Free-to-play

Understanding F2P with the four pleasures model

FamousAspect Dec 9, 13 0 34 sec read

This microtalk was originally presented at Unknown Worlds’ monthly Postmortem meetup in San Francisco. In the talk, I explain the 4 pleasures model, a mental framework I use to aid hesitant developers in better understanding F2P players. This model, presented by anthropologist Lionel Tiger in his book The Pursuit of Pleasure, explains 4 different types of pleasure:
  • Physio – pleasures of the body and derived from the sensory organs.
  • Socio – the enjoyment derived from relationships with others.
  • Psycho – pleasure pertaining to people’s cognitive and emotional reactions.
  • Ideo – pleasure from or relating to a person’s values.

As explained in the talk, these four categories of pleasure can be helpful in explaining the joy derived from games ranging from Candy Crush Saga to Call of Duty: Ghosts to Demon’s Souls.

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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.

Making purchases present

Over the past year and a half as a monetization design consultant, one of my core tenets is to make purchasing present. Perhaps the biggest missteps I see in games with IAP is that the developer appears like they are doing everything possible to obscure the fact that a player can spend money within the game. When I get in front of audiences at GDC and other events, I coach that IAP are like banner ads: one must […]

Sep 18, 13 0 3 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

Dragon Age Legends Road to 100k Likes

Here are the slides from my GDC Online 2011 talk, “Dragon Age Legends Road to 100k Likes”. Talk description from the the program guide: We live in a new world where borders between game developers and their players have broken down, where a Like can be more valuable then an ad campaign and where your fans can literally reach you 24 hours a day. In this metrics driven talk, Dragon Age Legends’ producer Ethan Levy […]

Feb 14, 12 0 32 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