A genre that is becoming increasingly more popular among the gamer demographic is the “free-to-play” online gaming entertainment market. Games that offer a free social interaction experience are becoming a huge phenomenon, often surpassing some “Paid Subscription” games in number of active monthly users. As a business model, offering an interactive online game free of charge may not initially appear to be a profitable investment. However, in reality, there are several different reasons why the “free-to-play” online gaming market can offer extremely beneficial financial and marketing rewards. To understand why these types of games are so popular, it’s important to first have a general understanding of some of the most successful features that encourage people to participate in an online game.
Engaging Interaction
Most of the online gaming demographic consists of people searching for engaging social interaction. As such, they will be more susceptible to adapting a gaming experience that combines social interaction with immersive gameplay. The description of ‘engaging’ is a broad term, though in the gaming market is largely used to represent a game that utilizes what is called ‘addictive gameplay’. This type of gaming encourages users to become involved in the social network of the game, as well as to use other features in order to have a more personalized experience. For example, in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), this is usually accomplished by implementing a leveling system for each character to progress. As an individual spends more time growing their character, they unlock additional items, quests and rewards that help to provide constant motivation for in-game progression.
The Use of a Persona
One of the biggest reasons why free-to-play online games have such a dedicated base of players is because they usually involve providing each player with the use of an online persona. Customizable online characters allow an individual to become emotionally involved in the creation and development of their virtual persona. This usually involves a person’s implementation of an idealistic appearance or lifestyle that can be accomplished in a virtual online game environment. Though it is not generally within official marketing guidelines to define games as a form of ‘escapism’, this term can essentially be used to describe the optimum online gaming experience.
Customizable Environments
Some of the most successful ‘free-to-play’ online games also offer each player the chance to create a customizable residence. This helps to promote the feeling of a ‘personal space’, which a player is then encouraged to decorate. This may also be motivation for a player to display special items or rare trophies that they have acquired through certain gameplay events. In free-to-play games that are designed to reward long-term players, this usually attracts people who will be more inclined to invest in additional ‘paid’ features of the game. The inclusion of a personal, customizable residence is a feature that is usually highlighted for free-to-play games that are targeting that type of marketing demographic.
Special Items
The inclusion of special items in free-to-play games is one of the biggest reasons why they are still able to become a profitable franchise. The initial ‘free’ cost of participating in the game encourages a gaming population to develop, while also allowing players to become attached to the interactive experience they receive in the virtual gaming world. Once this is accomplished, players are more inclined to spend a small amount of money in order to further advance their character through the use of special items. A prime example of this is the free-to-play online game “Maplestory”, which offers decorative items for players to customize every aspect of their character’s appearance. This alone generates a huge income from the game’s dedicated players, without pressuring a player to spend a large amount of money in order to continue to participate in the game.
Social Interaction
One of the biggest factors which encourages people to participate in an online gaming experience is the ability to interact with other players on a social level. Social interaction is usually accomplished by a user-friendly communication interface, which allows each player to interact with their gaming community on a personal level. In addition to offering text-based and verbal communication options, the most successful free-to-play games also implement some sort of direct visual social interaction options. These are usually called ‘emotes’ or ‘actions’, which can be used by a player to help their in-game character to physically express emotion about a certain situation. Some of these emotes can also be used to directly initiate a reciprocal action from another player. An example of this feature would be a ‘dance’ emote that allows a player to hold the hand of another player while dancing. These are also referred to as ‘group’ emotes.
A Christmas Social Event in the free-to-play game Maplestory.
In most free-to-play online games, community interaction is encouraged by allowing creation of a group for people with similar goals. This group is often called a ‘Guild’, ‘Clan’ or ‘Alliance’. These groups usually also include some type of ranking system, which allows dedicated players to adopt more responsibility within the group. The inclusion of this type of grouping system in a free-to-play game allows players to participate in more centralized community activities, as well as develop a sense of attachment to the idea of being part of a social group. In the simplest sense, inclusion of a group-based system encourages players to become acquainted with other members of their gaming community on a more personal level. This, in turn, promotes a player to be more inclined to be a long-term participant in their in-game community.
Many Online Games also offer the option of marriage.
How a Free-to-Play Game Creates Revenue
Encouraging players to become emotionally invested in a game’s interactive features, social environment and advancement system is the best way to ensure that a free-to-play game will produce profit. However, it’s also important to structure the financing system in a game to not be so overwhelming that it supersedes the ‘free’ aspect of the game for its players. In essence, the most successful free-to-play games are able to be successfully played even without a financial investment. However, there should be opportunities for a player to make their experience more personal, more interactive and more beneficial by investing a small amount of money. These funds are usually best acquired by providing virtual items, rewards, services and features that can help augment a player’s overall gaming experience.
In-Game Items
The utilization of in-game items that can be purchased is one of the most widely used features to generate funding for free-to-play games. Some of these in-game items may provide special bonuses designed for a character’s appearance, stats (magic, attack, defense, etc), action-emotes and skills. These items may or may not function to give a player a slight advantage in the game. It’s usually not recommended to implement items that give well-funded players an unfair advantage, since this will upset the balance of gameplay. For example, an item that costs $100 USD and gives a player a 1000% bonus in AoE (Area of Effect) damage might generate some revenue from a few dedicated players, but it would actually damage the gameplay experience for players who are not able to afford such an overpowered item. However, it’s also important that a free-to-play game has specialized items with bonuses that are tempting enough to convince players to invest in them.
The Item Store interface from Ether Saga Online.
If a free-to-play game is based around the advancement of a character’s level through acquisition of ‘experience points’, this feature is often able to be used to create additional revenue. While the rate of experience points in normal gameplay may be satisfactory, the use of certain items that augment the number of experience points a character gains presents a tempting opportunity for a motivated player. For example, if a player can spend $3.00 USD to gain an additional 50% experience point bonus for four hours, this can potentially appear to be a viable option. This feature is most effectively used if it is based around a designated amount of time after the item is ‘activated’, since it motivates the player to spend more time in the game’s environment.
Advertisements
The utilization of advertisements to fund free-to-play games is usually only successful if it is done with consideration for the gameplay experience. A generally acceptable way to use advertisements is to include them on the game’s official website. Once the game develops a large community of players, traffic to the game’s website will undoubtedly increase substantially, as will income from advertisements. Though it is possible to use in-game advertisements as a financially viable option, this also has the danger of damaging the overall gameplay experience for players. A large part of the appeal of most free-to-play games is the immersion factor, which is disrupted by the interruption of obvious attempts to generate income.
Social Status
In some cases, a free-to-play game may offer certain status bonuses for a player’s agreement to ‘donate’ to the game’s developers. This is usually most successfully implemented in highly socially interactive games, which may develop an automatic hierarchy of player status. Just as it is in the real world, status can become very important in the virtual world as well. However, if this feature is to be used successfully, there have to be certain bonuses associated with having a funded status. A great example of this is the “Premium” feature of the MMORPG called “Tibia”, which allowed paying members to access special maps and also allowed use of certain features of the game (such as purchasing a virtual residence).
An example of a virtual residence in Tibia, a free-to-play MMO first released in 1997.
Conclusion
If implemented correctly, the free-to-play gaming model can be utilized to become a profitable long-term investment. However, there are many other factors not stated here that have a huge impact on how successfully a game is able to attract players. Features such as technical support, scheduled in-game events, sponsorships, attractiveness of the game’s interface, quality of graphics and support for high server activity are just a few of the additional aspects of a free-to-play game that will affect its performance. In addition to this, the free-to-play gaming market is an area that is beginning to be explored by many different gaming companies, due to the success of titles such as “Second Life”, “Perfect World”, “Maplestory” and even popular social forum “Gaia Online”. There is much to be learned from the high success rate of other free-to-play games, which can potentially be used to improve and create future gaming models.
Dragon Sky, a free-to-play MMO by Aeria Games.
