I follow Bram Cohen’s blog (the dude who invented the bittorrent protocol) and he writes some really good, smart things on there. Today is the first time I’ve had a good reason to post one here so naturally I’m going to do it. His post was on the failure of freemium as a model for games in that it destroys the design by focusing on creating compelling shortcuts instead of challenging gameplay.
I agree with him, and have faced some similar problems with, most recently, League of Legends. LoL is a smart evolution of the game it’s based on (DotA), but it feels nothing but like a scam to me since it launched. You can buy boosters, characters, and skins with real money or by grinding hard enough. The problem is that the good characters cost $10 a piece or a whole lot of grinding, and it makes me question the balance of the game.
Another issue is the boosters, they basically create an inequality in the playerbase between those who pay and those who don’t. Only when all players have unlocked everything is the game truly balanced, which if you do the math would take a HUGE amount of time without paying a significant amount. Again were sacrificing balanced gameplay for compelling shortcuts.
I don’t know what the right way to make the model work is, but I have a few ideas:
- Make all paid content purely aesthetic in nature, avoiding all possible balance issues.
- Make the game cooperative so people at least don’t perceive that they are on uneven ground.
- Make paid convenience-based content/services that don’t affect balance like extra character slots, robust stat tracking, no queue, plugins, etc.
It’s a relatively new model so the industry is still figuring it out. It is vital though that we make it known that there is a right way to do this and that we will not play games with gameplay issues due to freemium money-grabs.
I agree with your thoughts on payment models, but I don’t agree with your statements on League of Legends. I’ve seen several of the “cheap” heroes do extremely well when used by a skilled player (Ashe as an example). Granted, my current favorite champ is one of the expensive ones (Twitch) but Riot continues to nerf him, so we’ll see how long I stick with him.
You can play the game completely for free and they do rotate the “expensive” heroes into the weekly free rotation. I have a hard time understanding how Riot profits (they do have over a million users now) but as the end-user, I like having a game which allows me to experience new content for free. It’s been a long while since I’ve had this much fun with a PC game without spending any monthly fees.
I agree that it’s a fun game, I would never say otherwise. It has to be partially colored though by my experience in the beta where all the champions were available and seemed to get equal treatment, the fact that Twitch is more expensive though just really makes me feel a little ill. I’m just saying that from a high-level viewpoint the players coming into the game are at a pretty big disadvantage, and those that only play a little will also always be that way compared to those that play a lot and those that pay. Not the end of the world and it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t play, but it definitely doesn’t strike me as the best way to do it.
Ahh. Yeah, I’ve chatted with a couple of beta testers that aren’t really thrilled about the current game. I can imagine that going from an open pool of champs to suddenly having to pick and choose would be a drastic shift and less fun. As someone who didn’t play the beta and stumbled upon this on a whim I’ve been really happy. I bought the boxed retail game for $20 and haven’t paid a time since. It’s provided hundreds of hours of enjoyment – far more than most $20 gets me.
I personally have no problems with some champions requiring more time/money to unlock. Every champion, regardless of unlock cost, can be used effectively if played by a skilled (experienced?) player. Balance aside, the fact remains that players have the option of playing completely for free and earn the capability to unlock any/all champions over time. That’s pretty amazing and makes me wonder how the company profits under this model.
Yeah I’ve got no problem with most of the hero balance, but some are just flat out better than others, it’s more about team composition anyways. I just can’t get over the fact that all champs don’t cost the same and aren’t a reasonable price. I mean $10 is no longer considered a micro transaction.
With games like these it’s a small percentage of people who usually bankroll it, something like 5% of the players. Keep dev costs low, keep putting out compelling paid content, and keep the game interesting.