Defining Free to Play Ethics
Coining the term “Player Friendly Design”
A major reason for wanting to write “Game Design Deep Dive: F2P” was to explore the idea of video game ethics. There have been several attempts at trying to define an unwritten contract between developers and consumers, but none of them have stuck. With the acceptance of Free to Play(F2P) and live service design in the market, I feel that now more than ever there should be some guidelines as to how a game should be designed. Not only that, but I want to also share a new term I think should define games that meet these standards: “Player Friendly Design”.
The Ethics of Monetization
Over the past decade, I have seen lines in the sand drawn over the use of live service and F2P design. There are people who will refuse to play any game that is F2P and those that will decry any monetization as Pay to Win, or “P2W.” The problem is that without having an acceptable definition as to what is fair, this muddies the discussion and makes it hard to explain both good and bad examples.
A case in point is the incorrect opinion that cosmetics are fair to only have as purchasable…
