![]() Its installation is as simple as possible it is a one-click installation, it is very fast and the user is not bugged with ads. ![]() Unity has developed a great plug-in for Facebook. To illustrate the negative impact of any extra steps required from the player, I will take the Unity 3D example. To enter the game, the player only has to click a link. There's no need to register, to download or to install any application. This is one of the reasons why Facebook games are so successful. The more steps a player has to follow to launch the game, the higher the chances of losing him. The game should be launched as directly as possible. When one has expressed his intention to experiment with your game, you don't want to lose him for any reason before he is hooked. Define your target audience know its gaming habits and expectations. And women will see the game as a support for interpersonal relationships, not a tool to compete. For them, game sessions have to be short. "Older" players - i.e folks beyond 30 years old - usually have a family and a busy life. Their motivations to play are different, and so are their expectations. While certain F2P games such as MMOs or FPSs belong to known genres, many F2P titles address a broader one, with more women or younger players - and both may not be used to playing traditional video games. The design objective is to get players to play often, for brief periods of time and for months.ĭesign for new audiences. Therefore, we must learn once again to develop long-lasting games. Apart from MMOs and multiplayer games, the design trend during the last few years has been to provide players with intense but brief game experiences. Designing a game that will keep players active for months is a challenge we are no longer used to. In F2P games, the longer someone plays a game, the higher the chances he will purchase items. ![]() Therefore, the first design challenge is to provide immediate satisfaction to the players in order to "hook" them.ĭesign for a (very) long duration of play. If the game, which didn't cost them a dime, doesn't bring immediate satisfaction, they will abandon it and switch to something else. However, if a game is free, this "bonding" doesn't exist anymore. It's only several hours later that they will choose to drop the game if they don't enjoy their experience. They have invested money in this game, and will not abandon it a few minutes later if their first impression is disappointing. When players purchase a game, they bind themselves to it. However, it creates a new challenge instead: how to persuade a player to continue playing an F2P game when it's so easy to switch to another if the current one doesn't prove satisfactory. The fact that a F2P game is free removes a major obstacle to experiment with a game: the price. What are the new design objectives that a game designer working on a F2P game must keep in mind at all times? This quote from Jamie Cheng, the founder of Klei Entertainment, best illustrates this difference: "Don't make people pay for entertainment. In a traditional game, the designer's only concern is to entertain the player, whereas in a F2P game, the focus is both on the player's entertainment and his monetization. To begin with, let's see why designing a F2P game is so different from a game relying on traditional business models. The Key Design Differences between Traditional and Free-to-Play Games ![]()
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