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Semi unrelated, I remain stunned at how effective free2play games are at generating revenue. I occasionally play World of Warships, which is one of those games

Semi unrelated, I remain stunned at how effective free2play games are at generating revenue. I occasionally play World of Warships, which is one of those games where you can either grind your way up to a better ship, or pay real currency to accelerate the process. Being a cheap <explicative deleted> I’ve ground my way up to medium high tier ships; it’s fun enough. Then I looked into the company, and they have 1,750 employees, which is really expensive! It’s unbelievable that a “free” game can float such a massive development budget. I think the positive spin is that the great thing about free2play is that you get to “try before you buy”. If I tried World of Warships and loved it, spending $10 on more slots for ships makes sense. But the cynical part of my brain suspects that a small number of whales are draining their personal accounts in order to support development and subsidize the free play of people like me.

pjc50 6y ago
> they have 1,750 employees, which is really expensive! That is astonishing given how little development they seem to do! Even allowing for the small army of CSRs required to run any PvP game. I don't mind a few dollars a month for the ongoing exp bonus, but the people spending £50 on a single ship are clearly in a different zone. On the other hand, compared to other sorts of collector hobby, that's cheap. I could buy every ship in the fleet with what some people spend on a camera lens.
johnatwork 6y ago
They have a few other similar games that uses the same tech and feel to them (Tanks instead of ships), but your point stands (and they are all F2P AFAIK, same formula). I've had a insight as to what you're suspecting (for another similar game), and I can say that it is definitely something like the top 1% that generate most of the revenue, and the rest of the 99% serve as kind of an AI for them to dominate.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It’s not even clear that spending money gets you an actual advantage in the game, it appears to mostly just accelerate the process of getting the higher tiered ships in a given nation’s tech tree.
karmakaze 6y ago
Understanding how this all works, I'm also in the camp of not paying for 'free' to play games. Lately though, I've been getting back into Starcraft2 as something else to (re)learn/practice during WfH. After spending enough time there, I have no problem shelling out the amount of a shrink-wrapped game on skins for buildings, units, even the UI in separate purchases, repeatedly for each game race. I guess I've split 'pay to win' from 'pay to decorate' but it may be a slippery gateway.
rasz 6y ago
Wargaming. I remember hearing about them making ~$100M a month couple of years ago. Soon after that they dropped financing e-sports deeming it a distraction.

pjc50 6y ago

> they have 1,750 employees, which is really expensive! That is astonishing given how little development they seem to do! Even allowing for the small army of CSRs required to run any PvP game. I don't mind a few dollars a month for the ongoing exp bonus, but the people spending £50 on a single ship are clearly in a different zone. On the other hand, compared to other sorts of collector hobby, that's cheap. I could buy every ship in the fleet with what some people spend on a camera lens.

johnatwork 6y ago

They have a few other similar games that uses the same tech and feel to them (Tanks instead of ships), but your point stands (and they are all F2P AFAIK, same formula). I've had a insight as to what you're suspecting (for another similar game), and I can say that it is definitely something like the top 1% that generate most of the revenue, and the rest of the 99% serve as kind of an AI for them to dominate.

ashtonkem 6y ago
It’s not even clear that spending money gets you an actual advantage in the game, it appears to mostly just accelerate the process of getting the higher tiered ships in a given nation’s tech tree.

karmakaze 6y ago

Understanding how this all works, I'm also in the camp of not paying for 'free' to play games. Lately though, I've been getting back into Starcraft2 as something else to (re)learn/practice during WfH. After spending enough time there, I have no problem shelling out the amount of a shrink-wrapped game on skins for buildings, units, even the UI in separate purchases, repeatedly for each game race. I guess I've split 'pay to win' from 'pay to decorate' but it may be a slippery gateway.

rasz 6y ago

Wargaming. I remember hearing about them making ~$100M a month couple of years ago. Soon after that they dropped financing e-sports deeming it a distraction.