2013/06/08

The styles of free to play monetization

Yes, free to play monetization comes in various styles, even trends, they might be even fashionable so to say.

As I have the luxury to experience different companies "styles" of monetization I noticed something unusual.

Companies tend to stick to their style and also think it is the only one which works for them. So they create games and always adapt their monetization style to them - which usually worked unless the games genre or mechanics are not fitting that style. As a consequence those games usually do worse than the original.

So that said company tries a different style it saw at games of another company - and fails. It doesn't work very well as that other company worked years to optimize their "style" and that one might not fit your game at all.

So you're stuck. Either you continue making games which fit your monetization style or you learn how to create perfectly fitting monetization styles to your game. But that means you understand the fundamentals behind it - that you created a formula or schematics which can be made fit to various game styles.

Note that this is true for the inventors of the "European style" of monetization in free to play. Some of them stuck to their style and didn't grow, some of them opened up and are growing beyond their original hit games.

The reason for this "one style" style is of course that their performing games are analyzed and they know exactly what works and what doesn't.So they copy/paste those mechanics to other games and they work as well - but not as good as the original. The title isn't suited perfectly to that mechanic after all. So you create more and more "copies" of the original which deteriorate in quality or revenue over time.

Time to adapt your monetization style. Key learning: monetization works really well if it is fitted perfectly to your game design.

Just like in fashion - they only fit it to bodies (nsfw).