Game Design Challenge: Free To Play

[Pirates0nFire]

bob,
Simply do a google image search for Evony and you will see what I mean. They have tag lines on some ads like "play discretely" and "play it secretly now!" implying that there is sexual content in this 16 bit Medieval MMORTS. It's very misleading advertising that I'm sure has had successful results--just like those youtube videos with tags and titles "**** girls with boob hot dance" and it's just random clips of some guy's favorite pet drooling with pop music in the background.

I enjoy free-to-play games online but I have never purchased additional content. I'm not willing to spend $1 or more on a small piece of electronic property and I won't spend $20 on virtual cash spendable only in one virtual real (exeption being XBox Live points).

For me, an attractive pay system would be selling Avatar accessories, items, upgrades, spells, etc. for $0.01-$0.25 (basically 1970's arcade prices). A game could definately make profit with such low prices if the development team were very small and technology cheap or the game intensely popular and addictive. I believe I will center my submission on either being cabable of being developed by a team of 1-3 or being massively popular and addictive so my marketing has a chance of being successful in turning a profit.

[Retro]

Originally Posted by bob

My point was that having a game that is completely acceptable for the majority of players without putting any money into probably won't make much money, like Ikariam. It sounds like this is what you want to do - I could be wrong.

You're more or less right; I'm intentionally trying to keep the core gameplay separate from the pay-exclusive portions. To me, the real cash items should be conveniences, cosmetic, or non-gameplay oriented. For example, you could skip the hour or so it might take to gather resources and just buy items outright with currency; it's a shortcut. It allows you to accelerate growth, but no more than a regular player could do for free.

But what I'm really looking at are non-gameplay oriented features (making deals with the opposite faction, for example), features that other players don't need to be involved in, but can still directly affect them. For example, a human paying a vampire to disrupt another human's activities, and paying to keep that deal a secret. It affects gameplay, but it's not a mechanic... it's more of a social element.

Originally Posted by bob

I think the idea of having real money in the game could be very exciting. I'm sure if you come up with a clever way to keep it balanced, it would be quite entertaining.

I'm thinking the same too. If you want to jump into the game and pay real money to rush, you can... but you'd have to keep in mind that being a wealthy individual means others will seek to take advantage of you.

Originally Posted by bob

The idea that players need to play a long time before they are going to spend money sounds like an assumption carried over from the MMO genre where what they sell is mostly convenience.

I'm not so sure I would agree. As you mention in another post, it's ideal to target 'real players', not just the people cruising around for their next F2P fix. As you said; "tap into normal people who drop 20 - 60 bucks a game." Inevitably, the question will be "How much will I have to pay in this F2P to get the 'real game' and not just a demo?". If you offer players the full game immediately, but keep the really deep stuff behind a price point, you have a chance of getting players interested, involved, and more likely to pay.

It seems the F2P games are designed to quickly suck money from players before the next F2P game comes along. I think it's obvious that I'm aiming for something more than just a mild diversion... but it is something to consider, honestly.

The more I think on this challenge, the more my regular projects start to look much more appealing... so that's good, at least.

Originally Posted by bob

Pirates,
I've seen ads for it, but none with cleavage.

I'm fairly certain Pirates is referring to this; http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html

[bob]

HA! That's awesomely crude and lame.

Let me get your guys' opinion on something. Take Dragon Age, which currently has mod adventures being made for it that take between 30 mins and several hours to complete that you can download for free. Now imagine the "free-to-play" version: You release Dragon Age (for free) with one adventure, that takes about 2 hours but has all the game play features. Everyone plays it, they love it. After beating it, they are directed to the Mod Market. There, they find dozens (hundreds, given a few years), of similar small adventures. Each one is self-contained in terms of plot, but in terms of experience, items, etc., things carry over, so you can level a character across all the adventures you buy. When you buy an adventure, you use the character you played through the free game with. For people looking for longer adventures, modders could develop adventures comprised of several mods. The more people want to play, the more adventures they can get. This model basically guarantees that people who like the game will continue to spend money, since they want to keep getting new adventures.

It has several advantages over buying a single long game for sixty bucks. One, you get to pick the adventures that are most appealing to you. If you like to role play, you could seek out adventures that are role play heavy. If you like combat, vice versa. Two, if you don't want have the timeto put in 100 hours of game play, then you think "Wow, this is for me!" and you only buy two mods and spend... somewhere between 10 and twenty bucks, and that's it. You don't have to drop sixty bucks (I still don't have my own copy of Dragon Age because of the price). If you WANT to play a longer game, as I'm sure many people would, then modders would naturally seek out the money there and begin to cater to that market by making these adventures that may be comprised of several mods. And therein lies ANOTHER benefit. If I don't like where the game is going - if the story is lame, or something, and I think my money could be spent elsewhere, I'm free not to invest in the rest of the campaign, since I've only paid for the first part.

The backend side of this is just as awesome. Normal people can get paid to design their own mods! Their would be a rating system to make sure the best mods floated to the top, that could guarantee people wouldn't spend their money on crap, so buyers would never have to doubt the quality of their purchase. Development costs are low, too, since all the company has to do is design that first level, then they're done! They just split revenue with the people who submit mods.

[bob]

Oops, I left my last sentence out:

"I would love to have this game. Adventures tailored to my own play tastes of a size that I could beat in a day or two. Delicious."

[Retro]

Bob,

That's actually a great concept, and somewhat similar to a game I'm working on (the game itself is open-world, and downloading new 'books' simply adds new story lines and events to what you already have purchased). It's not F2P, though the idea you've presented would actually work well.

I say, run with it and see where it takes you. Just make sure to include some method for the mods to scale with your character; since levels / items carry over between mods, the mods themselves would have to either be built for specific levels ("Levels 10-20 only") or scale to adjust (Enemies increase in level, loot increases in value, etc). The game I mentioned earlier actually uses a horizontal scale (I have a post about my advancement method at my not-a-blog... /shameless plug).

The scaling of loot to compensate means there is always a reward out there for the player to chase down.

Now, Dragon Age: Origins is a single player game; did you have any plans to adapt this idea to a multiplayer game, or perhaps (more interestingly) include a way for multi-player mods to exist (that is, mods you buy that can only be completed with multiple players cooperating)? It seems like an interesting way to add a multiplayer experience to what would normally be a single player game.

Take a look a Phantasy Star Online's Challenge Mode, that was the single greatest multiplayer experience I've ever had, and if you can duplicate that... well, you'll have my money.

You have a lot of room to play here, and I like that. Very interesting concept, I'd run with it.

[bob]

Retro,

Thanks. I am indeed continuing to play with it. Could you provide me a link to your discussion about scaling? I scanned your blog but didn't see it.

[Retro]

Originally Posted by bob

Retro,

Thanks. I am indeed continuing to play with it. Could you provide me a link to your discussion about scaling? I scanned your blog but didn't see it.

It's not so much a scaling mechanism as it is a balance mechanism. I developed it as a way to remove character classes from a game while keeping the benefits of class-based systems (definition of roles, clear goals and success states ), and to impose limits to match the increased freedom skill-based systems allow.

http://level-1-design.blogspot.com/2...lar-logic.html

That's an older article, but everything in there should still be more or less up to date.

You can read more about skill-based vs. level-based systems here, a fantastic article I've re-read a few times now.

Edit: ugh. I haven't updated with anything meaningful in months. I may just sit this challenge out after all and bang away something worth reading.

[Augustiberry]

Hi all, sorry for breaking up the discussion but I have two general submission questions:

1) for images, is it ok to post short comics explaining how game features work? I'm struggling to keep the entry lower than 500 words and I don't want to go overboard.

2) is it ok to link challenge entries to a personal site?

Please excuse my interruption.

[Retro]

Originally Posted by Augustiberry

Hi all, sorry for breaking up the discussion but I have two general submission questions:

1) for images, is it ok to post short comics explaining how game features work? I'm struggling to keep the entry lower than 500 words and I don't want to go overboard.

Hey August, no apology needed; the discussion has kind of ground to a halt (my posts have a habit of doing that ). As far as your first question, I think it'd be alright as long as it's not exceptionally long. A few panels would be alright, but I don't think a full page comic would work.

Originally Posted by Augustiberry

2) is it ok to link challenge entries to a personal site?

This, I'm not sure of. If I had to guess, I would say probably not. I'm not a moderator though, so I really don't know for sure. Since we're only a few days away from the deadline, I would suggest including the link, but add a small note to the mods asking whether it is ok, and to delete the link if it is not.

Since this is your first post, welcome to the forums.

[jkavalier]

Hi everyone, first post here

One question about the current assignment. The details read:

"think of this challenge as an opportunity to do it in an ethical and fun way!"

Does this mean that a proposal using unethical (but clever and innovative) procedures would never be mentioned?

Thanks!

PS: I think this challenge is really interesting, because it puts contenders into many ethical questions...but also the judges!