Explain the design features and precautions of freemium games

Author: Pascal Luban

Now we are talking about free-to-play (F2P) is not a new type of game, but a revolution that reshapes the game industry. It profoundly affects the marketing, distribution, Hardware manufacturers, of course, designers and developers and other links. F2P is a boon to the gaming industry that expands the size of gamers and rejuvenates the once-sluggish game industry, giving developers the chance to create a whole new gaming experience for their players.

F2P games do not require all content is released when it is in place, most of the content can be gradually increased after the release. Nexon, a South Korean online-gaming company, once said its F2P games are available online with 50% of the finished content, and social games developer Playfish's games even require only 20% of the content to be released!

F2P game early only need low-cost inputs also include the development of technology, tools, simple and parity. In addition, as the game is free and open service, players generally will not be demanding game quality.

The majority of users of such games are casual players who demand less of the game than experienced players. However, the development costs for F2P games are on the rise, especially for games that target hardcore gamers. For example, League of Legends offers comparable quality products to retail video games.

One of the success stories of F2P games is the use of a powerful data analysis system to gather relevant data about player preferences and operating habits.

Developers will be based on these data and the player's feedback to fix the loopholes in the game, continue to enhance the attractiveness of the game. If the concept of the game is excellent, the risk of failure will be reduced, but this is exactly a big problem plaguing the traditional game development.

Overview of the overall situation of F2P, we are now going to explore the core design concept of this game. Some people may think that "FarmVille" social games are designed with no similarities to hardcore games such as "Combat Arms" or "League of Legends," but no matter what kind of theme, F2P games must follow a certain basic Design principles, this is the main discussion of this article.

The difference between F2P and the key design of traditional games

Let us first look at the differences between F2P games and traditional game modes of operation.

Traditional game designers need only consider how to please the player, but F2P game has to take into account the player's entertainment and project profitability. Klei Entertainment founder Jamie Cheng's view is: "Do not let users pay for entertainment, but to use entertainment to let them take the initiative to pay."

So F2P game designers to pursue the guidelines and what?

Provide immediate satisfaction. While F2P games remove the price threshold for UX games, it also poses a new challenge of persuading players to continually experience the current game and prevent players from turning to other games for lack of thrill.

In the field of paid games, because players have already invested in a game, even if they have a poor first impression on the game. It's not easy to kill a game in minutes, they will decide after a few hours to decide whether to give up the game.

But with a free game, there is no such "stakeholder" relationship between the player and the game. They can play games without spending a game, and if the game does not bring an instant, good experience, they will decisively depart and choose between. So F2P game's first design challenge is to provide instant gratification that allows the player to "hook."

Design a lasting gaming experience. In F2P games, the longer a user experiencing a game, the more likely it is to spend money on items. But designing a game that will keep players active for months will not be easy. In addition to MMO and multiplayer games, the design trend in recent years has been to provide players with a compact and short gaming experience. So we have to develop games that stand the test of time, and our goal is to allow players to stay in the game world often, returning to the game often transiently for months.

Design games for new users. While some F2P games, such as MMOs and FPS, target specific groups, many F2P games serve a broader audience, mostly women and younger-age groups that are not good at playing traditional video games and their Game motivation and expectations and hardcore players completely different. Older players, such as those over the age of 30, most of them are married and have a busy life. For them, the game time is very limited. Female users, for their part, like to view the game as a way to enhance their relationships rather than as a tool to satisfy their competitive desires. F2P designers need to identify their target users, understand their game habits and expectations before starting.

The core F2F game design guidelines

Ease of use

New players are extremely valuable for the development of the game, and developers often have the idea of ​​retaining first-time players.

The ease of running the game. If the more steps a player needs to log in to the game, the more likely he is to lose patience and quit the game. That's one of the reasons why Facebook is so rampant, with games on the platform that do not require users to sign up, download or install any apps, and players can play the game instantly with a click of a link.

I will use Unity 3D as an example to illustrate the impact of extra actions on the part of the player.

Unity has developed a very powerful plug-in for Facebook, which has a very easy installation step, a click-to-hit installation, and the ability to install the plug-in without the ad content. According to David Helgason, chief executive of Unity, which said in 2008, 40% of players did not complete the installation process while running the game.

Of course, this ratio also depends on the type of game. Excellent game completion rate will be even higher. The problem is that many PC users are cautious about installing the program, which is bound to delight them by allowing them to enter personal information before they experience the game, or to download and install applications.

But there are also some special cases - such an excellent F2P game like Adventure Island or Combat Arms that requires players to enter complete personal information and download a large client. But be aware that both have been released at a time when there are few competitors in the market.

There are two solutions to this problem:

* Publish games on existing platforms, such as Facebook or the Bigpoint portal, and develop games using Flash or HTML5 technologies;

* Develop games that run on web browsers. Battlefield: Heroes uses this method.

Guide the user to operate the game. If the player is at a loss what to do in a game they are unfamiliar to, then they will quit the game soon. Many F2P games initially lead players to explore basic modes of operation and limit their access to more advanced features. This will avoid the player deep into a lot of their own do not understand the function at a loss, blind operation of the game situation. However, it should be noted that providing too many choices at once can also make many casual and non-gamers crazy.

Limiting the options at an early stage does not detract from the game's appeal. Of course, the game can be integrated into more and more complex options, but only gradually expand the content. The goal of the game should be to allow the player to go through a benign spiral learning process: 1) I know what I am going to do; 2) I am easy to perform; 3) I have successfully completed the action; 4) I receive rewards; 5) I found short-term goals and knew how to do that. In short, do not allow players to fail from the very beginning, which is an important prerequisite for them to continually explore the game.

There are two other design features that complement this guidance strategy:

* Set the progress bar: the player according to the novice tutorial guide the order of discovery of new features, the progress bar will gradually fill complete. This simple progress bar allows players to know their game progress, stimulate their curiosity and inspire them to explore all the game features.

* Tell the game goal: The goal of a novice tutorial is to get the player informed of the game, so it must always remind the game's goal. Zynga targets the game to the top of the main screen to make it easier for players to see.

Easy to learn user interface

Many F2P games rely on mechanisms from management or strategy games. Neither of these is a simple game type and contains a lot of instructions. The user interface should not be offensive to players, especially in casual games. Here are some key design tips for this session:

* The main control methods should be focused and clear. Allow the player to see the interface at a glance what options. However, the main interface can not be messy distribution too many icons, only in the main interface click on a menu option, and then there is a submenu. This player will not lose the sense of direction in the game interface.

* The navigation in the menu can not exceed three levels. In the "CityVille" game, the menu with the most options is the structure layer. The player only needs three steps to complete the operation: 1) Select the structure layer menu in the main interface; 2) Select the building type; 3) Select a building .

* Each instruction can be explained by labels and other means.

Short experience, long-term return visit

Retention Rate This is the uniqueness of F2P games designed to give players regular access to the game for months to years, but only for a short period of time. The reason it can do this is as follows:

* Create frustration for players and motivate them to buy props that can continue to experience the game;

* Adverts players to log in to the game daily. Advertising is a major source of revenue for F2P games, and advertisers are hoping to gain a high level of exposure through games.

* Overcome boring feeling. F2P games usually have repetitive operations.

What is the core design mechanism to achieve the above goals?

* Open-loop mechanism. Tadhg Kelly, a well-known social gaming consultant, explains the term that many social games are designed based on our desire to do something (closed-loop) that allows players to do a lot of trivial tasks such as growing and harvesting carrots, Build buildings, gather enough resources to complete the upgrade, and "hire" a sufficient number of friends for the building.

It is never possible for a player to have enough resources to complete a mission (energy points, gold, timber, or oil, for example), and while they may have access to resources for free, they need time to complete the task so when they leave the game Remember that you still have some unfinished tasks (open loop).

The player's most pressing hope is to turn off the open loop in the game. Of course, they turn off one open loop, and another opens up again. In short game tasks never stop. Well-designed F2P games have endless missions, so players have to log into the game often to do something, but only for a few minutes at a time.

There are a variety of open-loop mechanisms for games like "Mobster" or "Mafia Wars." Here we take "Mobster" as an example, the player's role in the game is to develop their own gang career. From the player's point of view, the game goal is to develop their own role, solve the new equipment, enhance the role ranking. The starting point is very simple, that is to complete the task, or attack other players to win the money to buy equipment.

However, these equipment will generate maintenance costs. Players therefore have to invest in real estate that generates flat rental income, and in order to win enough money to buy real estate, players have to take on more difficult mission challenges that in turn require him to have more expensive equipment. Players will find more new features, such as a wider range of tasks, mini-games, more equipment and the establishment of Fahasart friends mafia.

But players will soon find the developers want to make them return to the game's motivation and layout - equipment always generate maintenance costs. As a result, players have a lot of money to keep working on their equipment, and the revenue generated by his property is enough to cover the cost, but real estate revenue is always entertaining and attacking other players. Of course, those who did not pay maintenance costs at this time would not be useful, can not help players to defend against foreign enemies.

How to solve this problem? - Get more equipment to withstand attacks from others, and these devices will generate more maintenance costs, forcing players to ensure the safety of their source of income, and the player's property will provoke more thieves! To this end, players have to get their own equipment and level, and constantly expanding the role of the strength, but also always be wary of their assets are thieves.

* Limit the player to grasp the resources. In order to carry out the main operation of the game, players must invest a certain amount of game resources: health, energy, food and more. They can use these resources to make profitable operations such as harvesting crops. The game will always allow players to quickly consume these resources, although they will naturally recover, but the speed is very slow. At this moment irritable players will find that they have to wait for some time before they can continue to perform the previous operation. This mechanism is very common in F2P games, except for MMOs and action games.

* Reward players returning regularly. Pet Society sets up a daily sweepstakes system, while CityVille offers a value-added gift to players who visit the game every 24 hours.

Mandatory tasks. Some F2P games will force players to return to them for trivial tasks. Players of "Mafia Wars" click on their properties every day to reap rent from them; "The crops in Smurfs' Village wither if not harvested in time." This mechanism may make the player extremely dissatisfied, after all, not many people like to be bound, but it can promote the sale of certain virtual goods (these virtual goods can automatically help the player to handle some chores at a specific time), the key lies in the game Tasks need to have a desirable player's goal.

* New features and special events. F2P games are not in a state of stagnation and often introduce new features to keep gamers interested in the game, including new gear, new tasks, and specials.

* Encourage interaction with your friends. The success of F2P games is largely due to its powerful virus propagation characteristics. Such games need to invite players to invite friends to join, so that friends also pay attention to the game progress. This "viral spread" has the dual power of not only allowing players to introduce newcomers, but also alerting and empowering players to keep playing games with these new users. Therefore, in many F2P games, the player always receives the friend's help information and helps them. So players will play games for their good friends, no longer just for their own progress to return to the game.

In the design into the player invitation mechanism

This is an issue that any F2P game developer can not ignore. Only 5% to 10% of registered users spend money. If we want to expand earnings, we must first have sufficient user size. So, how to get a large number of users?

Develop games for social platforms. The most direct way is to bind the game to the social platform, so the game is easy to access the player's friend list. Facebook with 800 million users and more than 200 million players is certainly the first choice, but developers have other options, such as:

* Dedicated PC game portals, such as Bigpoint, Gaia or Playfirst. Although these companies' game communities are not comparable to Facebook, their users are pure gamers. Bigpoint gamers have more than 200 million, and the increasing number. These platforms are working with external developers.

* Smartphone social platform. Apple has launched its own Game Center and though it is not yet a social networking site, it can pass information about the game you are playing, whether or not it belongs to a Game Center registered user. So, Game Center is a great tool for getting a game through "virality" and getting new players. In addition, there are some third-party mobile social networking platform to choose from, such as OpenFeint, Mobage, Papaya Mobile and so on.

* Google +. Obviously, Google intends to compete with Facebook in the game. The advantages of this Google platform include features such as Gmail and buddy lists.

* Xbox Lve and PSN. Both are essentially social platforms, but they have only recently opened their doors to F2P games. Microsoft and Sony recently announced that F2P games will land on both platforms. Microsoft attaches particular importance to the development of its game services, is committed to the game with Windows, Live Messenger and Xbox Live community binding.

However, binding social platforms is not the only way, many F2P games belong to a separate web game, which does not prevent them from succeeding, such as Nexon's "Combat Arms", Riot's "League of Legends", but access through this path A lot of users are more difficult.

Innovation. The new game concept more vulnerable to attention. Of course, a strong brand license can improve the exposure, but can not tell what the new gaming experience. In the field of F2P there are many new topics and new game to be tapped.

Multiplayer gameplay. For those who do not have a social platform, driving players to invite their friends to the game is undoubtedly a daring option. In other words, there is no single-player mode for this type of game, and this is what League of Legends does, which is a team-based gameplay. Of course you can always play games with strangers, but it is more fun and efficient to play with friends. Therefore, this game concept is more likely to inspire your sense of solidarity with your friends.

Cross-marketing. Another effective way to attract new players is cross promotion, which is to show Y game banner ads to players through X games. This is an ideal choice for companies that have released multiple titles, but what if you have only one game? Try Applifier, a solution that supports small developers alike and cross-promote each other's games.

Aim at the player's file directory. Another option for a separately-run game is to ask the player to allow the game to access his Messenger or Yahoo! buddy list and send the invitation to friends by email.

According to the feedback parameter design game

Ben Cousins, formerly General Manager of Easy Studios at F2P Games Studios, EA, recently joined the Ngmoco team, has said that he is committed to becoming a data-based studio, not just a creative survival Team. F2P game success is inseparable from the effective user data, because the latter can guide the development team to tell them how to update the content.

Keep in mind that F2P games are generally not released as "finished," leaving room for development teams to create new content based on user expectations without wasting time on what users do not want to see. User data can also convey how players operate games and other information. Here are some examples of useful data analysis:

* Players begin "exit" game development;

* Easiest bring the amount of open-loop content of the players return visit;

* The first factor that prompts the player to take a consumer action;

* Average spending per player;

* Adjust the props price of the game's total revenue impact;

* Profitability of different player groups. For example, which players bring the most out of the game, are a small number of senior players or a large number of ordinary players?

Developers need to pay attention to collect these data types, and the release of the game before the layout of the tools to collect data. Can not be added after the game sloppy this setting on the line, it should be determined from the beginning of their own needs, knowing they want to know what the game player in the game. This will avoid collecting a lot of useless data.

After determining the type of data to collect, it is necessary to design a method of analyzing the data, for example, by means of a table or a chart. Need to know the average situation, or the overall trend can be? If the data is easy to analyze, then you need to constantly analyze and adapt to the new situation, to know that data information is easy to outdated. The last thing to keep in mind is that data does not replace creative design. Good feedback parameter system can only indicate that there are problems or opportunities for development, but in fact does not teach you how to do it!

(This article compiled for the game Bang / gamerboom.com, refused to retain any copy of the reproduced, for reprint please contact: game state)