tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6497285918191988776.post2551633037827996745..comments2023-10-07T07:25:45.177-04:00Comments on Confessions of my Gaming Mind: On My Mind: The price of FreemiumAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10545234971740321398noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6497285918191988776.post-22268874400779647182011-09-08T12:57:59.162-04:002011-09-08T12:57:59.162-04:00Trying again with a much shorter comment:
1. You t...Trying again with a much shorter comment:<br />1. You touch briefly on addiction, which is important for a lot of these continuous games. If a person is always playing your game, odds are they'll be more likely to pay for things? Let's Golf 3 seems to hurt itself by not letting normal people play long enough to get addicted, whereas Tiny Towers let you play 'til you were hooked.<br /> <br />2. Solo vs multiplayer games.<br />Solo: sell the player whatever they want at as costly a price as possible.<br />Multi: Balance is an issue. <br /><br />3. If bringing pay items to a subscriber model, people aren't as mad if you have a dual convertible currency. Eg, one currency earned, the other bought, but both convertible into each other. Without ranting too much about the amazingness of Puzzle Pirates, the brilliance of the system is that some people will say, "It's not worth the effort of farming it, I'll just buy it" and others will say "It's not worth buying it, I'll just farm it." If you have a in-game trading market for the currency there is double win. Players who pay for stuff will also pay for more stuff if they can sell it to other players (who weren't going to pay) Either way, the players can't really fault you; you're just giving them what they want without really breaking the game. Blizzard should have gotten into that model earlier, and then the faux outrage might not have been so loud.jkmyounghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14709092852707057207noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6497285918191988776.post-3641984632349733622011-09-07T18:03:04.163-04:002011-09-07T18:03:04.163-04:00Quite a few thoughts on this. Summary:
1. Get them...Quite a few thoughts on this. Summary:<br />1. Get them addicted.<br />2. Make the add-ins fun/useful. <br />3. Have small buy-ins to suck you into multiple buys or larger buys.<br />4. For MMORPGs implement a dual coin system.<br /><br />You touch briefly on addiction, which is important for a lot of these continuous games. If a person is always playing your game, odds are they'll be more likely to pay for things? Let's Golf 3 seems to hurt itself by not letting normal people play long enough to get addicted, whereas Tiny Towers let you play 'til you were hooked. (edit - Had written a lot more on getting people, but it's sort of a side issue.)<br /><br />I've got one good example of non-OCD freemium: Puzzle Pirates. Puzzle Pirates is a great example in many respects, as it actively tested multiple freemium principles against the market at the same time. I think they were one of the ones who first realized you could make more from a pay per upgrade as opposed to a subscriber model. <br /><br />There are semi-tiered environments. eg, one environment completely with paid subscribers, and another with a mixed class of players, some paying some not paying. (this probably wouldn't work anywhere except a MMORPG)<br /><br />In their free worlds, you needed a combination of earned money (coins) and premium money (dubloons) to buy most things and do most things. In subscriber worlds, you only needed coin. Subscribers could also play on normal worlds but would have to buy dubloons. Then they realized they could make more money... <br /><br />They opened up their subscriber worlds and added licenses (30 days) bought with dubloons. Subscribers automatically had these privileges and didn't have to buy licenses in their world, but now more casual players could choose their level of involvement.<br /><br />!! DUAL-COIN System. PP was the first MMO game I saw to implement a coin/dubloon (cash/premium cash) with premium cash bought purely by the players. Since you needed both types of money to do things, lazy players with access to their parents credit cards could buy dubloons and sell them for coins. Players with little cash could work hard in game any buy dubloons with coins. If someone started buying up dubloons and the price of dubloons went up, enterprising pirates would buy dubloons and sell them for large amounts of coin. It was a self-regulating market, with the 3% fee having the added effect of removing excess coin from the system.<br /><br />!! Sucking you into to using the paid system.<br />This is the biggest weakness freemium games have, commercially. PP, created free days across the week. eg, Poker would be free on Tuesdays and Sundays, Distilling on Tuesdays and Thursdays, etc. to sucker people into buying dubloons either through the exchange or with credit card. However, you're right with this respect. Very few companies get me to use the paid system, simply because the benefits aren't good enough. (The last thing that tempted me was the katana in Zombieland.) What PP does is brilliant because 1. You could work for it instead the first few times. 2. The license is there for 30 days, so you get used to having it. 3. It seems like a small amount to start, but every addition draws you in deeper.<br /><br />I really think you need to draw the line between solo games and multi-player interactive games here. With solo games, almost anything goes. If the player wants it, they should be able to buy it, and companies will sell it as costly as possible. With multi-player games, you can only really sell things that don't disrupt the balance, and/or that you can earn with hard work otherwise. That's the great thing about having a dual-coin convertible system. Some people will say, "It's not worth the effort of farming it, I'll just buy it" and others will say "It's not worth buying it, I'll just farm it." Either way, the players can't really fault you; you're just giving them what they want without really breaking the game. Blizzard should have gotten into that model earlier, and then the faux outrage might not have been so loud.jkmyounghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14709092852707057207noreply@blogger.com