F2P and P2P

This post is specifically focusing on the development of games in MMO industry. To me, this is one of the most important topics in gaming.

I'd like to present this helpful link, if you're familiar with anything MMO, you should know this site, however for those who don't, here it is:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/0

There's also this one, but we're going to discuss the first one:

http://mmohut.com/gamelist

The reason we're discussing the first one (even though mmohut is, personally, a more reliable source.) is because mmorpg.com specifies if the game is pay-to-play, or free-to-play.

If you look closely, you'll notice that there's a significantly larger amount of free-to-play games than pay-to-play. There's also a distinct difference in the popularity between the two types of games. There's a struggle for dominance in the online gaming industry right now. It has been somewhat drilled into our heads that a pay-to-play game should have a better quality than a free-to-play game. This is for the most part, not true.

Pay-to-play games such as World of Warcraft, and Everquest work of an expansion system, where every time another section of the game is developed it is packaged in an expansion pack and the efforts within the game are sold directly to the players. This method is a static system and it is frequently used. The reason this system is static is because the publicity ultimately results in the profit margin.

Pay-to-play games also have the advantage of having the game packages on the shelves at stores such as Wal-mart, or Game-stop. This itself creates advertisement, and focuses the advertisement where the playerbase is. This also results in a higher player-base and the whole project projects upward.

Free-to-play games however, don't have the opportunity to sell their expansion packs on the shelves like pay-to-play games because simply, they're free. As a result, most "expansions" to free games are sometimes considered to be "patches" instead of expansions. So what is the advantage of this method? Why are there so many free-to-play MMOs on the market? How are they gaining profit?

Well, most games gain most of their revenue from cash shops. The cash shop method is not a static marketing method. It is also very complex, and delicate. However, when exicuted correctly, can result in equal, and sometimes superior profit margins to generic pay-to-play.

The reason why Free-to-play games can become popular quickly is because of their accessibility to play. They require no fee, and are simple to set up. Pay-to-play games typically use security keys that result in additional steps to get into the game. Free-To-Play typically you can simply download, log in, and go. With the ability to easily jump into the game, people are more inclined to try it. And statistically speaking, the more people who try the game, the more people will stay in the game. This is the fish line into the game, the bait at the end of the hook is the cash shops.

Cash shops entice the existing players to purchase in-game items to fund the game. This offer is a very delicate balance. In order for players to buy these cash shop items, the item must be heavily desired. But in order for the item to be desired, it must be extremely useful, but if you make it too powerful, you create an unbalance between non-cash shop players, and players who do buy items from the cash shop. If the item isn't enticing enough, nobody will buy the item and the company will not make any money. However, if you intentionally force an imbalance within the game, diehard players who didn't buy ingame items before, are now forced to in order to be as good as other players. This can only happen in certain circumstances.

1: The game must have some form of PVP Interaction.
-To make performance items significantly important, the moment PVP interaction is implimented, players WILL abuse the cash shop function to utterly decimate their opponents with unfair advantages.
2: The game must be Free to Play from the beginning.
-Free-to-play games easily hook players in and creates an easy way to lock in their targeted community size.
3: The game must be balanced from the beginning.
-If the games' cash shop function forces players to buy ingame cash shops from the beginning, then the game will not keep the player-base necessary for the game to breathe.
4: The cash shop items must, for a limited time, be more easily obtained (or at discount prices).
-limited discounts make the items more enticing and give the players an opportunity to push more pocketbook further.




A grand example of abusing the system is the game developed by Neowiz Games/Pentavision: S4 League

S4 League is a free-to-play game that was released in 2006. The game gained a large playerbase until early 2010 when the adjusted the game to be very PEN (in-game currency) restricting. They did this by making items (weapons and armor) wear off in 30 days, and you would have to re-buy the item. This forced players to play more frequently to avoid getting PEN locked. Then, several months later, developed the game to have Force Pack items. Force Packs were weapons with significantly large status boosts (HP+5% SP+5% Movement speed+3%). These items were stackable in a set of 3, as well as 1 accessory. Once they did this, the balance between cash shop players and free players was completely broken. cash shop players had the ability to obliterate anyone in their path with little-to-no skill at all. And skilled players with cash shop items were near-invincible.

However, to recap; this was only possible because the game became popular before these adjustments were made. The adjustments forced players who loved the game, even players who didn't buy cash shop items, to now buy cash shop items to stay competitive. Neowiz understood this would eventually drain the games' player-base so they inflated the prices of these Force Packs to be extremely expensive at times, this was possible by making the obtain method of gaining a Force Pack chance based, only available by buying cash shop currency. This made the value of geared accounts to be, at minimum, about 60-90$ per account. Some unlucky players would have to buy about 200$ to gear their characters to be fully competitive.

To recap; how does this add up against Pay-To Play games? Pay-to-play games tend to be more structured, they tend to have stronger, and more stable engines. They tend to have better quality graphics, and are more frequently advertised outside of the internet which results in a larger player-base. Pay-to-play games also have the ability to gain more money through expansions.

So what does this mean for the future of online gaming? Hybrids. Many Pay-To-Play game companies are giving cash-shop features, such as Aion, and even World of Warcraft to some extent. The reason for this is this is a transition from the pay-to-play system to a free-to-play system. Pay-to-play is a reliable way of making money within a game company, but it also costs more to start and maintain. I predict that we will be going a new route of a Buy-to-play, cash shop hybrids. Buy-to-play (example: Guild Wars) allows the advertising of the game within game stores, no monthly fees allows the player to easily stay in the game once they enter the game, and lastly, cash shop system to generate funding for the company.

Game Environment vs Gameplay

VS



I wanted to start this blog off with a topic that I feel is one of the most critical, and overlooked game development aspects in modern game development, as opposed to retro game design.

Game Environment

What is game environment? The answer is simple, or so it looks on the surface. A game environment is the surroundings that enclose the player within the barriers of gameplay. Environments carry the theme the level is intending to convey to the player. If the game environment is not coherent then the player will be confused. If a house is floating 2 feet off the ground, there better be a reason for it.

The point of game environments is to envelop the players' consciousness within the game. In recent years, game developers have gone to great lengths to make this feat successful. If the players' consciousness is focused within the game, then the experience will be more immerse, and meaningful. For game designers, creating a meaningful experience is priority #1. No game designer wants to hear "I just didn't care".

The problem I've found to be a reoccurring trend in game design is focusing too much emphasis on coherent environments that look absolutely realistic. When this happens, there's many problems that happen. First, with more realistic environments, emphasis on key objects or items can easily be overshadowed, such as knowing that you are supposed to interact with something environment related. This frequently leaves the player feeling retarded, rather than rewarded after said objective is achieved because the answer was so simple, the objective just wasn't conveyed properly. This frequently happens in newer games simply because of the realism factor.

Another critical element that happens is limited roaming capability. Now before I mention this, I'd like to point of this isn't entirely as apparent in FPS games such as Call of Duty, but is unacceptably repetitive in recent RPG titles. -cough- FFXIII -cough-

Sorry, now where was I? Oh yes, limited roaming capability. High end 3d graphics take a significantly larger amount of time to design than simple sprite and chipset based graphics. I personally have had enough experience in both departments to know just how true this really is. As a result, in order to move production forward fast enough to meet deadlines, simple environment designs are created using what today is known as the smoke-and-mirrors trick. The smoke-and-mirrors trick, as far as game design is concerned, is a method of restricting the characters freedom to go where he or she desires. This typically happens by increasing or decreasing elevations to create walls in pathways. Another method is simply by not allowing players to enter buildings with little or no indication, even if other buildings you can because they pertain to the plot. The most common, and sloppy use of the smoke-and-mirrors trick is invisible walls. Collision barriers that stop the player from entering or exiting sections of the environment, especially when it is obvious to the player that you should be capable of proceeding forward. The critical flaw to the smoke-and-mirrors technique is it simply breaks the immersion of the player within the game, resulting in a less meaningful experience due to your incapability to interact with the game in a way you would expect.

The smoke-and-mirrors trick certainly results to some dis-satisfying results, however, on the opposite side of the spectrum. is the freedom to go anywhere, and everywhere at all times. A good example of this is Rockstar's biggest title Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto for its time was well known for its open worlds and freedom to do what you want, when you wanted, and there was some sort of feedback from the game for your actions. A problem many people had with this was the lack of direction within the game, resulting in a feeling of being lost. The environment was so open ended you frequently relied on your interface to coordinate you to your destination point. Interface interaction is a critical portion of the game but having to rely on it so heavily does not create an immersive experience. Although, that's another topic for another day.

Too much freedom within the game causes confusion, and limited freedom breaks immersion. An environment requires a delicate balance of both order, and freedom. A good level designer will be able to create an enjoyable experience with the player free to explore, without the result of invisible walls, however, at the same time, give enough clues so that the player will be able to find his way from point A to point B.

And while we're on the topic of clues. During the retro era, games frequently were designed so that the levels would have indication of where to go without completely limiting the player's freedom of exploration. Subconsciously, the human brain wants to investigate patterns. We're all born to do so even if we're not particularly interested. As a result, designers used several patterns to point the player in the right direction. These methods are still being implemented today, but not quite as frequently as in the past, here are a few examples:

-Footprints in the snow
-Patterns on the walls
-Elevations (If you enter a tower, you know the goal is to reach the top.)
-Red carpets in interiors
-Lit paths vs dark paths


While we're on the topic of retro games. Games in the past were designed with the idea of gameplay over imagery. As a result, games were built to be fun, and challenging. Game designers built environments with the idea that gameplay was designed to be challenging, not realistic. Where every scenerio could be easily beaten by doing a very specific, certain sequence of actions. Once the player understands this sequence of actions, there is no more challenge and now there is a new challenge to face. With the trend of starting at the beginning of the level (sometimes beginning of the game!) if you failed, part of the challenge was about memorization. This is still implemented frequently in modern games of all generes and it is a good thing! Repetition adds to game length and makes smaller games feel larger. From a game designer's perspective, it's more bulk of gameplay for the players' money. Challenging puzzles and exicutions are critical to keep the players' attention span. This has sparked multiple generes of gameplay early on such as platformers, action-adventure, and hack-n-slash. The trick to implimenting repetition in this manor is to either make the reward worth your time, or make the challenge curve fair.

The problem with this as it relates to environment is when such a large emphasis on how an environment should look is used, it has a tendency of taking away from the gameplay. Coherence takes over and certain elements cannot be implimented. An example; In a suburban environment, you can't put a series of garbage dumpsters floating in the air to jump up to a second floor building simply because the player will realize it doesn't make any sense, thus breaking the immersion within the game.

That's all for now. This particular plot is very thick so I will probably come back to it several times in the future.

Also, currently I have no spell-check on this computer so please excuse my grammar.

First Post

Just posting this to URL link.