> just how in blazes do these actually make money?! Read this, and the other posts this guy has written. He has worked with a number of F2P companies on design

> just how in blazes do these actually make money?! Read this, and the other posts this guy has written. He has worked with a number of F2P companies on designing and implementing their business model, always trying to get them to build nice systems, and has learned a lot about the inhuman ones. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/1949... TL;DR: Almost all F2P games, except for like 10 or so on the PC, exploits brain faults common to almost all humans. They lead them from a fun skill-based game experience to an abusive "pay to be able to play at all" model. (Like in arcade machines, only lives are disguised as power ups, and easily gained without cash early in the game cycle.) If people started out in the latter mode they'd balk at paying for an unknown, but this way they're driven to stick with it due to the memories of the start, as well as the thinking of "i spent this much time already". (sunk cost fallacy)