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I'm creating a strategy game right now and I'm facing this dilemma. I'd like to get $20 from each customer during game lifetime, but it seems that it would be e

I'm creating a strategy game right now and I'm facing this dilemma. I'd like to get $20 from each customer during game lifetime, but it seems that it would be easier to make it free to play and then charge for something in the game. And it's hard to charge for anything that would not make you advance in the game, otherwise it's cosmetics and you're not charging for the game, but almost the same as asking for a donation. Most people would like to play for free. This model enables you to attract more users, which means a larger pool of potential customers. For example, would you pay $20 for my game (see link at the end), or would you rather play for free and then pay $1-$2 a month for some stuff that advances your gameplay? BTW, in case you're interested the game should be out in a month. See gos.bigosaur.com/cards.html for more info.

Osiris 13y ago
Guild Wars 2 is a game that charges for basically cosmetic items. You cannot buy better weapons or better armor, but you can buy costumes that make your armor look cool, or you can buy little things like 2x XP potions (30 minute limit). There is a way to make a game in which in-game purchases don't distort the game mechanics but that people are still interested in. I believe Team Fortress 2 does something similar, selling hats and such.
- xenophanes 13y ago
  Guild wars 2 also sells revive-where-i-am in case you die. (doesn't work in PvP). http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb that's over the line IMO.
  - andypants 13y ago
    It can't be used in PvP so it doesn't give you advantages over other people. It's only useful when you're playing on your own out in the world somewhere. "Revive where I am" is already free if there's another player around willing to revive you. I'd say it's the opposite of over the line. It's a very useful purchase which doesn't have any big game changing consequences. It's just a replacement for party members. It facilitates solo play for people who enjoy it. And the gem store isn't the only way of acquiring this item.
  - socillion 13y ago
    That's one of the items that probably looks ridiculous if you haven't played, but it took months for the player base to find any good use for it. At the time I was playing, nobody was really using it for anything but terrain exploration - rezzing using the orb after jumping off the map edge. Here's a thread of players complaining about how weak it is: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Revive-Orb-Is-Useless-in-my-view https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Revive-Orb-Is... Tangent: one of the best parts of GW2's paid model is that if you stop playing you can get a full refund including what you spent in the cash shop.
shardling 13y ago
The Kingdom of Loathing's model seems to do pretty well. (And they've been at it for 10 years now, well before "free to play" was a thing.) You can pay for in-game items, but you can also buy them with in-game currency[1]. So you could let players pay to get the special items/upgrades instantly, but still let hardcore players get them without paying through some sort of grinding. So long as you don't have to exchange too much time to be maximally powerful without paying for the privilege, players don't seem to mind in practice. (You will get people loudly bitching about things no matter what you do -- this is the internet.) So: you make it so that players only have a few of the upgrades active at a time, then you can introduce new items in a regular stream without unbalancing things. 1. Well, in KoL you can only buy them from other players with regular currency. Unless your game plans to have a full fledged economy, I guess you'd want to sell them directly.
- babuskov 13y ago
  Thanks for the KoL tip. My game is really rather simple card game strategy, with strict rules and requires skill to play, no luck involved. Players don't have "decks", they all share the same deck of cards. Basically, it plays like chess, all players are equal. So, there's no room for in-game economy between players. Currently I'm considering the following models: 1. pay for some additional units (cards) which would basically mean that some players who pay have additional strategies available (not necessarily more powerful, but rather more diverse). 2. pay to play more. Amount of duels per day would be limited, and thus the player's progress. The game will feature a ranking system with levels, so paying players could advance faster. The second one seems closer to KoL model. Which now gives me an idea. I could separate the rankings system (leaderboard) from the player leveling system, so that leaderboard is limited to, say, first 5 matches each day, while you could still play additional duels to level-up faster. Although, leveling-up has no effect on the gameplay, it's purely cosmetic. I'm still not sure if 1. or 2. would make more money, but making more money is not my primary concern. I just want the game to be sustainable and attract as many players as possible. I believe many indie developers like me are facing the same questions themselves, esp. when they read that Supercell is making gazilions.
  - 13y ago
viraptor 13y ago
You could do a limited-time free play game. That's what Order and Chaos did long time ago, but since then they switched to in-game store. Maybe it's not that profitable... I don't know. But I can definitely say it was free for (IIRC) a month and was fun enough that I paid the monthly to continue playing. I came back to it after ~a year and it seems like you can buy lots of items, but they're not really required. The economy is completely messed up on all servers, but that was the case when I started already.
jholman 13y ago
Some thoughts about the economics (and ethics) of games: * if a game isn't fun (to me), I shouldn't have to pay for it * if a game is fun, I should pay for it * generally, "better" games deserve more money (non-linear) * ... but I'm skeptical that $500 is ever the right price (e.g. for every LoL champ) * "time spent playing" is a half-assed proxy for "better"... * ... but not if you rig your game mechanics around this proxy metric * pay-to-win games are "bad" (personal subjective perspective) * if I don't have to pay for a game, I probably won't (sorry!) * if I'm paying per-month for the game, I feel artificial pressure to play it... * ... and if I stop playing, I'll cancel * ... so I can't casually pick it up 3 months later * ... and I think maybe most people have a limited monthly-subscription budget * games that have free options have better word-of-mouth marketing And a few observations derived from these: * gotta have a demo * the demo needs to demonstrate the actual gameplay * getting demo-length right is really hard * if you have the infrastructure to charge $2/month, you've got options With all that in mind, here's what I would do (hopefully will do, one day): * lots of gameplay should be free * where it makes sense, put roadblocks that players will hit after a while * .... and then some more after some more while * charge say $5 to get past each roadblock * have say 5 total roadblocks * to assuage cheapskates (5-years-ago me!), give alternatives to paying real money * maybe crazy grinding? * even better would be if you could find a way to give players credit-towards-roadblocks if they are helpful to the game community, or to game development Be up-front about all of this: "Early parts of the game are free! To feed my family I'll be charging progressively for access to the later parts of the game, but I'll never charge a given player more than $25" (or some other promise you are willing to keep) --------- By the way, $20 is a lot for an indie game, especially up-front. The humblebundle this week includes ELEVEN games, including several great ones, and the "average price" (unlocks all 11 games) is around $6. So no, I will not pay $20 for your game, are you crazy? Instead I'll go buy the humblebundle for $10, give half of that to charity so I feel like a social justice crusader, throw away 54% of the games in the bundle, and STILL have dozens of hours of gameplay, and $10 in my pocket for the next humblebundle. Yes, I'm a cheapskate. But this is the reality of the market at work. I'm not saying your game isn't "worth" $20. I bet your game is more fun than a movie-plus-snacks, and people pay $20 for that, right? But your game will be compared to games selling for $10 or less. Man, I just realized I sound like I'm trying to talk you out of a career in game-dev, and that's not what I want (as a gamer). --------- One more thought: You said "(not necessarily more powerful, but rather more diverse)". Yeah, listen, when you play my Rock Paper Scissors online game, you get Rock for free, and pay for Paper and Scissors. They're not necessarily more powerful, just more diverse.
swivelmaster 13y ago
Hey, I've worked on some similar games and can give you some tips - contact me if you're interested.

Osiris 13y ago

Guild Wars 2 is a game that charges for basically cosmetic items. You cannot buy better weapons or better armor, but you can buy costumes that make your armor look cool, or you can buy little things like 2x XP potions (30 minute limit). There is a way to make a game in which in-game purchases don't distort the game mechanics but that people are still interested in. I believe Team Fortress 2 does something similar, selling hats and such.

xenophanes 13y ago
Guild wars 2 also sells revive-where-i-am in case you die. (doesn't work in PvP). http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revive_Orb that's over the line IMO.
- andypants 13y ago
  It can't be used in PvP so it doesn't give you advantages over other people. It's only useful when you're playing on your own out in the world somewhere. "Revive where I am" is already free if there's another player around willing to revive you. I'd say it's the opposite of over the line. It's a very useful purchase which doesn't have any big game changing consequences. It's just a replacement for party members. It facilitates solo play for people who enjoy it. And the gem store isn't the only way of acquiring this item.
- socillion 13y ago
  That's one of the items that probably looks ridiculous if you haven't played, but it took months for the player base to find any good use for it. At the time I was playing, nobody was really using it for anything but terrain exploration - rezzing using the orb after jumping off the map edge. Here's a thread of players complaining about how weak it is: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Revive-Orb-Is-Useless-in-my-view https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Revive-Orb-Is... Tangent: one of the best parts of GW2's paid model is that if you stop playing you can get a full refund including what you spent in the cash shop.

shardling 13y ago

The Kingdom of Loathing's model seems to do pretty well. (And they've been at it for 10 years now, well before "free to play" was a thing.) You can pay for in-game items, but you can also buy them with in-game currency[1]. So you could let players pay to get the special items/upgrades instantly, but still let hardcore players get them without paying through some sort of grinding. So long as you don't have to exchange too much time to be maximally powerful without paying for the privilege, players don't seem to mind in practice. (You will get people loudly bitching about things no matter what you do -- this is the internet.) So: you make it so that players only have a few of the upgrades active at a time, then you can introduce new items in a regular stream without unbalancing things. 1. Well, in KoL you can only buy them from other players with regular currency. Unless your game plans to have a full fledged economy, I guess you'd want to sell them directly.

babuskov 13y ago
Thanks for the KoL tip. My game is really rather simple card game strategy, with strict rules and requires skill to play, no luck involved. Players don't have "decks", they all share the same deck of cards. Basically, it plays like chess, all players are equal. So, there's no room for in-game economy between players. Currently I'm considering the following models: 1. pay for some additional units (cards) which would basically mean that some players who pay have additional strategies available (not necessarily more powerful, but rather more diverse). 2. pay to play more. Amount of duels per day would be limited, and thus the player's progress. The game will feature a ranking system with levels, so paying players could advance faster. The second one seems closer to KoL model. Which now gives me an idea. I could separate the rankings system (leaderboard) from the player leveling system, so that leaderboard is limited to, say, first 5 matches each day, while you could still play additional duels to level-up faster. Although, leveling-up has no effect on the gameplay, it's purely cosmetic. I'm still not sure if 1. or 2. would make more money, but making more money is not my primary concern. I just want the game to be sustainable and attract as many players as possible. I believe many indie developers like me are facing the same questions themselves, esp. when they read that Supercell is making gazilions.
- 13y ago

viraptor 13y ago

You could do a limited-time free play game. That's what Order and Chaos did long time ago, but since then they switched to in-game store. Maybe it's not that profitable... I don't know. But I can definitely say it was free for (IIRC) a month and was fun enough that I paid the monthly to continue playing. I came back to it after ~a year and it seems like you can buy lots of items, but they're not really required. The economy is completely messed up on all servers, but that was the case when I started already.

jholman 13y ago

Some thoughts about the economics (and ethics) of games: * if a game isn't fun (to me), I shouldn't have to pay for it * if a game is fun, I should pay for it * generally, "better" games deserve more money (non-linear) * ... but I'm skeptical that $500 is ever the right price (e.g. for every LoL champ) * "time spent playing" is a half-assed proxy for "better"... * ... but not if you rig your game mechanics around this proxy metric * pay-to-win games are "bad" (personal subjective perspective) * if I don't have to pay for a game, I probably won't (sorry!) * if I'm paying per-month for the game, I feel artificial pressure to play it... * ... and if I stop playing, I'll cancel * ... so I can't casually pick it up 3 months later * ... and I think maybe most people have a limited monthly-subscription budget * games that have free options have better word-of-mouth marketing And a few observations derived from these: * gotta have a demo * the demo needs to demonstrate the actual gameplay * getting demo-length right is really hard * if you have the infrastructure to charge $2/month, you've got options With all that in mind, here's what I would do (hopefully will do, one day): * lots of gameplay should be free * where it makes sense, put roadblocks that players will hit after a while * .... and then some more after some more while * charge say $5 to get past each roadblock * have say 5 total roadblocks * to assuage cheapskates (5-years-ago me!), give alternatives to paying real money * maybe crazy grinding? * even better would be if you could find a way to give players credit-towards-roadblocks if they are helpful to the game community, or to game development Be up-front about all of this: "Early parts of the game are free! To feed my family I'll be charging progressively for access to the later parts of the game, but I'll never charge a given player more than $25" (or some other promise you are willing to keep) --------- By the way, $20 is a lot for an indie game, especially up-front. The humblebundle this week includes ELEVEN games, including several great ones, and the "average price" (unlocks all 11 games) is around $6. So no, I will not pay $20 for your game, are you crazy? Instead I'll go buy the humblebundle for $10, give half of that to charity so I feel like a social justice crusader, throw away 54% of the games in the bundle, and STILL have dozens of hours of gameplay, and $10 in my pocket for the next humblebundle. Yes, I'm a cheapskate. But this is the reality of the market at work. I'm not saying your game isn't "worth" $20. I bet your game is more fun than a movie-plus-snacks, and people pay $20 for that, right? But your game will be compared to games selling for $10 or less. Man, I just realized I sound like I'm trying to talk you out of a career in game-dev, and that's not what I want (as a gamer). --------- One more thought: You said "(not necessarily more powerful, but rather more diverse)". Yeah, listen, when you play my Rock Paper Scissors online game, you get Rock for free, and pay for Paper and Scissors. They're not necessarily more powerful, just more diverse.

swivelmaster 13y ago

Hey, I've worked on some similar games and can give you some tips - contact me if you're interested.