Before we start real quick i forgot to put this in the episode itself
This is Dan Jones, he is doing the guest art for the episode this week he's really cool.
okay here we go!
♫ intro song ♫
okay so if you watch this show you probably know, we are believers in the free to play model
We think it has the potential to be one of the best things to happen to video games
allowing consumers to pay what they feel a game is worth.
while at the same time making sure that game developers don't miss out on customers who might not be able to afford the full retail price
or customers who are willing pay far far more then standard retail value for a expanded experience
in an ideal scenario this model is fantastic!
That said I have had enough!
the current free to play model is just broken, and morally wrong!
James has consulted on plenty of free to play games and they are all racing head long to the same precipitous.(steep slope as in no return)
you see many of the free to play games of today make 90% or more of their revenue's off of less than 10% of their audience
They depend on what they call whales
The people who will spend Thousands of dollars on their games
And this mentality is breaking the model for the consumer
It making it unprofitable for the Businesses trying to compete in it
and it's just morally repugnant anyway
it is something we should be ashamed of
So lets talk about why this is just bad business
As I think it will resonant most to some of those making these games
So here the problem you've gotten yourself into a free to play arms race
There is a limited number of whales out there
and everyone needs them to sustain their games
which means everyone is trying to out compete each other for these whales (I hate that term)
This had led to skyrocketing budgets for free to play titles
Especially, in the mobile and social world
and user acquisition cost, that simply climb year after year
as incentives and ad space simultaneously become more expensive and less effective
This arms race has in turn led us to create games that cater to the whales specifically
many game in the free to play space has led further and further
from allowing a $5 or $10 purchase to create a satisfying experience for the customer
Instead, focusing on creating a domination experience for players who are willing to drop hundreds if not thousands of dollars in a month
this lack of play for anyone not willing or not able to pony up that kind of cash
in turn means that the non-whale sections of the player base are getting turned away from these games
which not only causes these games to lose revenue from these customers
but also causes these games to lose those players as content for the whales
which is essential because most of what the whales are looking for from their large scale expenditures
is the satisfaction of helping or crushing these players
this exodus of the low spending player and the free player because of the lack of ability to access a satisfying experience
after a while leads to higher rates of players just quitting the game
But since these players are essential to creating the
experience the whales are looking for
it becomes necessary for the company making game
to acquire new players as fast as the old players are turned out
This in turn leads to high advertising cost
and a further increase in user acquisition cost
as players cycle out and companies have to reach further and further a field
to find players to serve as content for the whales
The center will not hold
if the free to play market continues this way it is going to collapse in on itself
if the free to play industry wants to survive we have too look at the average player
as designers I'm not even remotely saying that I think we should think of these experiences as
"being free"
heck, even as a consumer I don't think we should think of these experiences as "being free"
I'm ok with spending $5-$10 on a game
I mean I'm already buy games all the time for $60
and i'm happy to pay that for a good game
but that is the sort of investment we should be looking for from your consumer
not five to ten thousand dollar chunks
listen I will be the first person to say, I think the people who decry free to play game for not actually being free
who bemoan free to play companies for not simply giving them a product that cost the company a million dollars to make
are acting super entitled
I'll even admit this is one of the hurdle we're gonna have to overcome
as this sort of entitlement has become a somewhat ingrained part of our internet culture
but I'll be the first person to defend everybody who says they won't play free to play game because they can't afford to actually play them
in the current market with the current standard business model
They're right
I don't have the numbers for it but I'm willing to wager fairly heavily
that more than 10% of Blizzard's revenue from Hearthstone
comes from players who spend less than $50 a month on that game
in fact, I'd wager it's far far north of that
why because they crafted a satisfying experience the player can have for $2
and they didn't they didn't exclude the whales either
they didn't exclude the people who wanted to immediately build the best deck and are willing to spend $1000 to get it right away
but they didn't make themselves slaves to those people either
that is the sustainable beneficial free to play of the future
I know I sound like i'm mad about this and I am a little bit
Even beyond the sustainable business issue
I would also ague that today's free to play world has crossed a moral line
we have free to play games accused of trying to trick their children into spend their parents money
and of bankrupting people
Look I don't begrudge people spending money to find joy or a little escapism I'd be a hypocrite if I did
But when you make game and you stop talking about joy or fun or engagement in the office
and instead start talking about how to part people from tens of thousands of dollars of their money
for something completely ephemeral, something
which is often not even permanent within your game
you have gone down the wrong path
there are plenty of way to play on the human psyche
to part the insecure, the over-rich, or the lonely from their money but
that is not what games are about
"Mark my words" -Dan
when you are looking to get person to part with $10,000 for something like bragging right or virtual friends
there is not way your doing it without intentionally exploiting the worst parts of the human psyche
and you know it and your doing it consciously when your putting together your design
is that why any one of us decide we wanted to make these things
look, there are many of us in this industry making a very good living with having to cross that line
a new monetization model don't mean we have to cross that line
but we've said it over and over again this model have incredible potential
numerous studios are proving it right now
(these ones^)
this model can be consumer friendly
and incredible successful with resorting to the predatory tactics
just for your own sake, knock it off
♫