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.

Deathblow!

or, Ben Cousins was Too Gentle On Wednesday of GDC, Ben Cousins of ngmoco delivered easily one of my top talks of the show, “When the Consoles Die, What Comes Next?”  This succinct talk painted a clear picture of the collapse of the Cinema relative to TV and a similar collapse of Arcade relative to Console.  Cousins’ hypothesis stated that a transition is already underway; Console is rapidly giving way to Mobile, and in the […]

Mar 8, 12 0 2 min read

Hearthstone – Heroes of Warcraft monetization analysis

As trumpeted by the recent Activision earnings report, Hearthstone – Heroes of Warcraft is off to an incredible start with 10 million registered users. Alongside a stable of Blizzard titles, Hearthstone’s launch has helped drive record digital revenues within Activision; 34% of all Activision revenue for the recently completed quarter comes from digital sources. As both a childhood Magic: The Gathering enthusiast and a monetization design consultant, Hearthstone’s release on the iPad has been one of my […]

May 9, 14 0 13 min read

I spent $100 in Assassin’s Creed Unity so you wouldn’t have to

This article originally appeared on Kotaku Ten hours into Assassin’s Creed Unity, I’m having difficulty finishing up memory sequence 6. That’s just about the middle chapter of the game. I think my character is too weak. His armor isn’t strong enough. Neither are his weapons. I could stop working on this memory, instead grinding on side missions and locating chests until I have enough Livres to buy more powerful gear. Instead, I open up the […]

Jan 26, 15 0 9 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