Telling Tales of F2P Games

Those core gamers, eh? They don’t like mobile games much, do they. And don’t even get them started on free-to-play. 

And who can blame them? The successful early F2P games were simple – their interactions mundane, their gating mechanics brazen. They were skeletal monetization mechanics, with a paper-thin layer of skin to make them look at least presentable. Meanwhile, in triple-A land, games were going the other way – doubling down on the experience, the spectacle and the set-piece. You might say that they became all meat – or fat, depending on your stance – weighing down a crumbling skeleton.

But I think core gamers are a valid market to target if you’re making a F2P game. To use the cynical terms of the marketeer, these oceans are teeming with whales – millions of people who pay monthly MMO subs, buy collectors’ editions and season passes. Playing to the lowest-common denominator and chasing a broad audience is valid, sure, but it’s ignoring a vast market.

The biggest challenge mobile F2P games have in winning over the core gamer audience is a battle to prove legitimacy; a fight to prove that the game isn’t just a cynical Skinner skin but a full game experience that deserves to be judged amongst “premium” games.

How do you do this? You can do it with graphics - games like Vainglory, Dawn of Titans and Square Enix’s upcoming Mobius Final Fantasy are pushing that particular envelope, partly I believe in an attempt to establish their credibility. But can narrative help with this?

Spoiler: I think so. But I’m a writer so I would, wouldn’t I.

Hear me out though. Narrative is grounding; narrative is glue. To extend the slightly wonky analogy earlier, in addition to being some of the tasty tasty meat, narrative is the layer that binds that meat to the mechanical skeleton. It gives reason and underlying logic for everything. It isn’t just dialogue; it threads through everything – it’s in location design, character design, even interface design. And, importantly in this context, it shows effort: it shows that you’ve thought things through. Creating a cohesive world and distinctive characters is hard and takes a lot of effort, but there are enough high-grossing franchises to prove that’s exactly what gamers want.

If gamers can get a sense that your world isn’t just a Tolkein rip-off but something with its own identity and history; if they can encounter a character who’s been thought about in terms beyond just “carries big sword” or “has tits, will show”; if they can get an inkling of twists and turns that await them – how can this not engender interest? In a market drowning in copycats and reskins, how is this not going to encourage people to launch the app for a second time?

If you’re a numbers person and all this sounds a bit airy-fairy to you, let me put it in your vernacular: yes, I really do think narrative can help your ‘day one retention’. *comedy spitoon noise*

What about beyond that? Can an on-going narrative in mobile F2P games actually continue driving retention? We consume more story now than we probably ever have done – albeit in different media – and an increasing proportion is serialized, long-form content. I’m not going to pretend that a developing story alone will drive people to repeatedly engage with your game - that’s for the gameplay to bear, of course - but is there any reason why it can’t be part of that equation?

So, if you’re not completely repulsed or amused by the idea, come to my talk ‘Narrative as a Service’ at the Develop Conference in Brighton. In addition to looking at this argument in a slightly less slapdash way, we’ll take a look at mobile games that already do this in the Japanese market, and I’ll also give some concrete examples from my experiences attempting to do this and the new challenges it raises.

By Ed Fear, Creative Producer, Mediatonic

GUEST BLOG: TALK ABOUT LUCKY

“Have you seen this game, Hunters?”, he said.

“Umm, yes, in fact my company created it.” I replied in mild shock.

“Cool.” he stated. His very words mirroring his disposition.

“Thanks... Why are you heading out to LA?” I asked, still recovering from having met an actual player of our game.

“Oh, I’m the Head of Licensing at Games Workshop.” he replied

“......”, speechless.

That’s how we met the Games Workshop head of licensing. Sat beside one another on a random plane trip to Los Angeles. Back then Laurent (co-founder and business director at Rodeo) and I didn't even fathom it would be the first steps down the path to us releasing an iOS version of their much loved Warhammer Quest. We were just enjoying meeting one of our childhood heroes! Time passes, and since then we've spoken to dozens of people about the inception of the project. The response is universally always the same....

"Wow! Talk about lucky!!"

I guess on the face of it, yes, it sounds more like a lottery winner story than Branson self-made-man style tale. However, as is often true of these anecdotes in our industry, meeting that particular man on that particular plane was inevitable because of how we’d positioned ourselves previously. Let me explain why...

Focus, know exactly who you are and what you do.

“We make the best turn-based strategy games on iOS”. That’s our company M.O. We have three games with a metacritic above 80 in our stable so far, and a hardcore group of fans who follow us for because they “get” what we’re trying to attain. We know who we are, and we know who we aren't  Dual stick shooters, gesture based sports titles, even flower growing sims are all experiences we've played and enjoyed. However, as a developer, our passion lies within the turn based arena. It’s something we've created a foundation for, and continue to build upon. It’s where we excel, what we love, and ultimately the fuel that runs our strange developmental machine. That single statement clearly explains to any outside force (whether fan, publisher, license holder, potential hire, etc), what our company is.

We know what we do. Come join us if you share our passion.

Have a solid history of games displaying the field you specialise in.

As I mentioned. At time of writing, we have three 80 and above metacritic titles. When we had the Games Workshop plane encounter we only had a lonesome release, Hunters: Episode One. However, Hunters 2 was in showable development, and was essentially a bigger and better version of the first title. Weekend philosophers say a picture is worth a thousand words... an entire game must be worth a billion. When a prospective partner can see and play your work, you’re no longer theorizing and explaining. THEY are experiencing. From that experience it’s much easier to envision how an existing license could work within your gameplay. I doubt many companies would entrust their hard-crafted licenses to a developer with no prior record.

Be visible.

This may sounds like a ridiculously obvious point. It’s funny though to see how many developers and people in general overlook it. Say, for example, you’re looking for a girlfriend / boyfriend. Would you sit at home, waiting for that perfect partner to chance a knock on your front door declaring their love. Ok, fine, if George Clooney is reading this, then feel free to ignore that last statement. However, the point still remains that no-one knows you. We knew that in our first year we’d really struggle to get our name out there. So, we attended conferences, shows, drinks nights, quizzes, all sorts, just to meet people. Ok, let’s face it, these functions are generally a lot of fun as well so I’d be hard pressed to say it was all work. Facebook, twitter, blogs and websites all count towards the goal in their way. As the world of dating will tell you though, nothing is as good as a face to face!

It won’t happen overnight. We still have a long way to go before Rodeo Games becomes even a vaguely recognisable industry name, but we’d have even further to go without all the founding effort.

Know what things you love.

...and by that, I don’t mean love EVERYTHING. Just some things. Be passionate about them. In no particular order a few of my object loves are: Dinosaurs, Games Workshop, Sharks, Forests, Computer Games, Cats, Movies (Can’t believe Universal gave Jurassic Park to another developer. Grrrr). Anyway, why does this matter I hear you ask? Let’s take the plane encounter with GW as an example. We didn't talk about how we could make them millions. Or how we could take their next digital business to the next level. Our conversation consisted of which BloodBowl teams we fielded. Why Fantasy Chaos Armies were so ridiculously overpowered about fifteen years ago, and why Space Wolves will always be cooler than Ultramarines (I feel I should point out the views of Rodeo Games do not reflect those of Games Workshop!). The love of subject matter shone through and in some way affected the final outcome. I'm pretty sure that if the seat next to me was occupied by a representative from Hasbro, we wouldn't be making a Transformers game right now.

Be prepared.

Ending on a point that seems so spectacularly simple, yet so many overlook... Know your business.

Don’t be the guy we've all seen on Dragons Den who doesn't know his numbers. It’s embarrassing and creates a terrible impression. If you've made the rather large steps of first creating a company and then putting yourself out there, take five minutes to know the ropes. Learn the difference between gross and net profits (Branson claimed to not know....I think he may be fibbing). Know how many units you sold in week one. Understand how advertising in games works, even if you don’t currently use it. Let knowledge be the armour that shields you from the lances of questioning and pressure. Did you ever not study for an exam? Actually I did once...and turned up drunk...though that’s probably a story for another time.

Know yourself, your business and your loves. Then get out there! You never know who you might meet.

Ben Murch will be talking at the Develop Conference on Wednesday 10 July http://ow.ly/mt1Mj 

GUEST BLOG: IT'S ALWAYS THE NEW, NEW THING IN VIDEO GAMES

"In all the time I spent with him, I never once heard him refer to his ability to see the future. He couldn’t see it – that’s why he had to grope for it. He would be seized by some overwhelming enthusiasm . . . and he would be off and running down some long, dark tunnel leading God knew where. . . ."

– Michael Lewis, The New New Thing

Virtual reality helmet designed by Toshiba 

What's that? You foresaw the modern era of games?

No you didn't. Maybe you saw multiplayer gaming over modems moving to the Internet, and games being slowly but surely downloaded on Steam.

Oh, and you played Snake on a Nokia.

These breadcrumbs pointed the way to today about as clearly as whether you can tell me if we will be will be ruled by our robot overlords come 2045.

It's only in retrospect the future is clear. Getting there is anything but.

The history of games comprises middling periods of dull conformity punctuated by short revolutions. Trying to predict gaming's future is a loser's game, because it's irresistible to look at the current winners and extrapolate, yet it's the revolutions that reshape the industry.

I should know! I worked at Edge back when screenshots posted in a jiffy bag from Japan constituted breaking news. I spent years writing future-gazing columns for the trade press, in which I pontificated about the end of retail. And I co-founded Pocket Gamer in late 2005, just ahead of the mobile games revolution.

I even helped put together the first 'evolve' for Develop in Brighton, after a year of raving about how the Internet was changing everything.

Hark at me, the visionary!

Hardly.

I was ten years too early in writing off the High Street. Worse, like everyone I foresaw people downloading FIFA 2015 for their PS4, not Clash of Clans on iPad. Indeed iPads hadn’t been invented and most mobile pundits thought the likes of Vodafone would wield all the power.

I was humbled recently when I revisited a feature I wrote for Develop around the time we launched evolve at Brighton. Entitled Games 3.0, it came out a few months before a certain exec's GDC talk of the same name that really caused waves. Brilliant – except I focused on user-generated content and YouTube, barely mentioning Facebook and free games.

In economics they call it 'hindsight bias' – the belief we saw whatever has come, coming. Nearly always we don't, but we edit our past to believe so.

In truth, even those of us who predicted digital distribution didn't foresee a new industry springing up alongside it, nor did we anticipate handicaps such as content discovery.

Digital distribution was meant make everything available anywhere. In reality it's created an unpredictable hit-driven business that makes 1980's Top of the Pops look like a sober scientific analysis of popular music, with the sums done by Stephen Hawking.

When I edited the then-newly launched Develop magazine a decade ago, the talk was all about how we would manage teams of 500 people, and whether we could shoehorn emotion into photorealistic $500 million blockbusters.

Yet it's teams of 5-10 people who've reinvented gaming and most of the emotion we've seen has come from the staff departing triple-A studios as they've folded across the globe.

Don't try to predict the future of video games. But if you must bet on it, bet on change.

In the meantime, monitor every new development in technology, software, and monetization as if your career depended on it.

It does! But don’t ask me exactly when, or how.

This blog was written by Owain Bennallack, the chair of the Develop in Brighton Advisory Board www.developconference.com 

MAY 2013: THE MONTH THAT MARKED A CULTURAL SHIFT IN VIDEO GAMES ACCEPTANCE

Yesterday the V&A announced the appointment of its first games designer in residence – 22 year old, BAFTA-winning Sophia George. The residency is a partnership between the V&A, V&A at Dundee, University of Abertay and Ukie. You can watch the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones interviewing Sophia here .

Sophia George, the V&As new games designer in residence

Sophia will be taking inspiration from the collections at the V&A and hosting public participation workshops to, in her words, “show the public just how amazing games are.” A spokesperson from the V&A explained that the museum had always been about embracing new, cutting edge culture and games were no different. The vases and pottery in the V&A were cutting edge in their time - it’s just they’ve aged a little since those days.

On Wednesday at BAFTA’s games journalism evening Christian Donlan told the audience that one of the reasons he loved games was because LA Noire transformed the way his dad viewed them, what they are, what they do and what they can be.

Last Tuesday Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport visited NCSOFT in Brighton to learn more about the importance and size of the video game industry in the UK. Her visit was filmed by ITV News.

The week before I was listening to Heresy on Radio 4 and Victoria Coren-Mitchell asked the panel to argue for and against video games being accepted as a new Olympic sport. They said ‘yes’.

On 21^st May, Microsoft not only announced Xbox One, it also announced the launch of a Halo TV series directed by none other than Steven Spielberg.

Forgive me if this blog reads a little like ‘My Week in Video Games’ by Ali Fearnley, aged, well none of your business what age, but this was one hell of a week for the games industry. If ever we wondered if and when this industry and the entertainment we create are going to evolve from being a sub-culture to just plain culture, from being the domain of 18-25 men to the domain of everyone, then this week confirms that this transition is definitely happening.  

Even Rory Cellan-Jones in his sign off described video games as, “One of Britain’s fastest-growing and most important industries.” Why? Because it is. And now that we have a generation who have grown up with games and have never known a world without them, this transition, evolution and acceptance will hopefully become more widespread and happen faster.

  

Ali Fearnley is the conference director at Develop in Brighton. You can comment on this blog below or @developconf on Twitter and /developconf on Facebook or contact her directly at ali@tandemevents.co.uk

MEET HELEN. SHE'S YOUR FUTURE.

Meet Helen. Helen is a 40-something year old (sorry, Hels) working mother of two living in the south east of England. When I first met her fifteen years ago, she would never have dreamt she'd become a gamer. Even seven years ago, Helen had never heard of social media and didn’t play games. She was irrelevant to, and ignored by, the games industry.

Then Facebook opened its doors beyond colleges, Apple launched the iPhone and the likes of Zynga and King were born. These days, the first thing Helen does when she wakes up is check Facebook on her iPhone app, mostly to post (pretty funny, it must be said) status updates about her frustrations at being stuck on level 67 of Candy Crush Saga.

She is not alone. In fact, there are millions of Helens in the UK and beyond and, together, they have breathed new life into an industry that was suffering from the longest console cycle we’ve ever experienced and an ever-reducing pool of gamers happy to pay £40 for boxed product. The Helens were an untapped market. Now they are making the industry billions.

Candy Crush Saga, for example, has so perfectly tapped into the psyche and lifestyle of the ‘Helens’ that it now has its own Wikipedia page and for good reason. It launched in November 2012 and by March 2013 had surpassed Zynga’s Farmville with 45.6 million monthly active users. Its Facebook page has 20 million ‘likes’. It is the most popular app on Facebook. One in seven people in Hong Kong play it. And – despite being free to play – it is the highest grossing app in the Apple and Google stores. It is so ‘addictive’ that some people (not mentioning any names, DAD!) have joined Facebook just so they can hassle friends for tickets to give them access to higher levels. Getting to the end (without paying) brings with it major kudos and the determination of – and downright competitiveness between - Helens to stick with it and win is leading to humorous claims of addiction.     

From a games industry viewpoint, however, it’s not really a laughing matter, it’s one to be taken quite seriously. The Helens of this world have opened up a massive – and massively lucrative – new market: a market that is encouraging creativity and is accessible to even the smallest of players due to reduced development, publishing and marketing costs. A market that has, some might say, saved this industry and, many would say, saved a lot of jobs from being lost from within it. So when your alarm goes off in the morning, think of Helen, and thank her. 

This blog was written by Andy Lane, who is managing director of Tandem Events, organiser of the Develop in Brighton Conference. You can contact him at andy@tandemevents.co.uk and follow conference updates on Twitter @developconf