South Park on Freemium Games

Oh, man.

I just watch this on Hulu.

One of their best episodes ever, and extremely poignant.

EDIT: Oh, man. It didn't show the REALLY depressing part where it talks about "whales" being 99% the revenue and how "whales" are people with compulsive addiction.

 

This makes me feel sick to my stomach.

 

There is still a market for using the old payment model. But the wealth of available "free" games (often with pretty good quality, actually) has driven the bar up. Waaaay up.

I see this as a good thing, personally. I intend to work hard and release complete products for complete prices, that will sell by virtue of being really good.

Every market is oversaturated with crap, to the degree that plenty of people complain that they can't sell their crap anymore. But it's always, ALWAYS possible to stand out and above the masses with sheer quality and innovation,

Build it and they will come.

 

I thought it was pretty good the idea you dont want to make your game too fun otherwise they wont pay.

In the mobile space its really hard to stand out and unless your getting tens of thousands of downloads a day your game will very quickly buried under a mountain of new releases

 

lol

 

One of the problems is that big companys push out great looking games for no money into the mobile space (with IAP). Users (especially younger ones) now expects this as a standard. If you as a smaller company need to compete with the polished feel and look of the popular games then a few sales at 1$ won't get your money back.

The users are as much a problem as the developers, its a bad cycle.

 

The most popular games tend to be like this. They are more like work than actual fun.

Examples:

WoW: past the early levels, it becomes a huge grind. The stories are mostly ignorable.
Farmville: have you ever tried to work on a farm in real life? It's pretty damned hard work.
Minecraft: gotta do lots of work to dig up those materials for your artistic creation.
Competitive games: LoL, Dota, Starcraft etc. The story isn't important anymore. You practice them over and over and over again to out-perform your friends.
Candy Crush: highly repetitious level grinding
Flappy Bird: stupidly repetitious, but people push through it to outscore their friends.

 

I think only Farmville match the "barely fun" structure. Even Candy Crush is actually quite fun when solving puzzle, but they force you to wait for energy and ask friends for pass

 

Not saying they aren't fun. But people wouldn't play them nearly as long if they weren't like work.

Take Minecraft, for instance. The "fun" part is exploring, being creative, and building up new structures. The work part is collecting the materials. If they just gave the fun part without the work part, no one would play it.

 

I have to strongly disagree with you on Minecraft here.
Part of the fun in Minecraft actually comes from the effort required to build your creations. The endless mining. The mass-smelting. The creation of railways to travel more efficiently back and forth between my construction site and my mine. The planning ahead. It was all part of the fun back when I still played on a server with friends.
I'm a gamer. I like my games challenging.

It's skill vs. instant-gratification. If you want to "just build" your creations, you play creative mode. You have access to all the blocks and - as additional bonus - won't die and can fly through the air.

Also:
Why is this video so accurate?

 

I'm not sure we're disagreeing so much here ...

Those things you mentioned, the endless mining, mass-smelting etc are very much like work. It just reinforces the idea that in order for these games to be fun, they NEED to be like work, or at least part of them has to be.

 

There's a subtle difference, though, between grinding and waiting in a traditional game and the same thing in a freemium game, and it's entirely psychological:

In a freemium game, every design choice draws skepticism. You start to wonder, is this element supposed to make the game better, or to make more money? The two concepts are suddenly decoupled, so every inconvenience feels like it's designed to squeeze more cash and less enjoyment from its players.

Grinding is far more forgivable in Minecraft, for example, where you paid once for the game. The developers have no incentive to lessen your enjoyment of the game, so the conspiracy theories simply don't emerge.

Even in World of Warcraft, which ironically has an extremely similar incentive to encourage grinding (longer subscriptions!), it feels more fair because you have no other option. You are paying, and you have to grind. There's no option not to pay, or not to grind. When these choices are pitted against each other (pay or grind), it becomes extremely uncomfortable. You don't like spending money, and you don't like grinding. Which one can you tolerate more?

 

Not necessarily. Looking at Yahtzee's review:

If the game just gave you your golden cock and balls, you'd simply walk away after not much time. So you have to work for it. That means you're going to be playing the game longer. And if you're playing the game longer, that means you have more time to tell your friends about it, and more time to broadcast to potential buyers on Twitch.

Why do you think Farmville went so viral? People would keep on coming back day after day, always increasing the chance of giving the "virus" to their friends.

There definitely IS an incentive to dragging it out.

On top of that, Notch worked at King.com games for years before making Minecraft. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that influenced his design of Minecraft.

 

Human psychology: You generally value things more if you paid for them than if they were free. If you "worked" for those pixels in the game, you earned them and they matter to you, at least subconsciously. If the game just had them sitting there for free when you logged in, you would not value them as much.

Minecraft's creative mode can actually all function this way. Instead of building small from the resources worked for, the resources free and some people put the effort into building massive or complicated structures. The time is still spent, the "work" is still put in, and the brain still assigns value.


All of which is generalization, of course. Still, human psychology has been addicting us to things since we were first figuring out where to find the most reliable sources of food.

 

And it's disgusting.

That's how I feel put into an exact explanation.

 

Strong disagreement is at least 11x more powerful than regular disagreement.

I know a whole bunch of people who would disagree with you about where the fun of Minecraft comes from. Mostly because there's no way of knowing what different people consider fun.

The rapid fire listing of things that sound cool. Abuse of the word "the". These are examples of things you may have done, but Minecraft can be played in many different ways.

I know even more people who would argue that challenge isn't even a part of gaming.

South Park!

 

I feel like the wealth of available free games has driven the bar waaaay (had to match the number of a's in yours) down. I see Indie games with pixel art selling well. I think that's cool. People just expect more for less and so spending years honing your craft is, well... it's not very Generation Obama, now is it?

Amen.

Hahahahahaha. Mental picture...

Ask Disney, Nintendo, McDonalds. They aren't necessarily raking in record profits right now, but I'll burn everything I own for some of that money.

Really? A Field of Dreams reference? Do you even know what that's from?

 

Or are we?

 

They usually are, that is what makes them genius. Certainly this ep was no exception. (though, for me it comes second to the Gluten episode).

Like the gluten episode (and most episodes), it paints a generally accurate picture. But also like every episode, they exaggerate aspects for effect. This is one of those parts. The whole as perception and understanding of "whales" has been hugely distorted. (largely because it was poor choice of terms in the first place). They aren't a personality type or even a demographic, they aren't even a "they" exactly. It just refers the small percentage of people who pay.

 

Depends on how much they're paying. If they're paying well over what you would for a normal game, the "whale" term is appropriate.

 

Exactly, normal game prices are the benchmarks. Typically (back in the social days), it was about $20 as that was the typical price of a casual PC game. Now, $40-50 over the player's lifetime is often a 'whale'. Of course it can go way up from there, but the curve is steep. most are in for the price of regular game range. In the beginning, "whale" pretty much has its roots in irony.

 

I was under the impression that these were tough times for everyone?

 

All these companies have at least some whales. I'm curious what percentage of their revenue comes from them. I'd be very interested to see that information.

 

A few days ago we announced our 4th straight year of record breaking profits. More importantly for us (Disney Interactive), in the 15 year history of DI, it has never turned profit. But this last year we did, 4 straight quarters of profitability. For us (and the rest of Disney) that is largely from an almost insane focus on quality. Over his time so far, Iger has completely turned the company around, attempting to bring it back to what it was, and make people forget the dark years. For us that means we ship fewer games, more than half are canceled before they launch. If the quality isn't there and it doesn't live up to new standards of quality it is canned. We recently shut down a bunch of Star Wars game for the same reason (including ones that were making a ton of money). These next couple of years are going to be a renaissance for Star Wars games. It sounds like common sense, that quality will lead to better sales, but rarely is that practiced. Luckily, in our company, it has been proven recently, and has started working for our games. We are pretty stoked and optimistic that as the trend continues, the focus on quality will get even more intense.

 

Wanna trade jobs?

 

It is unlikely that any will share detailed information on it, as it is analytical data. Also, since so much is tracked, the numbers are tricky to present in a coherent way.

But, generally that info is fairly correct. 10% will monetize, 1% make up a bulk of the revenue. It varies depending on game and audience and by how much, but overall pretty accurate.

The important thing to consider is that with these games we are talking about really big numbers. So 1% making up a bulk of the revenue sounds like they are spending a lot, but that isn't really the case. Take for example Clash of Clans. (as their general info is public)

Using those general percentages, CoC makes 2.4m a day with 8.5m DAU. That would suggest that 850k are responsible for the 2.4m. Which means on average that would be $2.50. If, say, the minimum spend is $1, 765k spent by 90% of payers, that is 1.64m spent by the top 1% which is a bit less than 20$. If that base 90% payers averages 2$, the top 1% amount to $10. Note: these numbers are "daily", but in a big game they are not often the same people day to day, someone may only spend $10 a month (or once), a different player the next day. But the dailies even out with the monthlies and over time.

That is just an estimation based on typical numbers, but illustrative. A "big spender" on games of this scale can be only $20 and still turn into big numbers. That is why they work, they don't need convince a few people to pay a lot of money, just a lot of people to pay a little.

That said, yes, there are players who spend more. They are much rarer than 1%. And how and why will depend on the game. For example, we had a top 5 causal fb game. The audience was largely typical causual players (female, mother, middle age). The top spenders in that were somewhere around 20$ a week, and these players did that for several years. (about 1k a year). Almost all the ones we talked to (usually we reach out contact players who spend over a certain amount) basically had a fixed amount they would spend each week on entertainment, usually much more than $20, that was they spent on our game. Not remotely "compulsive", just fun money.

On the other end, the first social f2p game I worked on had a "whale" that (at that time) had spent well over 40k on the game. He simply wanted to be the "best" in the game was quite happy to pay for it. (he was also in a position where 40k was insignificant to him.) But that is rare in the extreme. (most anyone has ever spent on our games) We do keep on eye on these things, and reach out when appropriate. As far as I know there was only one case of a "problem spender", and we refunded and worked with the family. (elderly lady who was "forgetful"). But generally big spenders are happy with their spending and in a position to do so.

The idea that f2p/freemium is like selling crack to addicts who are unable to control themselves and are going broke over it is not based in fact. Not that it never happens, I am sure it does, just like anything that someone can go overboard with. But there are billions of people playing these games daily, and you rarely hear of such cases.

 

$2 / day in the base 90% is a very high estimate, given the large number of people who just want to play the game for free.

Now $20 / day is a lot. That's $600 / month, and ~7K in a year.

But at this point we're still lacking information. Given the statement:
"1% make up a bulk of the revenue"

Is that statement about revenue per day, or is the stat accumulated over a larger period of time like, say, a month, or even the full lifetime of the game?

That accumulation time is important. If it's small enough, you could make any activity, like shopping at the local grocery store, look like it's supported only by whales.

 

This F2P or Not F2P is kinda grinding my project warfront defenders to a halt. It's killin me.

Warfront defenders was not planned to be a F2P game. But it can be turned into one. Not that I will enjoy turning it into that and also not that I understand the F2P mechanics in a great detail. So, at the best I will do some time grinds and push notifications etc.

I don't like F2P games, and don't respect any. I didn't found any F2P players respecting and loving their F2P games. They curse the developer every time. Is this the way it is now?

But F2P seems to work, even if it is disgusting, it is successful.

Why is it so successful, why is that so 1% of the players are responsible for 40% of revenue. I think the answer to this heavily exponential curve lies in the fact that the wealth of our world is divided like so. If you look at the Wealth curve you will find increasing similarily with the F2P curve.

http://www.theguardian.com/business...rcent-half-global-wealth-credit-suisse-report

So, more or less F2P is successful because its aligned to that curve. Premium games can't ride the curve. It stays in the middle ground and feeds off the narrow middle tier. It can't be as successful as F2P games.

 

Disney really has become, well, Disney again.

Their acquisitions and IP handling has set a new standard, their new IP's are genuinely refreshing and mold breaking (and not just stealing from foreign films), and the company has really improved their image from the ruthless company that sues day cares for having Mickey painted on a wall.

 

Sorry, I worded that poorly. The 90% I was referring to was of the 10% of people who do pay. So technically, 9% of the total players. 90% (generally) of all players never pay at all.

That is why I was saying it was convoluted. The statistics are for both. Usually a game will have particular pattern to it. I used the example of 90/10/1 (non-payers/payers/whales). That is general, it varies per game to a degree, as do the actual amounts. But generally that split (whatever it is) applies to daily, monthly and players as a whole.

Because these games have such a huge player base, and 100% of data is tracked (not statistical samples, full data), the patterns quickly emerge. For example, we generate reports every 5 minutes, so a "day" isn't the just the total for the day, but an averaged picture of every 5 minutes throughout the day.

It isn't cumulative. The 10% of players that pay on a given day are, for the most part, not the same people paying the next day, or following or so on. The userbase is rolling. In those number that I pulled for CoC, one that I didn't mention is that at the time of that sampling, they were also averaging 500k new users per day. Which shows just how rolling the player base is. If they are adding a half a million users every day, but the DAU is the same, that means that there are about a half a million people leaving a day or more accurately less people playing every day.

To be clear a "whale", isn't a standardized term, it will have different value/meaning depending on game and company. Usually it is a player lifetime number like $50 or whatever. But that will vary radically. CoC for example tends to make more off fewer players, CandyCrush makes much less per user, but has more users and more often pay, just smaller amounts. (last time I looked). Certainly players do pay more, but is also more common that those who do pay more are elder/engaged players and it is over a much longer period of time.

Again, the numbers and tracking is very complex, nuanced and relative. So when some article/blogger glosses over general data out of context, it paints inaccurate pictures. (plus dramatic headlines or articles are much likely to get traffic). A simplified statement like 90% of revenue comes from "whales", it is misleading and implies that just handful of people are paying millions of dollars. When in reality it is many millions of players $20-$100 (ish)

And sure there are a small percentage of players who pay hundreds or a thousand or more over a lifetime, but those are typically spread out over time. Still much less than a lot people pay for coffee, or other pastimes/hobbies/indulgence. Heck, a typical hardcore pc gamer pays many times that a year. Everyone has their thing. Mine is LEGO.

 

Indeed, it is a great time to be a cast member. I am old enough that Disney has very positive and fond memories for me. Iger is returning it to those roots, and taking properties like Marvel and Lucas along for the ride. Everything happening with Marvel is completely unbelievable. And Star Wars... well, I have seen enough to have complete faith that the prequels will quickly be completely forgotten. And more importantly... Battlefront... it could be a game changer.

 

Yeah it is pretty complicated. The only true way to get good results is to measure the numbers over the entire lifetime. It would seem different games would have quite different roll-over rates. A game like WoW, for instance, would probably have rather low roll-over rates.

On the flip side, the people paying the most are probably going to be sticking around the most ...

 

On the other, other, other side of things...

Look, it's simple. The better your game is, the more options you have how to monetize it. If you have a demo project, you won't make a dime. If it's complete but just o.k., you'll have to go f2p. If it's really good you can sell it outright. That's all. I think too many people put all there focus on one game being *it* and forget that one project means nothing in the grand scheme. If you feel like you don't want to be stuck in f2p hell, just finish what you're doing and aim higher and keep at it.

 

I think this is pretty interesting, it certainly fits with my logic.very wise