Freemium Is The New Premium
For some time, there has been a stigma floating around free-to-play (F2P) games and their design. Allegations include a nickel and dime tactic to chop up content for additional profit and ruining game integrity by favoring paying customers. While there is truth to the concerns, its lingering presence rests upon outdated ideas.
As with all new concepts, buffing out kinks takes time. Pushing of boundaries of the acceptable is not unlike any human development in adolescence, to test where the median is. Moreover, this only applies to a portion of titles, even if lesser implementations used to be more prevalent upon F2P emergence. It's widely adopted for a reason: Going free-to-play pays off.
In history, games like Runescape paved the way for this blueprint. Players could access a part of the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game and partake in most of its features for free. For a small fee, they'd then open a larger scope, urging them to buy into the world they loved. Its easy entry and widespread success has made developer Jagex the corporation it is and allowed for the influence of Runescape to be felt today, after 10 years. This is similarly the case for many other examples.
Those Free Phone Games SuckAside from PC embracing F2P, a certain timing with the rise of mobile devices lead games there to overtake these patterns. Since technology restricted phones to employ high-end productions for its titles, offering short, simple projects for free was a viable alternative. A subsequent explosion of quick-to-program, easy-to-drop projects was the result, which flooded the mobile market. Since resources were limited, it was easy for refined productions to be instantly mimicked by shoddier productions trying to cash in, with real money transactions for game items. This, in turn, lead to a saturation that plagues the market today and makes disgruntled users wade through a barrage of shills in search of decent entertainment.
Still, it's also this progression throughout the years that has helped mold a free scheme and that in accelerated fashion. Mobile devices have exponentially reached more people and advanced quicker than any other platform, making them a microcosm of the unpaid architecture fit for study. It has dozens of applications for each adaptation of complementary offerings, whether they include in-game cosmetics, paid content and so on. Using this growth, the mobile market has become sustainable enough to threaten its traditional handheld counterpart and its quality climbs nearer to conventional consoles every day.
Saved By Not Getting Paid
Given the influence of titles like Runescape, MMO's and in particular the roleplaying game (RPG) variant were the biggest customers to piece off their universe in a costless model. After the success of behemoth World of Warcraft, many of these online ventures were seeing their bubble burst, as it's hard for users to sustain a monthly fee when barely playing. That's where freemium concepts step in to destroy that financial barrier. Players can drop in when they want and put in money whenever they feel ready to justify the charge.
Altering to more impulse-driven payment has subsequently become more productive than the standard method. In 2009, Turbine Studios turned around the failing Dungeons & Dragons Online, by dropping fees and opting for an unpaid design. It later reported a 500 percent revenue increase thanks to this reconfiguration. They doubled up this success by doing the same for Lord of the Rings Online, which rose 300 percent after dropping fixed pledges.
Now, this tactic is applied to any struggling MMO, to sizably increase its lifespan. Companies who can't seem to find an audience for their game, convert it to F2P to give it a renewed life, with examples like Star Wars: The Old Republic or even pioneer Everquest II.
Continues and Finishes on Next Page.
No comments yet. Tell us what you think to be the first.