I posed my cohort this question:

Hi cohort :)

In a week 2 video (around 10:50), the instructor mentions a hook (to bring players back) e.g. in free-to-play games you can buy a better sword with which to beat your friends.

This is known as pay-to-win. As gamers, how do you feel about this monetisation strategy?

And there seems to be consensus:

For me as a gamer, it’s a horrible strategy which has been forced onto players and is unlikely to go away anytime soon, with big company’s like EA at the forefront of it’s worst practices - slowing down gameplay to a crawl, until you pay make things happen quicker (Dungeon Keeper) and the whole lootbox debacle with Star Wars Battlefront 2. Personally I stay away from games with this “hook”.

Although, to be honest it’s no worse than making games and then chopping them up into a lesser product and selling pieces off as downloadable content…

I personally dislike the pay-to-win concept as a gamer.

It would take away from from that rush of endorphins one receives when completing a level, task or challenge. This would in turn reduce that satisfying feeling of achievement further reducing emotional buy in to the game. (Again this is my own personal view.)

However, I can also see the benefits from a business perspective, as the small in game purchase aspect of mobile games is one of the things that lead to Konami parting ways with Hideo Kojima in the most recent Metal Gear. Konami found younger generation gamers are more likely to spend smaller figures on in game purchases (£2 to £5) more often, rather than £50 - £60 on huge titles.

Ultimately, I personally dislike the pay-to-win concept, but understand why it is there.

Maybe we will be the cohort to bring about this change?

The publisher’s win on that one (in 2019 EA made $2.8 billion on microtransactions). I’m not a fan of pay-to-win and DLC’s personally but it depends on your funding model and business ideas. My friend was a huge fan of Fallen London, which is based on this model of it’s free and then you pay to keep going. Some are more ethical than others. I feel strongly against gambling, especially if it’s targeted towards children.

Good question!

I think there is a differentiation between free to play with monetization and pay to win. I’ve seen some games do this well with non-functional monetization, such as skins and custom actions, vs functionality that can only be purchased (pay to win). I think there is also a differentiation, possibly even a dark pattern, between paying for a sword and paying for an elite loot box which has a 0.2% chance of having a sword in it. Both of which I dislike, but the latter is clearly worse for the consumer.

I’m going to be the renegade here and go against the consensus.

As a long time player of titles such as World of Tanks (pc and xbox), Clash of Clans (iPad) and Pocket Legends (iPad) I like the no risk entry point: if I don’t like the game it’s not cost me anything so I can just delete it and move on. I also like (and appreciate) that the developers are in it for the long haul. Both WoT and CoC have had a significant amount of development over the years with new features, content and game mechanics added.

I do recognise that I’m not the developer’s ideal player as, unlike many, I don’t buy the in-game upgrades, speed-ups or premium gizmos.

Not all free-to-play games are equal and there are a couple I tried that were specifically of the play-to-win ilk, Vikings: War of Clans being one of them. I had an interesting conversation with the top player in my clan once where he admitted to paying about £70 per week, every week in order to advance. He was the first player on our game world to max out his base and I dread to think how much that cost him. In the end he got bored as there was nothing left to achieve, sold his account for €300 to a clan mate and left.

From the player’s perspective I’d like to think F2P is a model that can work but I’d suggest it ultimately depends on how well the monetisation and gameplay are balanced.

I think one of the changes I’ve enjoyed least when it comes to the gaming industry over the past decade and a bit is the shift in monetisation strategy, especially from large game developers, towards the micro-transaction and DLC heavy models that are the norm now; many of my game purchases now are informed by the models employed by the developer. I have slowly started to move away games like Civilization, an old staple of mine, that have begun selling of one or two new civs as a £5-£10 DLC pack. Or the FIFA series where I have to spend upwards of £60 every year now for updated team rosters and negligible changes otherwise. Instead I have gravitated more towards Indie Games, where a fair initial price point is usually followed up by a steady flow of updates. Terraria being a prime example for me, a game I bought probably for £8 in around 2012 and has constantly been updated by the team at Re-Logic leading me to have played almost a 1000 hours (certainly value for money).

What I dislike most is the loot box model, which I do find pretty abhorrent, and I am saying that as someone who has spent far too much money on these boxes in games like CS:GO/Hearthstone/Fallout Shelter. I’m all for consumers having free choice to spend their money as they wish, but I agree with Sarah in that these boxes are presented too often in games marketed towards children and are, for all intents and purposes, gambling. I remember a story from a few years ago of two youtubers that were accused of running a service which in underage players to gamble away their premium skins (Links to an external site.)and were also advertising its services to their young audience without disclosing that they owned the site and I think it really highlights the inherent dangers.