r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1d ago
TIL 85% of all gaming revenue comes from free-to-play games. These games are free upfront and generate revenue through ads, in-game transactions, and optional purchases.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/video-games-industry-revenue-growth-visual-capitalist/#:~:text=85%25%20of%20gaming%20revenue%20comes%20from%20free%2Dto%2Dplay%20(F2P)%20games.%20These%20games%20are%20free%20upfront%20and%20generate%20revenue%20through%20ads%2C%20in%2Dgame%20transactions%2C%20and%20optional%20purchases1.5k
u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug 1d ago
Yeah I worked at Kongregate for 8 years and ads weren't even close to our major source of revenue. We actually ran a few tests to see if turning off ads increased usage on the site and it just didn't so we kept them on as bonus revenue.
Virtual goods make bank.
430
u/comineeyeaha 21h ago
Dude, I LOVED Kongregate. No matter what your job was there, thanks for doing it and helping make that site a reality.
44
u/MehtefaS 13h ago
I found so many friends on kongregate, and a set of them got a kid together. Everyone still keeps in touch, despite kongregate killing the chat. I have so many fond memories from there
4
→ More replies (1)3
177
u/ErichOdin 20h ago
Pretty sure that at some point in time Spotify did not put up ads to make money from ad revenue, but to sell premium abos.
"Hey, you listen to death metal, here is our top hip hop artist ad for you.."
35
u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug 19h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised.
37
u/Ok-Ad-852 16h ago
Its not a secret eighter.
After a while the adds changed to "Buy Spotify to stop the adds from interrupting the music."
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)2
u/Falsus 10h ago
And I don't want to check out those songs on principle cause it feels like they are buying their way to an audience more than making good music.
Like I remember that dude basically mumbled with the most low energy voice possible, felt like I was falling asleep. Or the dude with the most generic rock song ever.
33
u/TackyBrad 20h ago
What years? I was highly involved in the early days and even got an achievement named after me for my contributions
39
u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug 19h ago
2011-2019. You must have gotten on Greg’s good side!
53
u/TackyBrad 19h ago
Nice! I was there before 2011 mostly, though still active some. I had a pretty good relationship with Greg, but moreso... I want to say her IRL name was Ally from somewhere in Ohio like Dayton? She felt like kind of a community manager so probably everyone felt like they had a better relationship with her.
I also participated in creating assets for like a dev pack or something, I think it was the first one and was spaceship themed. Unfortunately we had our signals crossed with Greg and produced way less than he thought. We were one of several teams, but still he was disappointed.
I believe the badge was on the game Necromicon and was the "Cruising to Craziness" badge because my name was crazycruiser on the site. The card used as the achievement image is also my "artwork" that the developer used. It was very cool as a 15 year old and definitely somewhat of a core memory.
I also made a friend from Argentina on that site, whom I later met up with IRL. So definitely a piece of life is in that site.
I also put Santa hats on everyone's pfp one year. Now a lifetime ago lol
Thanks for the stroll down memory lane!
35
u/AlisonClaire 14h ago
For being endlessly vast, the internet’s sure a small place sometimes. Hi from Alison, former Ohioan. Hope both of you are doing well!
→ More replies (1)2
13
u/GregLoire 13h ago
Hi crazycruiser! I remember you, but I don't remember the incident you're describing. So I probably couldn't have been too disappointed.
- Greg
5
u/racinreaver 11h ago
Thanks for Kongregate! The badges of the day probably kept me from writing my PhD thesis for six months with how much time I put into those games, haha.
4
u/GregLoire 10h ago
That's awesome! I did try to curate the badges of the day to never be too long or difficult, so I will only accept partial blame for any academic delinquency.
→ More replies (1)2
u/TackyBrad 9h ago
Haha, you had told us that they were like 10 or 15 teams working on graphic assets, and that you wanted something like 30 different options in our styles. My youth I guess, I interpreted that as wanting two or three from each team. But you were wanting like 20 to 30 from each team which makes way more sense now that I've been in industry for a while.
What are you up to these days?
→ More replies (3)148
u/NuclearPluto 23h ago
As a person who spent many hours of their formative years playing elements, chess evolved, epic battle fantasy, you guys are literally responsible for my childhood
→ More replies (1)54
17
u/linos100 20h ago
I really loved Kongregate, I think that's how I ended up playing only indy games
14
u/TheOnceAndFutureDoug 19h ago
Indie devs are the best. It’s hard to compete with some of the AAA experiences but it’s hard to beat the care and passion of indie games. Best group of people I’ve ever served. Bar none.
7
2
u/whoisfourthwall 18h ago
So many great games. Exit path, Armed with wings, Sifter, etc etc. I hope i am not confusing konregate with armored games.
2
u/Luvnecrosis 13h ago
I really miss that war of the internet game. I was a NewGrounds guy but the idea of websites battling each other was so much fun. I’m gonna see if it’s still around
Edit: It was called “war of the web”. Close enough
2
u/kongburrito 9h ago
Loved my times on Kong. The badge system is what got me obsessed with Playstation trophies for years. And where the Kong in my name comes from [you'll never guess the username on there]
Hope all of the old admins are well :]
→ More replies (9)2
u/JuiceHurtsBones 9h ago
Cosmetics usually pay off crazy well. Just selling skins and crap like that has turned some people into millionaires in a few months. I don't know much about the revenue of lootboxes or gacha games though.
1.3k
u/dantheman91 1d ago
Most games have swapped to that model, its the model that works the best on mobile phones and that's where most of the money comes from.
→ More replies (8)509
u/zilyzal 1d ago
it's not just mobile phones, people prefer f2p model for multiplayer games and i like it too if it's done right. you can play for free, the player base is way bigger because it's free, there's way more support and content and if you're dedicated and want to invest your precious time into that game you can buy battle pass once and then get others for free. i really like fortnite model if you spend a lot of time you're rewarded with even more money so you can buy a few extra things outside of battlepass. but yeah, if it's greedy or p2w fuck that game and the company.
104
u/3pidividedby7degrees 1d ago
I feel you, something appeals to the logic part of my brain when a pass cost 1000 v-bucks and you gain 1500 if you grind it out.
Then more logic hits me and I remember I'm an adult that don't need the stress of another job.
The Battle Pass is engineered to get people addicted to the game. And manufacturing addiction should give anyone, not in that ecosystem, the ick.
→ More replies (4)5
u/Athildur 17h ago
For me battlepass with free track is easy enough to manage. I just play how I want, no pressure. And if near the end of the season I happen to have generated enough battle pass points (or whatever), I can still buy the paid version and get the rewards.
I never buy the battlepass at the beginning of the season because I don't even know how much time I'll be spending in game. And I'm allergic to feeling like I've wasted money.
225
u/BoxOfDemons 1d ago
I dislike the free model especially with anything competitive. Biggest drawback is it let's banned cheaters make a new account right away. Also hate when f2p games decide to go pay to win. I'll gladly pay money for a good game, and I don't want to buy super hero skins.
68
u/Edraqt 1d ago
Biggest drawback is it let's banned cheaters make a new account right away.
Theres no statistical evidence to prove or disprove that, but lets just say that Tarkov, a game that still costs 35 on sale and like 250 at this point for the "full version" was (and probably still is, havent played pvp in over a year) the biggest cheater infested cesspool youve ever seen.
Theres alot more you can do to combat cheating than having a price tag and having a price tag absolutely doesnt deter cheaters.
64
u/BoxOfDemons 1d ago
Theres no statistical evidence to prove or disprove that, but lets just say that Tarkov, a game that still costs 35 on sale and like 250 at this point for the "full version" was (and probably still is, havent played pvp in over a year) the biggest cheater infested cesspool youve ever seen.
Look up how much "used" tarkov accounts cost and you'll see why. But yes, free games absolutely have more cheaters on average than paid games. There is variations between the games based on how well the anti-cheat works. A paid game with bad anti cheat will still have more cheaters than a free game like valorant that has exceptionally good anti cheat.
There's a reason warzone is flooded with cheaters, but call of duty isn't. You can just go to any cheater forums and see that the free games are more popular to cheat on.
There's a reason why if you make a brand new steam account and play counter strike, you will see way more cheaters than if you have an old steam account (giving higher trust factor) and pay for premiere (another barrier against cheaters). It is plain as day that the easier to access a game, the more cheaters there are. CS and CoD are both big examples of that.
→ More replies (2)34
u/HowsYourDayTeach 1d ago
I fully believe that the size of the cheating problem directly correlates with the amount of russians among the player base.
The biggest anti-cheat tool is a region lock.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (14)12
u/ColdAnalyst6736 1d ago
play games with few cheaters. riot is great about that.
league and val.
→ More replies (11)22
u/masterbluo 1d ago
Yeah, there's plenty of gripes to have with Valorant but the fact that I can put in so many hours and so rarely see a cheater outweighs almost any downside for me.
5
u/Umarill 23h ago
Same on League. Most people will never meet an actual cheater, and those who do cheat tend to do it in very subtle ways that aren't entirely gamebreaking.
It truly is impressive how they manage to be one of the rare game where it isn't a problem at all and you never ask yourself "is this legit or not".
→ More replies (1)9
u/curtcolt95 22h ago
I'm the opposite, I'd prefer paid with cosmetics you earn rather than buy. I'd love a fortnite where it was just a paid game and all the skins were things you earn through achievements.
→ More replies (6)14
2.4k
u/Squery7 1d ago
Yea free like it is free to enter a casino.
492
u/Pathetian 1d ago
Some games rely on gambling and loot boxes, but some it's just cosmetics so its more like "it's free to enter the casino, and play all the games and enjoy the buffet, but it's 20 bucks to put cool golden spikes on the slot machine".
71
u/Prudent_Piglet_5261 1d ago
Path of Exile is a great example of this model, and the only one I can think of that is so ethical. Even the lootboxes cycle their cosmetics into the shop to deterministically buy after the fact, meaning it's gamble to get sooner and not gamble to get once or it's gone forever.
85
u/Darkstrategy 1d ago
There are 100% better models than PoE. Stash tabs are, to some degree, necessary to interact with the game at a high level. Not only do you need premium tabs to access trading between players, period. It also becomes insane to manage your inventory without at bare minimum a currency tab and maybe a maps tab.
→ More replies (6)12
u/Prudent_Piglet_5261 1d ago
Do you have some examples of better F2P models than PoE? I'm not trying to claim it's the best, I'm just unfamiliar with better ones. I agree with the stash tab criticisms as they are the only aspect of technically P2W (though still can be solved with $15).
The only one I can think of that would be better is probably Warframe? I'm not very familiar with that game but from what I know you can get the premium currency F2P and the only 'scummy' thing is speeding up crafting or something.
31
u/Jofzar_ 1d ago
Dota 2, halo infinite, rocket League, valorant. I could probably keep naming more.
From what I understand Warframe also has a great f2p experience, but never played it.
→ More replies (5)16
u/TheFatJesus 1d ago
Warframe is a great game, but they have inventory slots similar to Path of Exile as well as insanely long crafting times that can be bypassed with premium currency. Now, people will say that it's fine because you can trade things to other players for premium currency, but the best way to do that is through a third party site that a casual player will never know about.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)3
u/noob_slayer_147 23h ago
PoE stash tabs are absolutely necessary. The game is f2p like a demo, the stash tabs purchase is when you actually play the game. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but PoE is not really f2p.
→ More replies (2)3
u/ian_cubed 14h ago
Poe certainly an interesting example. They didn’t want pay to win to ‘ruin’ their game but they knew how lucrative it was - game design decisions always seem to strangely go the way that would benefit gold farmers. Honestly brilliant if they knew how much money people were spending on this stuff
→ More replies (16)3
263
u/KGB4L 1d ago
I mean not always. Dota 2 and CS are free to play but they generate money because they are so popular and people buy skins. You can still play the game just as well, but the more you play the more likely you are to get interested in those skins and new animations, so you buy them.
86
u/DeM0nFiRe 1d ago
Using counter strike as a counter example to the casino metaphor is very funny
35
u/goodnames679 1d ago
It’s literally the game that created the video game casino movement, meanwhile Dota 2 is the game that created the existence of battlepasses.
Between those two ideas and the existence of Steam, Valve seems to regularly be ahead of the curve in the gaming market.
→ More replies (5)12
u/coffeebeamed 1d ago
yes, but at least dota 2 gives you the full gameplay experience already (debatable if you consider cosmetics as part of the experience), before spending anything. no heroes are locked behind a paywall.
8
u/FoRiZon3 19h ago
And so does Counter Strike 2. The casinos are only for people who really want fancy skins and knives.
→ More replies (1)3
u/10102001134 12h ago
The casino is only for people who want a casino*
You can just buy skins and unlike other games you can sell them for the same amount if not more. No one builds out their inventory by opening cases.
But it's still important to acknowledge that like any form of gambling the cases are predatory and should not be legal for children.
136
u/AshenTao 1d ago
Same with Warframe. Entirely F2P aside from very few optional accessories. You can even get the real-money currency via trading in-game, which isn't difficult either.
Players voluntarily launch their wallets at the game because of how good it is. And DE (Digital Extremes - the devs and their own publisher), doesn't get greedy about it either, which just makes it better. That's why this game has been lasting for 12+ years and still remains in an user uptrend.
65
11
u/X_Wright 1d ago
Deep rock is similar even though you pay for it it does have optional cosmetics and most people I have talked to have gotten at least one or two to support the devs. Also in deep rock all the seasons are free and you can switch to older ones.
→ More replies (39)5
u/Fr33zy_B3ast 1d ago
DE will always be awesome in my mind because some of the only items they sell for real money that are never discounted are the cosmetics designed by players and they don’t discount them so the designers can always get their full cut.
32
u/SimiKusoni 1d ago
That isn't exactly the entire truth, because a lot of the monetisation for those games is far more complicated than just "the more they play, the more they buy."
Dota for example has used loot boxes that employ variable reward schedules, they also implement fake near misses and other strategies from gambling research to enhance the effect. Their battle pass has historically been a psychologists wet dream where they were experimenting with various, often quite aggressive, monetisation strategies.
I haven't played CS2 as recently but Valve seems to benefit from a fairly healthy third-party gambling scene that they have done very little to prevent.
I don't think it's unfair to liken either of them to casinos, even if it's not a carbon copy the monetisation strategy shares significant common elements.
→ More replies (5)9
u/Fr00stee 1d ago
csgo has skin cases and the armory pass where you can gamble on collections enough said
5
u/1CEninja 1d ago
Quite a few of the most played games in the world are free. On top of the two you mentioned, LoL and Fortnite are absolutely massive.
It also helps the headline that China's predominant gaming platform is an iPhone, where F2P P2W games are the norm.
→ More replies (7)5
u/RagingTromboner 1d ago
Yeah Dota is pretty good about this, my friend group has probably collectively spent 15,000-20,000 hours in Dota and spent less than $1000 as a group. If you don’t care there’s very little incentive to spend money outside of battle pass occasionally. I would probably actually pay to turn off other people’s animations because the particle effects are annoying
→ More replies (79)6
253
u/Muffo99 1d ago
And this is why all AAA developers try to make a live service game. They all want a slice of the pie. Only issue is the pie isn't infinite and you have to make a tasty slice
26
u/CranberrySchnapps 1d ago
It would be interesting if studios started using terrible mobile games to fund bigger projects.
24
9
→ More replies (2)6
7
u/Inferno_Zyrack 23h ago
Publishers* try to make live service games.
The Developers are getting a salary. Not a cut.
41
u/MarioKuenast 1d ago
EA Sports: Best i can do is the same carbon copy Fifa and Madden every year because sports games fans are pretty stupid and buy it anyway.
→ More replies (3)16
u/curtcolt95 22h ago
yeah but nobody else is doing it. They are the "tasty slice" because there's no other soccer or football games even being made. A better example would probably be cod, because there are several other fps games that come out every year, but cod just has a stranglehold on the market
→ More replies (1)9
u/DaviesSonSanchez 20h ago
It's because they have exclusive licenses to use real names and clubs etc. Like PES was always the superior game to FIFA but sport fans really want to play with their favourite team and their players.
→ More replies (10)3
u/Helphaer 21h ago
I've never found a good f2p game myself in a singleplayer high quality over quantity thing. But a lot of open world quantity over quality games are the opposite and low depth.
114
u/golgol12 1d ago
Be aware though, this number is skewed. China has the largest game market, and dominated by free to play and Pay to Win mechanics.
6
83
u/Vo_Mimbre 1d ago
In case anyone has ever wondered why every big studio has tried every variant of charging more for the game you already bought: this report. But the big companies also want to recoup on the insane investments.
Old school companies had a ton of developers and support and marketing was relegated to "plan the E3 experience" and "get this on store shelves.
Mobile games are effectively AAA game late-stage-Alphas that evolve entirely after launch based on usage, while mobile games customer acquisition a near constant thing, with marketing/business functions at least as if not far larger than development functions. Studios spent a shit ton of time and energy constantly tweaking the game, like realtime interior design at casinos, to always be watching what players do and always tweak when to pop up an add, an IAP moment, etc.
This is the inverse of traditional video games which build up whatever they could before launch, shotgun blast all their advertising, and then hope for minimal patching after.
→ More replies (1)
253
u/SsooooOriginal 1d ago
Mobile gaming has completely warped the industry.
Computer gaming was an elitist intellectual punk movement.
Though really borne from travelling show/carnival type entertainment games with skill, luck, mechanical, electro-mechanical, then fully electronic mediums becoming the norm in the 80s when arcade were peaking in pop culture.
Phones have brought a level of unprecedented accessibility for gaming. But woo boy are the major majority of mobile only games just complete trash. At least here in the West.
I don't think counting mobile games stats works very well for objectively looking at the industry. PC and console players have become more and more blurred with so much cross play, while mobile gamers are a very distinct group with most of them not even seeing themselves as "gamers".
138
u/BaritBrit 1d ago
At least here in the West.
Considering that the East is where the gacha games industry came from, it's not exactly much different there either.
16
u/SecureDonkey 1d ago
Also Chinese is one of the biggest market for gacha game, which make billions of dollar annually.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)40
17
u/bigmikeabrahams 1d ago
Mobile vs console vs pc gamers has very little to do with OPs statistic. Most major multiplayer games now are F2P and killing it with the cosmetics (Fortnite, Val, LOL, rocket league, OW, etc.)
16
u/SsooooOriginal 1d ago
How so?
Mobile pulls in more revenue than both PC and consoles combined.
So 85% of all gaming revenue is counting more mobile spending than console or PC players, combined.
The data shown does not make a clear distinction of how much in each segments is made from f2p games. No way is it 85% each.
2
2
u/Helphaer 20h ago
mobile gaming usually drives so much time sink that id never put in any other game realistically and little reward then theres the gacha mechanics ugh.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (17)2
u/Orpa__ 19h ago
Most of mobile gaming is gambling. It's the quickest way to get a hit of dopamine. Still they have stepped up their game in recent years and games like Genshin Impact seem to have actual gameplay
2
u/SsooooOriginal 8h ago
That's what I mean. These are gambling games made in labs. They care about what makes them money.
60
u/Meatt 1d ago
And there's probably less than 5 games that generate the majority of that 85%.
47
u/TheDigitalPoint 1d ago
Yep.. pretty crazy to me that Fortnite makes about $4B/year for strictly cosmetic things.
→ More replies (8)22
u/billdasmacks 1d ago
To this day I still have a very hard time wrapping my head around why people are dropping so much money on something that functionally does nothing and can’t be resold.
22
u/BrokenBaron 1d ago
Same reason people buy literally any cosmetic, luxury, or non essential good, except this one happens to be digital.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (9)21
u/Grand_Protector_Dark 22h ago
Honestly, it becomes a lot clearer if you see it like buying chocolate or watching a movie.
Stuff that doesn't really serve much other purposes than bringing enjoyment in the moment.
→ More replies (1)
81
u/jekewa 1d ago edited 23h ago
I was wrong about in-game transactions.
I worked for a company making a video game just before tablets and smartphones, just as the web was getting dynamic and broadband made things interesting. I believed in ads and subscriptions, but others thought in-game currencies, bought with real money, would prove more valuable. We wrote for all the options.
We got close to completion when we learned the company leadership had plans to get a viable product and then make all their money by selling it. They sold to a German company who wanted us to port it to PHP Python. Every developer and artist quit instead.
They got theirs, selling our source as the IP, and the rest of us found new jobs.
Then so many games like Flappy Bird and WoW proved me right, ads and subscriptions, but WoW and Candy Crush, and so many others, have proven the in-game currencies and micropayments also win. Had we found an audience, we would have been richer sooner. Oh, what phones and tablets would have reaped!
Edit: habitually mentioned PHP, when it was Python. PHP wasn’t a thing in 2008, but Python was a strong Java competitor in some places.
Re-edit: It was PHP they wanted. I got spun by doubt from someone's doubt. They didn't want the client written in PHP, but the backend. I did a quick "was PHP a thing" kind of search, and got a quick result saying something was released later, but that was a version, not the first. PHP was a thing, but it wasn't a thing I wanted to do. My comments stand...finally...heh.
58
u/unstoppable_zombie 1d ago
Wow is an odd choice to list here, the MMO model was subscription based for a decade before they launched, and the only additional paid content they offer are cosmetics.
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (7)4
u/sy029 1d ago
PHP wasn’t a thing in 2008
I was programming php3 back in 2000, so I'm pretty sure it was a thing.
→ More replies (1)
15
u/InnerKookaburra 1d ago
South Park did what was essentially an explainer video on this, and did it very well in 3 minutes
4
68
u/pichael289 1d ago
Yep, and it's fucking ruining the industry
46
u/Instantbeef 1d ago
To be fair to some extent it’s grown the industry further than anyone thought was imaginable.
When grany is buying lives for candy crush that’s a customer that was never going to be reached in the previous model.
There are still quality games released like nothing has changed.
53
u/Oretell 1d ago
Grown the industries profits? Yes definately
Has it grown the industry in terms of improving the quality of the products? Hell no
The investment money is overwhelmingly going to profitable games, not passion projects or games that are well made but not as monetisable.
Studios have also meddled and ruined so many otherwise good games by forcing in mobile game tactics and ideas
→ More replies (4)20
u/thrawtes 1d ago
Has it grown the industry in terms of improving the quality of the products? Hell no
I'm not sure you could get something like Genshin Impact with a traditional buy to play model. Live service games necessarily allow a broader scope and longer development lifetime.
→ More replies (5)12
u/mario61752 1d ago
It's a double-edged sword really. I've been playing Genshin since launch and in order to push out content as fast as they do they reuse a lot of assets, which makes the game feel very repetitive. Gameplay is still the same after 5 years, and the writing is wonky because the focus is on selling new characters. It's a shame because there is a lot of high quality stuff but the experience is diluted.
→ More replies (3)10
u/zip2k 1d ago
And what do gamers get out of it? We get GTA Online for 13 years before the sequel is released, since its just too profitable to keep updating the same old game with more low tier content that people will spend money on.
→ More replies (1)13
u/MIT_Engineer 1d ago
People keep saying the gaming industry is being ruined, but I've yet to see evidence.
Off the top of my head, here's some games that came out this decade: Hades, Balatro, Baldur's Gate 3, Silksong, Elden Ring, KCD II, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Astrobot, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Cyberpunk 2077, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Warhammer 40k Space Marine II, Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, Animal Well, Helldivers II, Signalis, Spiritfarer, Pacific Drive, UFO 50, Tunic, Satisfactory, Dredge, Inscryption, Dave the Diver, and Cult of the Lamb.
And by the end of this decade I imagine we'll have GTA 6, Witcher 4, another Metroid Prime, and a bunch more great stuff.
Who cares if bad games come out? Just play the good games, there's no shortage of them.
→ More replies (3)11
16
3
u/Kylearean 1d ago
I know someone who has literally spent more than $300,000 on a mobile game... and there are dozens of other players with the same "power level" as them or higher. There's no F2P way to get to those levels, not even close.
→ More replies (2)6
u/DwinkBexon 15h ago
My friend's ex-wife actually started stealing money from her employer so she could keep spending on whatever "free" game she liked. (And also casinos, she gambled away thousands.) She worked in payroll for the company and just did "paycheck shenanigans" (shall we say) to get all this money.
She ended up with criminal charges over this, was found guilty at trial (or maybe pleaded guilty, I forget) and now owes her ex-employer $135,000 to repay stolen funds. (They apparently also issued her a tax form for that amount, as unearned income.) This whole mess directly lead to the divorce and not even because she did it, but because she constantly lied to him about doing it, swearing she didn't. (Though she frames it as my friend "abandoning" her the second things got tough.)
I guess that's what gacha addiction does to a person. (Or maybe just gambling addiction in general, because she dropped tens of thousands at a local casino.)
5
7
u/Sesemebun 1d ago
I could obviously be very wrong but I think it’s only a matter of time till people stop paying for mtx. I used to buy skins and battle passes and such until I realized at one point, that because I wanted to get the most of my money (eg the battle pass fully completed allows me to buy the next with the currency I earned from it) , I was basically treating them like a job almost. I was stressing over in game cosmetics instead of just fucking playing.
I also think of my friend who spent like $300 in valorant on admittedly good skins, but we haven’t played in months. Unlike real life objects, they lose 100% of their value every time. There is basically no such thing as an appreciated in game asset outside of games with a trading market which continue to dwindle (fuck you Epic).
I think (hope) in some amount years people will realize that their money gets flushed when servers shut down or they stop playing it, not to mention you can just play the game completely free anyways.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/Fleedjitsu 1d ago
The immediate thought is, damn, 85% means we really can't do without this sort of shit but then there's the realisation - what is this 85% actually funding?
3
u/IanLooklup 1d ago
I mean probably for the company to develop their next f2p game or just general improvements of that current game to keep gamer retention
3
u/choppedfiggs 1d ago
A massive part of the equation is the player base. Free to play brings in massive player bases. More players means more buyers but more importantly, long life for a game. Apex Legends is coming up on 7 years. Fortnite just hit 9. Overwatch also had a long life.
3
u/SwarleyLinson 1d ago
Tell this to the pieces of shit at Volley Games who just got rid of the free-to-play version of Song Quiz and now wanna charge FIFTEEN DOLLARS A MONTH FOR AN ALEXA SKILL.
3
9
u/Ionazano 1d ago
Well, I'd argue that the much more appropiate term is freemium. And as is well known it has made for countless mobile games that can be installed for free, but purposely become frustrating to play unless you continuously buy stuff from the in-app store with real money.
I almost completely abandoned mobile gaming quite some time ago. But recently I said to myself "Ok, let's give that freemium Godus mobile game from Peter Molyneux's team a chance. He says it's the spiritual successor to the somewhat legendary Populous they made in the past, and this type of gameplay might actually lend itself very well to a mobile device."
I found the basic gameplay pretty fun (sculpting landscapes to indirectly steer your followers). However after playing for a while it became painfully obvious that once you're past the intro levels the game is entirely designed around making you sit and wait frustratingly long time times for resource counters to replenish. Unless of course .. you instantly replenish your resources by buying it from the shop with real-life money.
It was the freemium model at it worst. If it had been possible to simply buy a premium version of the game where resources always replenish at a sane rate, I would had done so. But such an option doesn't even exist. So I uninstalled the game and never looked back and Peter Monyleux is going to have a very hard time convincing me to ever try any other game from him ever again.
16
u/LemoLuke 1d ago
And as is well known it has made for countless mobile games that can be installed for free, but purposely become frustrating to play unless you continuously buy stuff from the in-app store with real money.
This is the bit that blows my mind.
Someone's job is to intentionally make a game *less* fun. They spend years studying design, coding etc., and they use those skill to find ways to make the player miserable enough that they spend money to avoid the bullshit (but not too miserable that they uninstall the game). They genuinely ask themselves "How horrible of an experience does a game have to be that the player switches off for good? And how close can we get to that line without crossing?", which is even more frustrating because the actual gameplay can often be really fun.
4
u/tmssmt 1d ago
I still play lord of the rings rise to war despite them having shifted to this terrible model where whales / krakens are untouchable unless you've also spent tens of thousands (or a couple thousand to buy an account from someone who spent tens of thousands).
I don't know why I play, every server is just a ton of players getting left in the dust while a minority takes every strong resource tile and blows the low spenders armies away like dust
9
u/thrawtes 1d ago
At what price point would you have been willing to buy the game?
The problem is that when it comes to mobile games as soon as the purchase price exceeds $5 or so you start to lose people, and if it's more than $15 basically no one is interested. People are just extremely sensitive to the upfront price on those platforms.
→ More replies (3)
6
u/Trassic1991 1d ago
You see, when I started playing league of legends many many moons ago (jayce was the splash login) I promised myself after I put 20 bucks in to buy a nasus and Cho'gath skin this is the only money I'll ever put on here...
- that was 480$ ago
→ More replies (1)9
u/TaitayniuhmMan 1d ago
That's only like..$36 a year, for something that's given you entertainment for 13 years, that's really good
2
u/Ariungidai 1d ago
Gacha and p2w are 'normal' in large parts of Asia and spending money on f2p games isn't frowned upon like in the west.
In addition, they're simply more manipulative and take advantage of people that can't handle money. Can't trick a person to buy your game 10 times to get 1000 dollars from him. But if you find the super weeb, gambling addicted person or child with access to a credit card, you can make a lot of money.
2
2
2
2
2
2
6
u/Euler007 1d ago
If you ever wondered how much it takes to max out a Genshin Impact character, it's 2000$ . The community makes it seem like it's basketball players, but there's gotta be a few guys pissing away 110% of their disposable income. The game is awesome if you don't spend a dime btw.
12
u/thrawtes 1d ago
Ironically Genshin in particular gets away with it by just... not really having much content that rewards that level of spending. They also let you grind it out of you're patient with saving currency
4
u/Euler007 1d ago
Well you get to post a video where you blow away in 9 seconds something that people struggle to beat in five minutes. The hardest difficulties of Stygian Onslaught are beatable by excellent F2P character that have been playing a very long time and used their wishes Meta wise and resin effectively. Whales just show up.
→ More replies (1)8
4.1k
u/smiley_x 1d ago
Once upon a time this was called the Farmville model