Free To Play Mechanics Have To Crash Into AAA Games
An Overview Of HOW and WHY
Armageddon
Profitability of AAA games is at risk. Competition has never been tougher, each new canonic publication of a franchise sells less than the previous one… But costs of development and marketing are continuously increasing, breaking a new record every 6 months. Watch_Dogs’ development was 70 million, and probably twice as much if you include marketing expenses. GTA 5 allegedly cost 200 million dollars to make.
The Next Step Of Games Business Models
At the same time, with the emergence of new gigantic licenses and the possibility to constantly maintain a game up-to-date with next-gen consoles connectivity, we can foresee a close future where games will be selling on a much longer time period that the classic “Week 1”, and Game As A Service (long-term oriented) will replace Game As A Product (short-term oriented). Some titles already began to sell in episodes rather than in one big package (MGS: Ground Zeroes) and GTA Online is a great example of Game As A Service.
In this context, mastering the ability to make money out of a game on the long run is critical. If in-game monetization is left aside, the entire industry is, therefore, at risk.
Inefficient (Current) Process
Free To Play developers have mastered this competency already. Through their understanding of the Core-Loop / Retention / Monetization pyramid (more on this down this article), they are able to squish revenue streams out of their titles for years. So far, we believed that this pyramid was specific to Free To Play games, and that the development of AAA titles could not be considered through this prism. It led us to a situation where workflows are not designed to max out the long-term retention and monetization, with great importance given to designing Core-Loop mechanisms, less importance given to Retention, and close to Zero importance given to long-term monetization.
This process, designing and developing the core-loop mechanics, to then switch to retention systems and finally monetization mechanics, used to be the standard of Free To Play development. Monetization mechanics are often just a simple layer added on top of the game. Underqualified users, poor retention metrics and small amount of paying users are symptomatic of such workflows.
And this is where the triple A developers are at the moment.
This is the reason why the quality of DLCs is decreasing so quickly after the release of a game; they come too late, with crappy content (new weapons, new skins..) and when the game lost all of its momentum. In addition, for these AAA titles, spending money in-game is often nowhere near intuitive.
What Is To Be Implemented In AAA Development Process
In the very close future, developers will have to design games that can sustain years of usage through updates and great retention mechanisms. Of course, monetization should serve this model and be designed at the same time as the rest. From the above representation, typical in the development of AAA titles, developers will come to an integrated design process, with Core-Loop, Retention and Monetization mechanics draw out at the same time. FTP developers are already mastering such processes.
This process integrates the design of relevant retention and monetization mechanics early in the process. They are part of the gameplay.
There is no doubt that magic formulas don’t exist, and that integrated design process won’t always be the key to success. However, in 2015, failing to adopt this model could be a fatal mistake. Old-school DLCs, with a pay-once model, will alienate players and monetize less and less, and some of the biggest licenses could, and will, be penalized.
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The Core-Loop / Retention / Monetization Pyramid
Core Loop: it’s what makes the fun. The base gameplay mechanics. A classic example for current FTP games would be the Collect/Train/Fight loop.
Retention mechanics: they are a key element for the success of future AAA games. It’s what makes players come back again and again. Some trivial examples would be:
- Progress incentives: Loot, new abilities, achievements, scores…
- Narrative
- Social mechanics
Retention is critical because the more people will play, the more they will commit and the more they will be willing to spend money on it.
Monetization: the combination of converting mechanics and mechanics that increase the revenue per user.
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