{"id":430,"date":"2012-11-15T12:59:20","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T12:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/?p=430"},"modified":"2012-11-15T16:52:18","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T16:52:18","slug":"why-im-not-a-fan-of-f2p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/2012\/11\/15\/why-im-not-a-fan-of-f2p\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m not a fan of F2P"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the main reasons I was made redundant from my position at the studio I worked at prior to going indie was that I was (ridiculous as this sounds) too interested in the quality of our games. It caused arguments, stress, it made me a problem. I got so angry – I just wanted to make games which were good, that we could be proud of. You’d think this would be in the best interests of everyone<\/em>, the studio included, since if you make consistently bad or, at best, mediocre games you’re on a downwards spiral towards the company exploding. Which is what happened.<\/p>\n

This is the problem with financially driven entertainment. It’s easy to lose sight of the point – that games, primarily, are supposed to be fun <\/em>– and instead focus on hitting those milestones so that you get your completion bonus. Balls to whether the game is good, have you technically fulfilled all the requirements of this month’s milestone? Yes? Move on.<\/p>\n

Of course, all those development costs need paying so while it’s easy as an employee to stamp your feet and scream that the game is utterly awful, unless those milestone deliveries are met, that bonus which the studio relies on will disappear and suddenly people are losing jobs. It’s a\u00a0vicious\u00a0circle and a spiralling problem as development costs rise and team sizes bloat.<\/p>\n

Everybody knows this. That, generally, games are just a business and there to make the developers and publishers money and, primarily, not there for the well-being of the gamers. But for the most-part it’s easy to separate yourself from this. You run home, clutching your copy of whatever it is you’ve been looking forward to, and you immerse yourself in it. All cynicism regarding why this game exists in the first place or how you have been moulded into thinking you need it, evaporates. From this point on it’s all about the game, and you.<\/p>\n

Not so with Free-to-Play which reminds you at every opportunity, with a sledgehammer, that this is all about money<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Scenario A – game costs $10<\/strong><\/p>\n

You buy the game, it’s fun. You do well, but you get to level 10 and you get stuck. God this is hard. You consult guides, you ask friends, you try anything to get an advantage. You succeed, you feel great! Man, I’m good!<\/p>\n

Scenario B – game is free.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You grab the game. Hey this free game is fun. You do well, but get to level 10 and you get stuck. Why is this so hard? What’s this, there’s an item here for $10 which will make this considerably easier. I can buy that, but where’s the satisfaction? I’ve bought my way to victory.<\/p>\n

In both scenarios, you spend the same amount of money. But the trouble with F2P is that it makes you feel like the entire structure of the game, all design decisions, all difficulty spikes, everything<\/em> is there to force you to buy that item. Is that really <\/em>the best way to design an enjoyable experience? Frustrate the player to the point they give you cash (edit: or, as is often the case, bore<\/em> them into giving you cash. Save yourself this arbitrary hassle! Only $5.99!)?<\/p>\n

Or is it better to get that financial exchange out of the way, right at the start? It’s paid for, forget about it. Now the game can focus on entertaining <\/em>you with no\u00a0ulterior\u00a0motives in play. If the game is hard, it’s there to challenge <\/em>you to make you feel good about beating it, not sell you something.<\/p>\n

Which model is ultimately better for developers and publishers is another issue entirely. But a gameplay experience should ALWAYS and EXCLUSIVELY be about the gamer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Other\u00a0opinions\u00a0are available)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the main reasons I was made redundant from my position at the studio I worked at prior to going indie was that I was (ridiculous as this sounds) too interested in the quality of our games. It caused arguments, stress, it made me a problem. I got so angry – I just wanted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p326tq-6W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theindiestone.com\/binky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}