Free-to-play

Why they buy – GDC 15

FamousAspect Mar 4, 15 0 7 sec read

Thank you for attending my talk. If you would like me to send you a copy of the data set, please share your information by following this link.

FamousAspect

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Gamer-in-Residence for Connect Ventures. Former Executive Producer for Legendary: Heroes Unchained & Tetris, former Lead Designer on Legendary: Game of Heroes. Podcast host for Deconstructor of Fun. Loves Ratchet & Clank, Smash TV and Persona 4: Golden. Still plays PS Vita.

The math of money in freemium

Last month I was struck by Going broke with success, the story of financial disaster for indie devs Mikengreg, the developers behind well regarded iPad app Gasketball. As told by the Penny Arcade Report, it is a heartbreaking story of two passionate devs dedicating two years to a project only to get completely wiped out financially despite hitting the #2 position on the iOS free charts in the US and #1 in 6 countries. Two years, a fun, polished, unique […]

Aug 12, 12 0 5 min read

New approaches to free-to-play game design – from GDC Next ’14

Slides and audio from New approaches to free-to-play game design, my game monetization talk presented at GDC Next ’14 in Los Angeles. Here is the talk description: Too often, a game team chooses the free-to-play business model without truly considering the design of monetization elements early in the project. Only when it is too late into the development cycle do they learn that there is not a clear or compelling reason for players to spend money within […]

Dec 10, 14 0 33 sec read

Game Design is Business Design

Slides and audio from my game monetization lecture Game Design is Business Design. The most recent version of this talk was presented at GDC Euro’13. Previously, this talk has been given at the East Coast Games Conference, Game Developers Conference Europe, Game Developers Conference China as well as at companies including Epic Games and 6waves.

May 1, 12 0 20 sec read

Paying to win

I was 9 hours into playing a mobile, free-to-play, build and battle game when I made the decision. I was going to pay to win. Not necessarily because I was loving the game so much as I thought it would be interesting to document. If I spent $100 on in-game currency, how far would my money go? Was it enough to ascend to the highest levels of that week’s PvP tournament leaderboard? The tournament was […]

Aug 19, 14 0 6 min read