F2P is Bringing Devs Down, Here’s Why
We discuss how free-to-play affects indie developers, and why blockchain is set to tip the scales.
Few can argue the fervor with which Free-to-Play overtook the video gaming industry just a few years ago. We saw previously established norms for what a video game should be — and how much it should cost — come crumbling down seemingly overnight. Hundreds of completely free games with wildly varying degrees of quality hit the market, first on mobile devices, and later seeping into both console and PC ecosystems as well. This has helped introduce video games to a much wider audience, but it is also slowly shifting the scene into something scarcely recognizable to the original core audience.
Are we spoiled for choice?
I grew up in a time just after arcades (or maybe I just didn’t live in the right place for arcades to be a thing), and gaming was very much something that happened on consoles, be they handheld or living room bound. Games cost a certain amount, and provided a self contained, measured experience. There was no such thing as a free game, the closest thing to it was a demo or trial found in a magazine. If I wanted a game, I had to save up money in order to buy it. And seeing as I had limited funds, I had to make sure I chose the right game. Thankfully, games weren’t as abundant back in the day as they are today. There was plenty of choice and lots of variety, but nowhere near the avalanche of titles we see today on platforms such as Apple’s App Store, Google Play, or Steam.
The major difference I see between then and now, is the drastically wider array of choice a gamer has these days. Whether this is a result of F2P games attracting a larger audience, or a larger audience forcing games to lower the barrier of entry to stand a chance of getting noticed, I couldn’t say. One thing is certain though, there are more games today — and more gamers to play them, than there has ever been.
As a result, we are seeing an ever increasing amount of games offering free “lite” versions, going entirely free (supported by microtransactions or advertising), or a mix of the two, with the game charging an entry fee as well as offering in-game microtransactions.
So how can a game stand out from the crowd?
Outside of a handful of talented and dedicated indie development teams, quality titles offering tailor made and balanced gaming experiences are few and far between these days. Even massive “Triple-A” quality games from giant publishers such as EA, Ubisoft, and Warner Brothers are slipping microtransactions into their games in the pursuit of more profit — all at the expense of the audience at large.
It’s becoming harder and harder for smaller teams to make a game, and then successfully sell it in a marketplace that is currently overflowing with thousands of games, and not all of them good. Just this year, a somewhat highly anticipated game by the name of Lawbreakers — a hero shooter somewhat similar to games like Overwatch, was released. By all accounts, its developer, Boss Key, had done everything right, and there was a seemingly high enough level of interest online for the game. But the game flopped. It flopped hard. At the time of writing, the game is all but completely dead, with nigh a shred of an active playerbase remaining.
The game isn’t bad, by any means — It’s highly polished, has interesting and fresh mechanics, and it wasn’t even expensive when compared to similar titles. It’s hard to say exactly what happened to bring about the demise of Lawbreakers, but it’s arguably a result of an overloaded market, where gamers can taste a multitude of different experiences for free. In such an environment, it becomes risky to build big, ambitious titles — lest they should perform poorly and have devastating results for the developers. Even small games don’t seem worthwhile to create, for fear of being lost in the æther.
Is creativity in game development dead and gone?
No! Thankfully, gaming is on the cusp of a new age that most have not even noticed yet. Blockchain is coming in a big way, and it’s well set to completely disrupt status quo in the world of video games. Thanks to this new technology, developers can implement new powerful and transparent systems that will enable players to truly own their in-game assets, completely unrestricted. Imagine if cards in Hearthstone weren’t bound to an account, but rather existed as a digital token in the possession of players. They would be able to buy, trade, and sell them at their leisure, enabling the player to play the way they want, while spending as little or as much as they feel comfortable with — without the fear of losing their newly owned digital items for any reason.
Now is the best time for budding developers to turn their eye to the cryptogaming market — A very young market just waiting to be developed into the next big thing in gaming. Dev teams have a new opportunity to build something truly unique in a space that hasn’t been completely explored yet. In fact, the space is so young that people are actively defining what it even means to be a cryptogame, and the limits of what exciting new mechanics will emerge from this new way of thinking and developing games is yet to be seen.
On BitGuild, designers will be able to interact directly with a growing community, together shaping their cryptogames into what the audience wants to see through direct feedback, crowdfunding, and collaboration. They’ll be able to offer free access to their games, while selling in-game goods that players won’t be as hesitant to buy in a post-F2P world.
If a player on the BitGuild platform were to tire of a game for whatever reason, they could sell their item collection from game A, and use the funds they made back to get into game B. Alternatively, they could trade their items with another player, or anything in-between. Unlike current major publishers and online service providers, BitGuild will never excerpt control over a player’s items for any reason (not that it could, that’s the whole point of blockchain!).
Are you an established, or even aspiring video game developer looking for new opportunities? Are you a gamer interested in discovering something fresh? In either case, we encourage you to learn more about BitGuild and the team behind it on our official website. You just might find your next big thing there! We also encourage you to join our official Discord server. Here you can keep up with the latest BitGuild news, and stay in touch with other players and developers as BitGuild shapes the future of video games, bit by bit, and block by block.
BitGuild’s mission is to revolutionize the global gaming industry by creating a platform for a brand new class of games that live on the blockchain. Blockchain games completely redefine the relationship between players and developers by facilitating full and true ownership of in-game assets, cheap & safe item trading, cross-game compatibility of items & currency, and more.
