Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Media
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Misaos
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
THE TOP F2P MONETIZATION TRICKS
Posts
TheNecromancer
3160
TheNecromancer
View playlists
CloseThe free games would be better as a 1 time purchase with all content unlocked. They can still be good games as f2p. The endgame might not be easy/possible, but it doesn't change the core gameplay leading up to the endgame. A good game is a good game.
You can't lump all free games into a single category, just like you can't lump all paid games into the same category. There are plenty of paid games where even with all the content unlocked, it's extremely lacking.
It's like anything else; a single bad experience creates prejudice. Like you went to a Swiss Chalet restaurant and had a bad meal so you say all Swiss Chalet restaurants are bad. Even though many other people enjoy it and have good experiences.
I would rather have access to many free, yet limited, games as opposed to all games requiring you to pay. Especially with MMO's, because they get boring after a while and I want to move on. There are some big names as f2p; Star Wars, Star Trek, DC Online.
Companies have been profiting on impatience for a long time. Releasing new technology right away even though it's flawed and insanely expensive, like 3D. Releasing a newiPhonedevice every year. I wonder if it's a symptom of corporate coercion, or companies simply catering to human nature. Or both.
You can't lump all free games into a single category, just like you can't lump all paid games into the same category. There are plenty of paid games where even with all the content unlocked, it's extremely lacking.
It's like anything else; a single bad experience creates prejudice. Like you went to a Swiss Chalet restaurant and had a bad meal so you say all Swiss Chalet restaurants are bad. Even though many other people enjoy it and have good experiences.
I would rather have access to many free, yet limited, games as opposed to all games requiring you to pay. Especially with MMO's, because they get boring after a while and I want to move on. There are some big names as f2p; Star Wars, Star Trek, DC Online.
Companies have been profiting on impatience for a long time. Releasing new technology right away even though it's flawed and insanely expensive, like 3D. Releasing a new
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I never pay for anything in games that I don't have to, because I'm a cheapskate, but I do enjoy some F2P models.
Kingdom of Loathing is an excellent example. The entire game is 100% skill based. You can beat it without paying anything and are expected to. But every month they release a new piece of super equipment or a new familiar, which generally also unlocks some new content (a new dungeon or a new skillset or some unique effect that significantly changes how you play or something). And if you're cheap, you can also buy these with gold - you can probably only afford about every third or fourth one unless you spend more time farming gold than playing, but a lot of them are intentionally redundant to make it so people don't have to buy more than every third or fourth one. For example, there are at least five familiars that drop high-quality booze, but you only need one of them because you can only drink so much booze. If you have an old booze-granting familiar, you don't have to buy the new one. Also, interestingly, when the monthly item is a piece of equipment, it actually cannot be used in competitive play; you can only use it in softcore mode.
Kingdom of Loathing is also a web-based game that was designed and popularized before the current F2P model existed. It's clearly a very functional model though. What I think is interesting is that instead of buying currency like the article says, or even buying anything at all, you donate to the game developer via paypal. And then you get a +15 to all stats accessory if you donate more than $10, which can be traded for the monthly item.
I have spent $0 on Kingdom of Loathing and have a complete set of more or less everything I could possibly ever need, so it's definitely not "necessary" to donate by any stretch of the imagination. If I were not poor as dirt, I still might do so, just because it's an amazing game and I feel like after several years of enjoying it, it's probably worth spending ten bucks on.
All of this is not to say that the typical F2P model is not really sketchy. Because it is. But game developers gotta make money somehow, and when you have a low budget cell phone game, you're sure not gonna do that by charging people up-front. You're gonna make zero dollars that way because no one is willing to pay for games up front unless they're AAA material. So I approve of game developers that try to make F2P work without lying to customers.
Kingdom of Loathing is an excellent example. The entire game is 100% skill based. You can beat it without paying anything and are expected to. But every month they release a new piece of super equipment or a new familiar, which generally also unlocks some new content (a new dungeon or a new skillset or some unique effect that significantly changes how you play or something). And if you're cheap, you can also buy these with gold - you can probably only afford about every third or fourth one unless you spend more time farming gold than playing, but a lot of them are intentionally redundant to make it so people don't have to buy more than every third or fourth one. For example, there are at least five familiars that drop high-quality booze, but you only need one of them because you can only drink so much booze. If you have an old booze-granting familiar, you don't have to buy the new one. Also, interestingly, when the monthly item is a piece of equipment, it actually cannot be used in competitive play; you can only use it in softcore mode.
Kingdom of Loathing is also a web-based game that was designed and popularized before the current F2P model existed. It's clearly a very functional model though. What I think is interesting is that instead of buying currency like the article says, or even buying anything at all, you donate to the game developer via paypal. And then you get a +15 to all stats accessory if you donate more than $10, which can be traded for the monthly item.
I have spent $0 on Kingdom of Loathing and have a complete set of more or less everything I could possibly ever need, so it's definitely not "necessary" to donate by any stretch of the imagination. If I were not poor as dirt, I still might do so, just because it's an amazing game and I feel like after several years of enjoying it, it's probably worth spending ten bucks on.
All of this is not to say that the typical F2P model is not really sketchy. Because it is. But game developers gotta make money somehow, and when you have a low budget cell phone game, you're sure not gonna do that by charging people up-front. You're gonna make zero dollars that way because no one is willing to pay for games up front unless they're AAA material. So I approve of game developers that try to make F2P work without lying to customers.
