F2P Games and their revenue

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MonstaMunch написал:

Sorry for slightly off topic, but how do people feel about "booster packs" of cards in card collection games? Is it p2w, even if the cards can be earned through grinding, and if the game is winnable even without collecting all the cards?

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Jojas написал:

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Akaihana написал:

It is simple, we design specifics mechanics for this to catch the money of those people. You have to design 3 layers of gameplay, one short and addictive, one for mid game where people will start to spend their money and one for end game where people can spend the majority of their money (I mean most of them think with: Shit I spend a bit, I cant stop now).
Add a competitive ladder/system and a lot of gambling to your mechanics and it's done, you have hits like Candy Crush Saga or Puzzle&Dragons.

This is like my experience with the two F2P MMORPGs I've played. In Runes of Magic you got showered with quests and rewards in the first hours of playing, with little difficulty spikes strewn in-between. Then the instances started to become more challenging, still makeable without itemshop-boosted gear but only in a good group. After that, regular play was still quite easy, but forget about instances, world-bosses or events and the like: no damage, no survivability.

In Allods Online early gameplay was challenging and satisfying, nice progression, meaningful level-ups, great game. But then came the first PvP zone - and what did you suffer -, and along with that your XP were barely enough to carry you over to the next zone. And in the zone after that you could forget it. Grind, grind, grind with pitiful damage and lose every pvp encounter. Solution: xp-potions and damage-boosters from the itemshop.

And in both games, the more you progressed the more options you had to spend some serious amounts of money, often connected with a gamble: "Want to have the super-duper one-of-a-kind [more ot less] mount? Buy the Amazing Chest of Awesomeness with lots of shit in it and a 0.1% [actually undisclosed] chance to get the Flaming Tiger of Cataclysmic Noobdestruction! For only 75.00 dollars!"