Let’s listen to a monetization expert: The Top F2P Monetization Tricks

[hydrophilic attack]

During a recent ban, I have been looking into what monetization experts themselves have to say about game monetization. The writing by monetization expert Ramin Shokrizade caught my eye. The discussion will be centered on the piece The Top F2P Monetization Tricks. When it was written in 2012, these monetization tricks were virtually exclusive to F2P games, but I will try to provide specific examples about how they are today also used in full prized games. The piece is interesting, because it identifies specific tricks, and explains the rationale and motivations for using them. Since the writer is a professional monetization consultant and expert, his writing provides insights about how developers think about their audience and how it can be manipulated to spend more money. So it's straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, and not just baseless speculation by gamers (rise up). I leave it up to the readers to determine themselves whether these tricks are exploitative/deceptive/predatory

Generalities: Coercive Monetization

A coercive monetization model depends on the ability to "trick" a person into making a purchase with incomplete information, or by hiding that information such that while it is technically available, the brain of the consumer does not access that information. Hiding a purchase can be as simple as disguising the relationship between the action and the cost as I describe in my Systems of Control in F2P paper.

Research has shown that putting even one intermediate currency between the consumer and real money, such as a "game gem" (premium currency), makes the consumer much less adept at assessing the value of the transaction. Additional intermediary objects, what I call "layering", makes it even harder for the brain to accurately assess the situation, especially if there is some additional stress applied.

This additional stress is often in the form of what Roger Dickey from Zynga calls "fun pain". I describe this in my Two Contrasting Views of Monetization paper from 2011. This involves putting the consumer in a very uncomfortable or undesirable position in the game and then offering to remove this "pain" in return for spending money. This money is always layered in coercive monetization models, because if confronted with a "real" purchase the consumer would be less likely to fall for the trick.

As discussed in my Monetizing Children paper, the ability to weigh this short term "pain relief" vs. the long term opportunity costs of spending money is a brain activity shown by research to be handled in the pre-frontal cortex. This area of the brain typically completes its development at the age of 25. Thus consumers under the age of 25 will have increased vulnerability to fun pain and layering effects, with younger consumers increasingly vulnerable. While those older than 25 can fall for very well constructed coercive monetization models, especially if they are unfamiliar with them (first generation Facebook gamers), the target audience for these products is those under the age of 25

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Highlights:

Premium currencies are deliberately used to mislead the player to make them spend more

Games are deliberately designed to make the player feel bad (experience "fun pain") to entice them to spend money to ease said fun pain

These systems are especially effective on consumers under the age of 25 whose pre-frontal cortex is not fully developed.

Now onto more details for the specific tricks of coercive monetization.

Premium currencies

To maximize the efficacy of a coercive monetization model, you must use a premium currency, ideally with the ability to purchase said currency in-app. Making the consumer exit the game to make a purchase gives the target's brain more time to figure out what you are up to, lowering your chances of a sale. If you can set up your game to allow "one button conversion", such as in many iOS games, then obviously this is ideal.

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Having the user see their amount of premium currency in the interface is also much less anxiety generating, compared to seeing a real money balance. If real money was used (no successful game developer does this) then the consumer would see their money going down as they play and become apprehensive. This gives the consumer more opportunities to think and will reduce revenues.

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Premium currencies are used not only in 2012 F2P games, but also in today's $60 dollar games. Everyone does it, from EA' FIFA Ultimate Team coins, to Ubisoft's Helix Credits to Activision's CoD points, to 2K's 2K19 Virtual Currency all the major publishers use them. And as described above, mainly to keep the user unaware of how much money they are actually spending, and to prevent them from the anxiety they would feel if they actually knew the number.

Skill Games vs. Money Games

The writer makes a distinction between skill games, which are primarily dependent on player skill, and money games, where the amount of money is the primary factor that determines player success. For money games to be effective at making players spend money, they need to successfully disguise themselves as skill games, while successively ramping up the money aspect. Candy Crush Saga is cited as a successful example.

King.com's Candy Crush Saga is designed masterfully in this regard. Early game play maps can be completed by almost anyone without spending money, and they slowly increase in difficulty. This presents a challenge to the skills of the player, making them feel good when they advance due to their abilities. Once the consumer has been marked as a spender (more on this later) the game difficulty ramps up massively, shifting the game from a skill game to a money game as progression becomes more dependent on the use of premium boosts than on player skills.

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If the shift from skill game to money game is done in a subtle enough manner, the brain of the consumer has a hard time realizing that the rules of the game have changed. If done artfully, the consumer will increasingly spend under the assumption that they are still playing a skill game and "just need a bit of help". This ends up also being a form of discriminatory pricing as the costs just keep going up until the consumer realizes they are playing a money game.

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I feel like this monetization trick is not as common in full price games as some of the other tricks described. Many games allow you to pay money for (a chance at) gameplay advantages, but in most cases I would say the advantages are not great enough to turn the game from one where skill is the primary factor of success to one where money is the primary factor of success. EA's FIFA Ultimate Team is arguably a money game. Feel free, y'all, to list some more games that could be considered to be disguised money games.

Reward Removal

This is my favorite coercive monetization technique, because it is just so powerful. The technique involves giving the player some really huge reward, that makes them really happy, and then threatening to take it away if they do not spend. Research has shown that humans like getting rewards, but they hate losing what they already have much more than they value the same item as a reward. To be effective with this technique, you have to tell the player they have earned something, and then later tell them that they did not. The longer you allow the player to have the reward before you take it away, the more powerful is the effect.

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The writer uses dungeon rewards in Puzzle and Dragons as an example of this. The dungeons are designed to kill you most of the time, specifically the bosses, and unless you pay up, you'll lose all your cool loot on death.

I feel like the best potential for this trick in full price games is inventory limitations, that generously allow you to pay to expand your inventory. If you don't pay to expand your inventory, you'll have to leave loot/materials behind periodically, which would be an example of reward removal. So far, this kind of inventory limitation reward removal is most common in F2P games, but Ubisoft's Division 2 is an example of a game that will allow you to pay extra for expanded inventory DLC by buying premium editions, and most likely will offer it as DLC down the line

Progress Gates

Progress gates can be used to tell a consumer that they will need to spend some amount of money if they want to go further in the game. If done transparently, this is not coercive. For the purposes of this paper, the focus will just be on how this can be layered to trick the consumer into spending on something they may not have if they had been provided with complete information.

Now let's break progress gates into "hard" and "soft" types. A hard gate is one where you cannot advance if you do not pay up. The central buildings in Zynga builder type games are a good example. All other buildings in a town/city/base are capped by the level of the central building, forcing a hard progress gate. What makes this coercive is that the player is not told that if they pay through that gate they will just be presented with another hard gate soon that will cost even more money. Thus the consumer may assume they are getting more pain relief for their money than they are.

A soft gate is one where the player can get past the gate, eventually. Clash of Clans uses this type in making building times ever longer and allowing the user to spend to complete them. This is a method presumably borrowed from games made by Zynga, Kabam, Kixeye, and others since it is a common Facebook game convention. In order to improve the efficacy of the soft gate, these games also make it so that resource generation in-game increases faster than the player's ability to spend these resources (because building/spending takes so long). Thus these "earned" resources are lost (taken away) if real money is not spent. This is a method of combining reward removal with a soft gate to increase the pain level while at the same time layering, as the consumer may be gullible enough to assume these effects are coincidental or due to some strategic misstep they took earlier.

Another novel way to use a progress gate is to make it look transparent, but to use it as the partition between the skill game and the money game. Candy Crush Saga employs this technique artfully. In that game there is a "river" that costs a very small amount of money to cross. The skill game comes before the river. A player may spend to cross the river, believing that the previous skill game was enjoyable (it was for me) and looking to pay to extend the skill game. No such guarantee is given of course, King just presents a river and does not tell you what is on the other side. The money game is on the other side, and as the first payment is always the hardest, those that cross the river are already prequalified as spenders. Thus the difficulty ramps up to punishing levels on the far side of the river, necessitating boosts for all but the most pain tolerant players.

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I think progress gates are still very rare in full-price games. I can't think of many such games with hard progress gates (some games from last generation that hid the true ending behind DLC may count, something like Ubisoft's Prince of Persia). Some games do have soft gates in the forms of timers that players can spend to skip. MGSV comes to mind.

Soft and Hard Boosts

The purpose of a money game is to promote Boost sales. Boosts that have an instant one-time effect are "soft" Boosts. Those that stick around either forever or until they are converted to something else are "hard" Boosts. The $1 "un-defeat" button in PaD is a soft Boost, as are all of the power-ups sold in Candy Crush Saga. The obvious advantage of soft boosts is that you can keep selling them as long as the player stays in the money game.

"Hard" Boosts include things like the random rare creatures that are sold in PaD for $5 each. Having these in your stable effectively lowers the difficulty of the game enough to allow you to get a little bit further with each purchase. A technique that is very popular in Asian games with hard Boosts (PaD included) is to allow hard Boosts to be "merged" to allow for even bigger hard Boosts. This makes the math involved in figuring out exactly how expensive a very high quality hard Boost will be, daunting. It may even be completely invisible to the consumer due to the various drop %s being hidden. Thus the best hard Boosts in these games typically cost thousands of dollars, a fact that is hidden to the user until they are already invested for at least a few hundred dollars. This puts the consumer in the difficult position of giving up and losing the equity already purchased, or going "all the way" and spending some unknown large amount to get the top Boost. Some of these techniques, sometimes called "kompu gacha", are already facing regulation in Asia due to their excessive layering and lack of transparency. [In early 2017 China made it illegal to charge for any gacha drop unless the odds of winning each and all items in the gacha are clearly posted]

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Soft and hard boosts are quite common even in full priced games. Examples of games with soft boosts are any games that offer XP boosts, either by selling them directly to the player or through loot boxes purchased with real money (Activision's Destiny 2 and EA's Battlefield games come to mind). Resource packs a la Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games is another example. The beauty of soft boosts is that theoretically you can just keep buying them forever, meaning that the upper limit of how much you can spend on a game is infinite.


Examples of full price games with hard boosts are games that offer improved equipment for real money directly or in loot boxes. Special guns in Sony's The Last of Us multiplayer mode and special armors with unique abilities in Activision's Destiny 2 loot boxes come to mind. Another example would be permanent XP boosts, as in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Ante games

As described in detail in my How "Pay to Win" Works paper, the key to these games is to start off with the appearance of a skill game and then shift to a multiplayer money game that I call an "Ante" game. The game could proceed as a skill game but never does since once one player spends enough money it becomes a money game. At some point players keep raising their antes, hoping that the other players will fold. The "winner" (and loser) is the player that puts in the largest ante. It is not unusual for winning antes to be over $5000

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The target audience here tends to be non-hardcore competitive gamers who need the self esteem boost that comes with winning a skill game, and who for whatever reason never recognize the game as a money game

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Games that are just a battle of who will spend the most seem quite rare among full-priced games. Arguably EA's FIFA Ultimate Team belongs here, but I can't think of any others


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So, I hope this article and this thread will help us all identify the specific mechanisms used by game designers to make you spend more on games. Feel free to discuss what specific games (full price or mid-price or F2P) contain the specific tricks outlined here. Feel free to discuss the implications of these tricks being used for the reasons they are used (according to a monetization expert himself). Is it deceptive and/or exploitative and/or predatory? Or nah? An interesting point is the admission (from someone in the business himself) that these games are specifically suitable at targeting people yet too young to have fully developed brains. Another thing that strikes me is how many of these monetization tricks that in 2012 were considered strictly for F2P games have been lifted whole-sale to AAA titles. I don't think many of us expected it back then, but maybe we should have?

 

[Rhiwion]

Wonder what the people who vehemently argue that these monetization tactics aren't inherently exploitative and manipulative will bring up to deny this

 

[Fat4all]

Game Devs Hate Him!

 

[gschmidl]

"As discussed in my Monetizing Children paper"

Guillotine.

 

[Sandersson]

This quite sad to read TBH..

 

[Saint-14]

Some of those quotes are so bad.

 

[Cheeky Devlin]

Everything about this is slimy, manipulative and makes me want to vomit. I genuinely don't understand how people can design these systems and sleep at night. It's disgusting.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

There's literally not a single statement here that wasn't previously known and probably discussed in the past even here.
Still, a bit daunting to see some of these talking points expressed so openly, isn't it?

 

[Deleted member 8593]

I mean, many of these is exactly why a lot of us on this very message board have been complaining about some implementations of MTX, lootboxes specifically. The premium currency shit is just the most blatantly obvious one.

But leave it to someone to come in this thread and go

DoNt YoU kNoW HoW tO cOnVeRt PrIcEs

 

[unfashionable]

great thread, incredible the degree of deviousness with the layering. this is why I have always noped out of any F2P game, I just assume its designed against the principles of "as much fun as possible"

 

[Deleted member 45414]

Amazing post OP, looking forward to seeing the responses!

 

[ArmadilloGame]

Well we know what the next Jimquisition will be all about now.

 

[Ge0force]

Great post OP. Reading all of this makes me sad, but it's about time that consumers become aware of this.

 

[Deleted member 35631]

How can many, if not all of these tactics be legal? The worst part is that companies will find newer ways to scam people (like lootboxes) and the gaming industry will destroy itself. There is no way these corrupt business tactics will last forever.

 

[Paz]

This shouldn't be news to anyone in games.

But plenty will defend this as devs having to eat, to which I say fuck that, I'm not gonna respect the gambling industry just because people 'have to eat' there too.

Makes me sad how normalized all this stuff has become in our industry...

 

[unfashionable]

Just like to add, many of these techniques are used in casino slot machines also. For example, having "spins" as a currency (with tricks like giving you "you won some free spins", feeling like you "won" something that cant be converted to money). Also clever ante style tricks.

 

[K Samedi]

Would you even call these games? They're basically money printing machines.

 

[Deleted member 135]

As I've been saying constantly if devs and pubs want to sell microtransactions they should sell them on the platform stores for a set amount of real money, not the virtual currency bullshit. They don't now for the reasons listed in the OP, it's more profitable to manipulate players with virtual currencies.

Funnily enough the mtx defenders never respond to that suggestion.

Wonder what the people who vehemently argue that these monetization tactics aren't inherently exploitative and manipulative will bring up to deny this

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The usual.

"Personal responsibility."
"Parents are bad."
"It doesn't affect me so it's not real."
"Its necessary to make games."
"I enjoy it."
"Just don't buy them."
"They don't really effect how a game is designed."
"I don't care about other people, I just want more over budget and bloated games."

Complete denial even in the face of ample evidence and plain logic says to me that these people either end up profiting from it somehow (anywhere from owning stock, to being a mtx designer, to even thinking that the game they love wouldn't exist without mtx) or are addicted and are trying to rationalize their addiciton.

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And I'll keep posting this part until this shit is eradicated from this forum.


The "GAMERSRISEUP" meme is just a way to shitpost and derail threads to delegitimize consumer advocacy and downplay corporate malfeasance. So don't post it.

 

[OG_Thrills]

Waiting for the "Think about the devs that gotta eat" crowd to show up.

 

[Lies]

These initial responses and posts are so total trash why would anyone bother to engage..?

 

[hydrophilic attack]

The "GAMERSRISEUP" meme is just a way to shitpost and derail threads to delegitimize consumer advocacy and downplay corporate malfeasance. So don't post it.

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i used it here double-ironically

(as in, it's an ironic meme to make fun of consumer advocacy, so i ironically used the meme to make fun of how it is ironically used to dismiss consumer advocacy. (does this make sense?))

 

[Much]

We've discussed this in length before, but props to the OP for gathering all of this information. I can't fathom why you, as a consumer, wouldn't be advocating for better monetisation practices in video games. If you're going to include MTX, that's fine now I guess, but none of this virtual currency stuff nor the random lottery aspect of winning items.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

All this shit is disgusting.

As discussed in my Monetizing Children paper

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[Deleted member 888]

Most of this is already known (not a dig at you OP), and many of us have been alluding to games being designed in these ways for years. So it's just adding to the frustration when met with the wall of defence that looks to downplay all of this and claim "MTs and storefronts are just tacked on at the end with no thought. They're just an option, they never look to impact on gameplay or attack the emotions/patience of the player.".

That's horseshit and always has been. A lot of thought goes into monetization, so much so jobs have been created for analysts and experts to carefully craft systems that look to monetize emotions, such as frustration and play into widely used marketing tricks such as using space bucks and uneven amounts of currency. It's a meticulously crafted/exploited industry and anyone sitting behind a screen telling you this was just done at the end of development "as an option", is smoking some good weed.

I'll dump this report in this topic as well as it's more real-world evidence of these systems working as intended

Video game loot boxes are linked to problem gambling: Results of a large-scale survey

Loot boxes are items in video games that can be paid for with real-world money and contain randomised contents. In recent years, loot boxes have become increasingly common. There is concern in the research community that similarities between loot boxes and gambling may lead to increases in problem gambling amongst gamers. A large-scale survey of gamers (n = 7,422) found evidence for a link (η2 = 0.054) between the amount that gamers spent on loot boxes and the severity of their problem gambling. This link was stronger than a link between problem gambling and buying other in-game items with real-world money (η2 = 0.004), suggesting that the gambling-like features of loot boxes are specifically responsible for the observed relationship between problem gambling and spending on loot boxes. It is unclear from this study whether buying loot boxes acts as a gateway to problem gambling, or whether spending large amounts of money on loot boxes appeals more to problem gamblers. However, in either case these results suggest that there may be good reason to regulate loot boxes in games.

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The results of this study suggest that there is an important relationship between problem gambling and the use of loot boxes. The more severe that participants' problem gambling was, the more money they spent on loot boxes. Non problem gamblers spent the least amount of money on loot boxes (mean = 2.41, Category 2 = $1 - $5, Category 3 = $5-$10); low-risk gamblers spent more (mean = 3.67, Category 3 = $5 - $10, Category 4 = $10-$15); moderate-risk gamblers spent yet more (mean = 4.96, Category 4 = $10 - $15, Category 5 = $15-$20); and problem gamblers spent the most of all on loot boxes (mean = 6.47, Category 6 = $20 - $30, Category 7 = $30-$40).

28]. Effects of this magnitude commonly bear practical, as well as statistical significance [29]. Indeed, the relationship observed here is stronger than relationship between problem gambling and several common risk factors in the gambling literature. For instance, it is stronger than the relationship between problem gambling and depression (Rho = 0.10, equivalent d = 0.063) and major drug problems (r = 0.12, equivalent d = 0.238) [30]. It is comparable in strength to the relationship between problem gambling and current alcohol dependence (r = 0.25, equivalent to d = 0.516) [31]. If the relationship between loot box spending and problem gambling was of a significantly smaller magnitude than important risk factors in the literature, it would be possible to dismiss the effects of any link between loot box spending and problem gambling as trivial and of little practical importance. However, this is clearly not the case.

Furthermore, the pairwise comparisons that were conducted to clarify the effects of the initial analysis paint an even starker picture of the relationship between problem gambling and loot box use. They show that every increase in classification of problem gambling severity amongst gamers comes with an associated increase in loot box spending.

The strength of the relationship observed here was specific to loot boxes. It did not apply to other kinds of spending in video games. Whilst a significant relationship was observed between problem gambling and other microtransaction spend in games, it was much weaker (η2 = 0.004) than the relationship between problem gambling and loot boxes. In other words, increases in problem gambling corresponded to increases in the amount spent on other microtransactions in games. However, these increases were much smaller than the increases in spending that were associated with loot box use: For example, the difference in spending on microtransactions between non problem gamblers and problem gamblers was of d = 0.046 –more than 5 times smaller than the effect of problem gambling on spending on loot boxes between these groups.

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This research provides empirical evidence of a relationship between loot box use and problem gambling. The relationship seen here was neither small, nor trivial. It was stronger than previously observed relationships between problem gambling and factors like alcohol abuse, drug use, and depression. Indeed, sub-group analyses revealed that an individual's classification as either a non problem gambler or a problem gambler accounted for 37.7% of the variance in how much they spent on loot boxes.

These results may confirm the existence of the causal relationship between buying loot boxes and problem gambling that was theoretically proposed in [20]. Due to the formal features that loot boxes share with other forms of gambling, they may well be acting as a 'gateway' to problem gambling amongst gamers. Hence, the more gamers spend on loot boxes, the more severe their problem gambling becomes.

However, it is important to note that this is not the only causal relationship which fits the data. It may be the case that individuals who are already problem gamblers instead tend to spend more on loot boxes. There are good reasons why this might be the case. Loot boxes share key similarities with other kinds of gambling. Since problem gambling is characterised by uncontrollable and disordered spending on gambling activities, this lack of control and excess in spending may apply to loot boxes too. Hence, the more severe a gamer's problem gambling, the more they spend on loot boxes. If this is the case, then loot boxes in digital games would be providing less of a 'breeding ground' for problem gambling. They would instead be providing another outlet for individuals who are already problem gamblers to engage in harmful and excessive gambling-related behaviour.

Due to the correlational nature of this research, it is impossible to tease apart whether we are seeing a situation in which spending on loot boxes leads to problem gambling, or whether we are seeing a situation in which problem gambling leads to spending on loot boxes. It may, indeed be the case that both directions of causality are true: Problem gamblers spend more on loot boxes, whilst buying loot boxes simultaneously leads to increases in problem gambling amongst gamers.

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Whether loot boxes fulfil the technical requirements to be classified as gambling is a legal matter that will vary from territory to territory and from country to country. However, the evidence presented here clearly shows that there is a very real relationship between loot box spending and problem gambling. It is our opinion that this relationship remains serious and potentially dangerous regardless of whether loot boxes are technically considered a form of gambling or not.

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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206767#sec005



PC Gamer did the tldr, ELI5 version of the above

Loot boxes are everywhere. They're in shooters, RPGs, card games, action games and MOBAs. They also take the form of packs, chests and crates. They're filled with voice lines, weapon skins, new pants or materials to get you more loot boxes. They're in free games and paid ones, singleplayer and multiplayer. They can be free to open and paid for with real money. You may feel an almost violent antipathy to the very idea of them, but you've probably also opened a fair few.

The appeal isn't hard to grasp. Opening a loot box is a rush: a moment of anticipation followed by release. That colourful animated flurry is often accompanied by disappointment, but is sometimes with the joy of getting exactly the item that you wanted. And then you feel the gambler's pull to open another, pushing you back into the game to grind or digging into your wallet to earn or buy your next one.

"It's that moment of excitement that anything's possible," Ben Thompson, art director on Hearthstone, tells me. "In that moment I could be getting the cards I've been looking for for ten or 20 packs. That anticipation has always been a key point in games in general; successful games build on anticipation and release, whether a set of effects or in gameplay."

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https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/behind-the-addictive-psychology-and-seductive-art-of-loot-boxes/

 

[IvorB]

Wow letters straight from the Devil's workshop. How delightfully fiendish. The author writes with true relish for his subject and I can almost picture him rubbing his hands in glee.

Very interesting read.

 

[Deleted member 135]

i used it here double-ironically

(as in, it's an ironic meme to make fun of consumer advocacy, so i ironically used the meme to make fun of how it is ironically used to dismiss consumer advocacy. (does this make sense?))

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Yeah, I'm just trying to preempt some people from using it when they run out of arguments in support of MTX.

 

[ActWan]

Glad this thread was made, it's important mtx defenders read this.

 

[Herb Alpert]

Designing monetization schemes in f2p games is such an evil and cynical job lol

 

[janusff]

Absolutely god awful this is becoming a norm in this industry.

 

[Mobyduck]

Almost nothing of this seems related to loot boxes, and yet people will conflate the both. Those specific predatory tactics have been discussed here already, and most people are aware they are predominant in the mobile market and the reason most games are F2P and yet make millions.

 

[Deleted member 135]

Designing monetization schemes in f2p games is such an evil and cynical job lol

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It's not even just limited to F2P. These exact unethical tactics are used in Call of Duty, Ubisoft games (even singleplayer), EA games, and Take Two games. Its disgusting and even more disgusting when other consumers try to downplay it.

 

[Raw64life]

A nice confirmation of what I already knew. The usual suspects that were all conspicuously absent from the IGDA thread probably wont post in this thread either. I wonder why...

 

[RexNovis]

Clicked on the link to the "Monetizing Children" paper in the op ... you know it's really something else to see it just laid out like this. These are exactly the sorts of things we need to put in front of legislators to educate them on these systems. Show them the exploitative thinking behind them. Then let's see how publishers try to explain it all away.

 

[Deleted member 888]

Almost nothing of this seems related to loot boxes, and yet people will conflate the both. Those specific predatory tactics have been discussed here already, and most people are aware they are predominant in the mobile market and the reason most games are F2P and yet make millions.

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And many people on enthusiast video game forums and spaces have been pointing out for ages your EAs, Blizzards, Activisions and more want to take from the mobile market, which is predominantly F2P, and dump everything into $60+ titles.

If something is F2P, or free to install at the point of entry, even many of the most negative around MTs will accept something has to have a way to make money. Even if its simply ads. Not much in life can truly be offered for free no strings attached.

But it's all linked. It's all part of the normalization process those employed to design these systems want to achieve.

The push a little method works great to normalize, only if you push too much too quick do you sometimes get industry wide condemnation (Diablo RMAH/Star Wars BF2 pay-to-win loot boxes).

Given the space of time between the Diablo RMAH in Diablo 3 and now, you'll probably find thanks to Valve and others having marketplaces where skins sell for thousands, normalization, we could probably get the RMAH back in Diablo 4 and have enough Diablo fans screaming and shouting at anyone saying it's negative.

That's what those creating these systems bank on, bringing up generations of gamers who normalize everything and think it's all a necessity.

 

[BadWolf]

It really is disgusting and I hope these fuckers get screwed over in some way in the future.

And of course, fuck anyone who defends this garbage.

 

[Herb Alpert]

It's not even just limited to F2P. These exact unethical tactics are used in Call of Duty, Ubisoft games (even singleplayer), EA games, and Take Two games. Its disgusting and even more disgusting when other consumers try to downplay it.

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Yeah, these practices were born in f2p and, while incredibly cynical, can be understood as a way to replace the traditional entry price.
Putting these in a 60$ game is a despicable practice. Now the goal of pubs is simple : find where the thin red line between rejection and acceptance is, and position their scheme as close as this line as they can...

 

[saenima]

Nothing new but i thank you OP for laying it out in an easily quotable thread for future reference. Meanwhile, paging professional lootbox apologists.

 

[Silky]

Cool write up

 

[Vincent Grayson]

So obviously a lot of the stuff in OP is exploitative and horrifying. Do we think there's a way to add monetization to games that isn't exploitative?

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with the basic concept of microtransactions, so long as they are straightforward and not obfuscated and random.

Shit like "Buy this skin for $.99" in a game reads totally fine to me. Buying it for 80 Macguffin Points...no, not so much. Maybe winning it in a crate I can buy for $.99...no. Maybe getting it in a crate I buy for 80 Macguffin points is a fuck no, and that seems to be the most common method people are using these days. I fucking hate it.

 

[Adamska]

I'm yet to play a $60 game that made me spend any money outside of content DLCs. Also, I have no problem with F2P games that try and "trick" people into spending money. I mean, not one of these tactics can resist a hard "no", regardless of how seemingly insidious they might be described as.

 

[Deleted member 135]

So obviously a lot of the stuff in OP is exploitative and horrifying. Do we think there's a way to add monetization to games that isn't exploitative?

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with the basic concept of microtransactions, so long as they are straightforward and not obfuscated and random.

Shit like "Buy this skin for $.99" in a game reads totally fine to me. Buying it for 80 Macguffin Points...no, not so much. Maybe winning it in a crate I can buy for $.99...no. Maybe getting it in a crate I buy for 80 Macguffin points is a fuck no, and that seems to be the most common method people are using these days. I fucking hate it.

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Yes, exactly what you've said. Basic "mini DLC" sold on the platform stores for a set amount of REAL money.

 

[Deleted member 888]

So obviously a lot of the stuff in OP is exploitative and horrifying. Do we think there's a way to add monetization to games that isn't exploitative?

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with the basic concept of microtransactions, so long as they are straightforward and not obfuscated and random.

Shit like "Buy this skin for $.99" in a game reads totally fine to me. Buying it for 80 Macguffin Points...no, not so much. Maybe winning it in a crate I can buy for $.99...no. Maybe getting it in a crate I buy for 80 Macguffin points is a fuck no, and that seems to be the most common method people are using these days. I fucking hate it.

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Couple of small changes can make a huge QOL difference

a) Stop using space bucks. Make everything a monetary value of the region the game is used in. Boohoo that might take a bit longer and need to be managed. It makes things clear for the spender and shows you value their time and money.
b) Even if you're going to refuse to do a) for "logistic reasons", and keep peddling space bucks, make it 1:1 with real money. Don't leave people with 200 coins left over, or price things just above the Playstation Store entry points to force your audience to buy the next space bucks pack up. You're artificially trying to influence and abuse your position of power as the "house".
c) All loot boxes have displayed drop rates to the exact %. No systems to change that rate, or entice (pity timers are an abusive system), a flat rate for everyone. If your drop rate is going to change, it's for everyone/explained in patch notes.
d) Progress gates are just bullshit in $60+ games. If you're artificially trying to monetize frustration, then it's just bad game design, full stop. F2P games can get away with a bit of this if you aren't copying Dungeon Keeper, but in paid games, cmon, stop taking the piss.
e) Hopefully examine your pricing, full stop. Charging people $15 for a skin recolour in a game that is not F2P is just cheap and low effort. Most contentious point in this list, but sorry, I'm not just going to blindly defend every skin that costs something stupid because "this is instead of loot boxes!".

 

[Deleted member 2172]

As I've been saying constantly if devs and pubs want to sell microtransactions they should sell them on the platform stores for a set amount of real money, not the virtual currency bullshit. They don't now for the reasons listed in the OP, it's more profitable to manipulate players with virtual currencies.

Funnily enough the mtx defenders never respond to that suggestion.

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I have probably been branded a mtx defender by now but I do agree payments via virtual currency need to go.

 

[Bob Beat]

I'm playing fallout shelter, free to play. I haven't bought anything but I may be immune. I used to play a few zynga games and would just stop when I reached the time limit.

However, the popularity of a game brings in more marks so i was still guilty, indirectly. Luckily fallout shelter gives you a lot of rewards. Once you find cappy and bottle, they'll show up frequently and give you nuka colas to time skip.

But it's shitty practices. Even I hear ass creed has level gates. That makes me want to wait to play origins until it's under $25.

There are too many good games to waste time and money on these games. The switch had 1000 games in 1.5 years. With multiple consoles, it's now easier than ever to avoid these games.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

These initial responses and posts are so total trash why would anyone bother to engage..?

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They have nothing on your quality post, that's for sure.

 

[Deleted member 14080]

Vultures and hyenas the lot of them. Greed will destroy this industry.

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

This is how little these people think of you. And it isn't exclusively linked to F2P mechanics and lootboxes...

Here are two classic articles that immediately spring to mind, that really highlight the behavioral modification design processes that go into the design of most modern games...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134516/psychology_is_fun.php

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131494/behavioral_game_design.php?page=1

It is far easier to design a game around compulsion loops and extrinsic rewards than real, intrinsic reward from quality game design. Why do you think modern games are designed the way they are? Why do you think that RPG mechanics are grafted onto almost every single modern game? It extends well beyond just basic monitization practices.

 

[fourfourfun]

The Skill Game vs. Money Game is fascinating.

I know that a lot of "builder" games are plainly designed around pain and money. You start off, build times are acceptable, collecting resources isn't arduous, gratification comes easy. It is when you get to the point that you're spending 24h waiting for something to happen, but also obliged to repeatedly check in to collect resource, that it becomes apparently that you're not playing a game where skill is the key.

However, the idea that you transfer from a skill player to a money player... now that is nasty. We've already seen that there are invisible mechanisms in games that mean they are not the level playing field you envision they are. Multiplayer games where new players are allowed leniency and "a first kill" to make them feel invested. I suppose it is no surprise to hear that there are mechanics behind the scenes that identify whether or not you are going to be a money spender, and then tailor the game to literally attack you.

 

[RexNovis]

I'm yet to play a $60 game that made me spend any money outside of content DLCs. Also, I have no problem with F2P games that try and "trick" people into spending money. I mean, not one of these tactics can resist a hard "no", regardless of how seemingly insidious they might be described as.

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The issue is that these systems exploit people psychologically in such a way as to diminish their capacity to say no or resist the temptation. Some are far more susceptible than others are and those are the people referred to as "whales" that end up spending outrageous amounts of money even if they can't afford it.

 

[saenima]

I'm yet to play a $60 game that made me spend any money outside of content DLCs. Also, I have no problem with F2P games that try and "trick" people into spending money. I mean, not one of these tactics can resist a hard "no", regardless of how seemingly insidious they might be described as.

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I never shot heroine either.

Doesn't mean heroine is not a problem.