give them cash.

The "free to play" model is also problematic when you add children to the mix. If you let your kids play with your phone they may purchase things without know it. This part can be illegal in some countries because kids don't have legal ability to own property or purchase it without the consent of his/her guardians .

I don't have problems with DLCs . I may not like buying the game in pieces but if I like the game I don't mind throwing a few extra dollars to its developers . (note I got my 2 Warlock DLC with blue coins I accumulated on GG though purchase/rating )

Niseg:

That is not the only FTP model. Team Fortress 2 is free to play.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I like how Skinner box is entering people's normal vocabulary lately. :)

I prefer "operant conditioning chamber".

Niseg wrote:

The "free to play" model is also problematic when you add children to the mix. If you let your kids play with your phone they may purchase things without know it. This part can be illegal in some countries because kids don't have legal ability to own property or purchase it without the consent of his/her guardians .

I think that's covered under the EULA on iTunes. You give the device to someone else, you're still responsible for the conduct of the account 'you' have on that device. Same with XBL.

IF it's an issue, there is an ability to turn off IAP under general settings, in iOS 5, not sure if that was in previous versions or not. You can also turn off the ability to delete apps (found that out the hard way, and turned off the second option at the same time). That has actually saved me from some crappy IAPs in moments of impatient weakness.

I've heard stories of people discovering thousands of dollars of IAP charges for that Smurf game after their children got ahold of the phones and hit buttons they didn't really understand. Did any of them ever sue? Or have any lawsuits come out of stuff like this?

And then you have games that you paid for that don't make enough money, so they change the game to make it less fun and more Skinner, like Whale Tail.

(A) BIOSHOCK 3 ($19.99 single player campaign only. No f*cking online for you. It's just you, and the game.)

I want lots and lots of Door As, please. I want the old deal. Multiplayer is okay, but I want that to be a separate product, unrelated to the single player game, except loosely. If I really, really love the game, maybe I'll pony up for the multi, but otherwise I'll just finish the singleplayer portion and be done. And I'll be happy to buy the sequel, as long as the first one was good.

The problem with Bioshock3 Door A versus Door B is that A costs almost as much to make as B.

I pretty much agree with Niseg, as far as I'm concerned developers can do whatever the hell they want, so long as they're honest about it, and choose the right fit for what they want to make. The other side to that coin is when there's a mis-match between game/finance model and customers, not everything is good and some things deserve to fail.

LarryC wrote:

That is not the only FTP model. Team Fortress 2 is free to play.

Well there are some free to play model that don't push you toward buying the game. I haven't played TF but I've recently started playing LoL. I did the math and found out that it would take me a long time to get a nice set of champions without spending real life cash on them . The devs still let you play 10 champions which is plenty. I love the game so far so I don't mind throwing a few coins at them but I decided to wait .

What I don't like about the free to play mobile game is that they were designed more to get money out of you rather than giving you a fun experience which would make you want to give them money.

I'm recently avoid most free to play games on my phone. I pretty much play chess and if I want a fun game I run it on my dosbox emulator.

I would imagine free-to-play mobile games are worse because, well, they're mobile games.

But I had probably 50 hours of fun with Dungeons and Dragons Online before paying them a penny. I now pay $15/mo. (I get about $6 back in store currency) because they deserve it. The game's great, and never feels insidious or sinister, though it may well be. It just never feels that way.

One way I've heard of looking at TF2 is that the MannCo store is like a tip jar, not a fee to be paid to put you on even footing with others.

The trend lately is even pay for games are having in app purchases. You can look back at the Amazon Free App of the Day and it seems like every 2nd or 3rd day there's a $1-5 pay app that also includes IAP on top of it, and generally gets slammed with 1-star reviews. So yes, a lot of people are aware and wary already. But there's still a lot of clueless people out there getting taken advantage of. Maybe they deserve it for being clueless.

But I'm pretty sad about the way things are heading on mobile. I'd like it if there were more serious $5-10 games where I could buy the complete game and get 20 hours out of it, like a slightly smaller DS or PSP type title. But there's not much like that. There's a lot of simple free stuff with ads that's fun for a few minutes. And then it's 99 cents to get rid of the ads or something. Then there's the free stuff that locks you out of finishing the game in any reasonable amount of time without IAP. And now there's the pay game that still has IAP on top of it, the worst of all models.

I think it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Tamren wrote:

I've heard stories of people discovering thousands of dollars of IAP charges for that Smurf game after their children got ahold of the phones and hit buttons they didn't really understand. Did any of them ever sue? Or have any lawsuits come out of stuff like this?

Not just kids, really. My grandmother spent money in one of those games because she though "it was play money". Wasn't even $100, but it's more than she wanted to actually spend on the game.

I know Apple was hit with a class action lawsuit over their in-game app purchasing policies (which have been since changed) back in April. Won't surprise me if some of the game compies themselves get slapped with one after the dust settles from that one.

So Infinity Blade and Infinity Blade 2 are the worst games ever, because the developers felt like giving players who wanted to tip them a little more stuff?

There's a lot of crap games out there, but let's not confuse the payment method with bad design.

Not sure why anyone should be complaining about other people spending $12M on in app purchases in some F2P game. If they are having fun then whats the issue with that? Clearly there is a market for these type of games.. why shouldnt developers maximize their profit potential? Besides there are plenty of gaming options/payment methods to still choose from today.. I can easily spend $60 for an quality game (Skyrim for example) that provided me well over 130 hours and counting of gameplay. I love that math.. As well it appears Guild Wars 2 will offer many people hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay for $60.

Tamren wrote:

I've heard stories of people discovering thousands of dollars of IAP charges for that Smurf game after their children got ahold of the phones and hit buttons they didn't really understand. Did any of them ever sue? Or have any lawsuits come out of stuff like this?

I think Apple and the devs handed out refunds for it. Apple and Google have also added features to control children's(and irresponsible adult's) spending in the parental controls. You can disable IAP completely as well.

TheGameguru wrote:

Not sure why anyone should be complaining about other people spending $12M on in app purchases in some F2P game. If they are having fun then whats the issue with that?

I think the issue is that the industry tends to follow the latest pied piper. That is not always to our true benefit. And it is often to exclusion.

Activision has made good on annual costs for Call of Duty. Unless you want to never buy the updates, then I think you have a coaster you used for 6 months, and paid 60 bucks for.

More and more there is DLC that is ready, pre-planned before launch, to be available at or after launch for a fee. Every Ubisoft game has followed that trend. In order to continue playing any sort of online shooter requires that you keep up with premium map packs or you quickly find that you cannot play with very many people, let alone friends who bought it.

I think there is legitimate worry that anyone's favorite franchise might go down a path where fans can no longer enjoy what they love.

In-app purchases are why my kid will never be privy to my app store password. He's 6, and he just can't understand what the big deal is about purchasing enough credits in the iPad Spider-Man game to buy the black spiderman suit....$49.99

KingGorilla wrote:

Activision has made good on annual costs for Call of Duty. Unless you want to never buy the updates, then I think you have a coaster you used for 6 months, and paid 60 bucks for.

Every Ubisoft game has followed that trend. In order to continue playing any sort of online shooter requires that you keep up with premium map packs or you quickly find that you cannot play with very many people, let alone friends who bought it.

This isn't really on-topic, but how much do you expect for your $60? New, free content each year? That's not sustainable.

I still get matches with zero wait in vanilla MW2, Homefront, and Crysis 2, so I'm not sure the exclusion part really sticks. And I couldn't hold a publisher responsible if "my friends" (I don't play competitive shooters with friends) move on any more than I could get mad at Blizzard if I played WoW and my guild moved to Guild Wars 2.

I really think there are some people doing it right but it doesn't come in the mobile space for me. I really think valve's attempts are good. I can't talk about it but lets just say the new Mechwarrior game has very interesting ideas the coincide with some other Free to play games.

The two rules for me that can be bent but I definantly don't like.

1. Content that expires and gives benifit such as xp boosters in a multiplayer game. (Tribes did it right by offering a premium bonus to the account that is persistant when you purchase gold but also infringed by offering boosters for one time use)

The first free to play game I played was maplestory and that game is rule 1 in a nutshell. That game is all content that expires and everything is not permenant.

2. Single Player games that are offering DLC that can be obtained in the regular game. (Sleeping Dogs notifies people in the description that all the stuff can be obtained in game which is good. Need some more honesty today.)

After writing all that I seem to be pretty gray on the subject and it is a case by case basis with the exception of MapleStory which holy crap is a horrible game that I can't believe I sunk 80 hours into. But if you wanna see a really offensive game just check out the Maplestory store and just Nexon in general taking away from the iOS I think everyone copied Maplestory but nobody gives credit to Nexon for bringing this to the United States.

KingGorilla wrote:

I think there is legitimate worry that anyone's favorite franchise might go down a path where fans can no longer enjoy what they love.

But there's also possibility that a favorite franchise can live on in an environment where they wouldn't be able to exist in a $50 retail game.

Two examples of F2P working out well for both fans and devs: TF2 and Tribes Ascend.

In TF2's case, even Valve would have eventually had to do something to up revenue again to continue more than life support for TF2. So transitioning it to F2P probably headed of a TF3 type game that likely would have cost everybody at least $20 if not a full retail release price. Those that want to pay for hats and other things can, and that pays for a very active development of a 5 year old game. Those that want to play for free still get a solid experience.

In the case of TA, the IP was dead. It didn't make a lot of sense to put a $50 game together for something that probably wouldn't work very well on console, or at least well enough to compete with the CoDs, BFs, and Halos of the world. And if you don't get console money, selling a $50 game on PC only is also a hard business. So with F2P, they can develop a good core game, then constantly keep expanding it with free maps, weapons, etc. You can buy nearly everything for free with XP except cosmetic stuff, so even if you don't pay you can have a nice game. Those that do pay support the constant development.

So I don't think F2P is necessarily evil. Three of the games on PC that I'm most excited about coming through the end of the year are F2P (Mechwarrior, Hawken, Planetside).

Now microtransactions on a pay game are less interesting to me. Gotham City Impostors tried to do both paid game plus microtransactions, and I think it's hurt the game and it's identity. They should have just gone one way or the other, or had a much lower initial price.

I'm also not interested in microtransactions on social or mobile, but it might just be that I'm not that into those games.

Not sure why anyone should be complaining about other people spending $12M on in app purchases in some F2P game. If they are having fun then whats the issue with that?

Because they squeeze out the games we want to play. Pay-to-win games suck.

They also use it as an excuse to end up charging you far, far more for a game than just buying it. So it's rather deceptive in that regard, as well. They give us a lot less for our dollars. see: Horse armor.

When I am not staring at more games than I have time to play, I might start to worry. I might also find another hobby that is going to be just as, if not more, rewarding. Life is just not that hard.

If a reduction in the quantity of $20-$60 video games to be played on $300-$1200 systems is a problem, and you can't find anything else to do with your time, the monetization policies of game developers is the least of your problems.