It’s odd to see all the free to play games out there that, once you play you discover that’s not the case at all. These types of games I call free to pay games. Some are better than others in the genre but quite a few just try to sucker you out of your money. The most recent examples of these are Candy Crush Saga and Tetris Blast. Neither of these games specifically asks you for money but if you want to continue to play or want special items you better fork over the cash. This form of money grab as Mike Rose argues in Chasing the Whale that focusing on a select group of people known as “whales”. These people are addicted to the game to spend all of their hard earned cash to get useless online items. However, it is simply not true that this is a representation of all free to play games. I personally used to play a lot of Second Life and you don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to. In fact since you can create anything and sell it you could possibly just make money off of SL. AT the same time I have spent a lot of money on SL myself and it just enhances the game play of the game. For instance, you can pay rent in a sim so you can build a building and make a home for yourself, or purchase clothing to fit the environment that you currently reside in. But Second Life and Candy Crush Saga are two different beasts of free to pay games. One basically requires you to pay in order to continue playing the game as the other just enhances the game ascetics. Microtransactions in and of themselves is not a bad thing, it’s just using them to the affect of bankrupting someone to play an addicting game is.
But Free to Play is real and, arguably, the most significant factor in the customer points system discussed by Jesse Schell. Jesse Schell in DICE 2010 did a presentation called “Design Outside the Box” which discusses the gamification of everyday things and games that gamers and developers are surprised that became big hits. Examples he uses are the Wii and Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Facebook Games etc. These games seemingly came from no where and dominated the field and made tons of money doing so. I wholeheartedly endorse what Jesse Schell calls “psychological cleverness” that is going on with games, but I’m not really fond of his conclusion that everything will be gamified including advertisements. There are some interesting aspects to a gamified world but Jesse Schell overlooks what I consider an important point about using a point system for everything and how it would defeat the purpose of some others. For instance, he used Dr. Pepper giving you points for drinking a can each week, but also walking somewhere gives you points for being healthy. Wouldn’t the point system see “Oh you’re drinking a sugary soft drink -50 points”.
These conclusions, which both Jesse Schell and Mike Rose discuss in Microtransations in games and Gamification, add weight to the argument that this will continue and could be part of gaming for a long time. For me though I feel that people are already getting tired of the “Whaling” aspect of games and simply want something fun that if free they pay for what content they want but not have to spend to play. And gamification is going to continue as even most new apps now make life situations into a game so you can workout, create routines, even clean the house. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
Jesse Schell DICE 2010: “Design Outside the Box” Presentation
Chasing the Whale: Examining the ethics of free-to-play games by Mike Rose [Business/Marketing]