Is free to play inherently evil?

[Merus]

There's a lot to agree with in this article. My favorite line: "good game design is frequently sacrificed in the name of making something more likely to make money. Players are not respected as people who want to have fun; they're treated as resources who need to be exploited."

 

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/dungeon-keeper-a-symptom-of-a-wider-problem

 

I kind of see this and Flappy Bird as two sides of the same problem: the mobile market is huge, so it's taking a lot longer for the people who spend money there to develop taste, like we saw in other 'casual' markets like Facebook and casual match-3 games.

 

The big problem with making a game that assumes your audience can't spot your bullshit is that all it takes is for one game that doesn't have that bullshit to come along. I'd like to think Flappy Bird, which is a very simplistic game that also didn't implement any F2P bullshit, might inspire some of the audience to get a little suspicious of games that prompt them to spend money to have another go.

[BigJKO]

Instead what Flappy Bird will inspire is countless of clones that do this:

 

(from twitter)

 

Notice the awesome twitter icon.. Nailed it!

[darthbator]

This is the best thing that flappy bird has inspired!

 

http://www.mrspeaker.net/dev/game/flappy/

[Spenny]

Players are not respected as people who want to have fun; they're treated as resources who need to be exploited.

 

This quote seems to be accusatory of developers, but a huge problem with the mobile market is this is equally true of how en masse the players respect themselves. The power of advertising in the mobile space and the willingness for the players to keep playing the most exploitive of games only perpetuates the market serving such things to them. The only way that mobile games will change is if theres a market shift in demand, and that will come from large amounts of players avoiding bad games while spending money on good games.

[darthbator]

I don't think you can really use words like "bad" and "good" in that kind of scenario. Free to play isn't "bad" there is a lot of data that shows that F2P whales tend to only buy things in game that they perceive to have high value. That means that the players who spend money and continue to do so actually feel like they're getting a good value for their money. If you follow that particular thread there's not anything exploitative about it. The people making the purchase are getting what they feel is adequate value. No one is really being taken advantage of. The problem is the precedent of "this isn't how video games work". 

 

I can agree that I don't want to games to work that way. But I don't think there is anything inherently evil or exploitative about it. I think it's true negative effects are in how it hurts the core design in many cases. 

[Gormongous]

I don't think you can really use words like "bad" and "good" in that kind of scenario. Free to play isn't "bad" there is a lot of data that shows that F2P whales tend to only buy things in game that they perceive to have high value. That means that the players who spend money and continue to do so actually feel like they're getting a good value for their money. If you follow that particular thread there's not anything exploitative about it. The people making the purchase are getting what they feel is adequate value. No one is really being taken advantage of. The problem is the precedent of "this isn't how video games work". 

 

I can agree that I don't want to games to work that way. But I don't think there is anything inherently evil or exploitative about it. I think it's true negative effects are in how it hurts the core design in many cases. 

 

Maybe I'm misreading your argument, but if you're saying that something subjectively perceived as good might as well be objectively good (because "objectively good" as an independent concept is a crock of shit, of course), then we disagree, because there are many cruel or exploitative things in this world that rely on the ignorance or bias of people in order to extract money from them. I don't know, if I sell flashy zircon rings or worthless junk bonds to people and they think they're buying diamonds or real estate, is no one being taken advantage of, because I get their money and they get their "value"?

[Dewar]

I don't think most free to play games are preying on ignorance though. You know exactly what you're getting when you buy it.

[Gormongous]

I don't think most free to play games are preying on ignorance though. You know exactly what you're getting when you buy it.

 

Actually, I think ignorance is often just what they're playing on. As this thread shows, "free-to-play" encompasses everything from superficial cosmetic DLC to pay-per-life throwbacks. Going into a F2P game, you don't know how much money you're going to spend -- let alone how much you're expected to spend -- which many games exploit by trying to convince you that this is the last purchase you'll have to make before the game really opens itself up to you. I think that this dynamic is what makes people like Chris and Sean throw up their hands when Card Hunter offers the "whole game" for $24.99, but has packages for several hundred dollars, too.

 

Or you might mean that you know exactly that you're getting an exploitative experience, which I guess I agree with, but the rhetoric of free* seems to be really seductive anyway.

 

 

 

* actually not free

[Golden Calf]

[...] there are many cruel or exploitative things in this world that rely on the ignorance or bias of people in order to extract money from them.

 

 

I don't think most free to play games are preying on ignorance though. You know exactly what you're getting when you buy it.

 

I'd argue even that ignorance is more or less irrelevant here. Ignorance can certainly make it easier to exploit people, but is by no means required. People with gambling problems are probably often aware at some level how badly the odds are stacked against them. That's where the exploitation comes in, by using tricks from psychology, cognitive science, or whatever else to goad people into acting against their best interest and providing negligible value in return.

[syntheticgerbil]

I'd argue even that ignorance is more or less irrelevant here. Ignorance can certainly make it easier to exploit people, but is by no means required. People with gambling problems are probably often aware at some level how badly the odds are stacked against them. That's where the exploitation comes in, by using tricks from psychology, cognitive science, or whatever else to goad people into acting against their best interest and providing negligible value in return.

Very nicely said! It makes me think of an episode of This American Life where a casino continuously offers a woman free room and board (as well as other benefits) in order to get her to keep coming back and wasting all of her money on gambling. It's really all a matter of reeling 'em in.

 

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/466/blackjack It's act two of this episode if anyone is interested.

[Nachimir]

Here's an interesting and upfront model for free to play:

 

http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/12/this-is-how-in-app-purchases-should-be-handled/

 

• The core game can be either free or paid, it doesn't really matter. Any Landing is indeed free.
• Like most in-app purchase games, there are several tiers of goods available (in Any Landing the purchasable currency is called "Wings").
• Along with the incremental boosts, there is an "All You Can Eat" option that unlocks everything, and locks the ability to make any in-app purchases, even accidentally.
• Each time you purchase one of the smaller boosts, the amount you paid is deducted from the All You Can Eat price.

 

I'm noticing a more important question coming to light in this thread. F2P or FTP?

 

FTP means something different.

[SecretAsianMan]

That last point is a good idea.  I would be more willing to pay a little bit of money to try a small purchase out if I knew it was going to lower the cost of the "full" game.

[Nachimir]

While a lot of sales data is actually useless to third parties, I'd definitely like to see how their model compares to a typical F2P one over time.