New approaches to free-to-play game design

Game monetization talk from GDC Next ‘14

Last week, I presented “New approaches to free-to-play game design” at GDC Next. This talk on game monetization focuses on concrete methods for how and why a team needs to prove out its business model early in development. Since many game developers are not able to attend such costly events, I wanted to share full slides and audio from my talk in the video above.

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 a game. This talk goes in-depth on concrete methods for designing a game’s monetization from day one. Using the design methods in this talk, a game team can ensure that they are building a F2P game that has both a sound business foundation and proven fun factor.

Here are links to the articles and tool mentioned in the talk:

• Paying to win — a look at PvP weekly events
• Paying to win — guild vs guild events edition
• Should my game be F2P? tool (work in progress)