Megatrend II: The emergence of fast gaming, and games relying on micropayments

Let us start with fast gaming, which is to video games what fast food is to home cooking -- i.e. games bought quickly and consumed without any important investment from the player. Note that the investment is not exclusively financial; it can also refer to the time spent in mastering the game.

Make no mistake: I am not making any value judgement on either this particular type of gaming or restaurant. If fast food became so popular, it is simply because it answered an existing consumer need. The same is true of fast gaming.

These games already abound around us: downloadable games on your cell phone, budget PC games created to be sold under $20 (not to be confused with initially fully-priced games receiving a price drop from the publishers to prolong their commercial lives), buyable games in the try-and-buy format, and free games serving as advertisement media.

These products respond to a new need: the one for immediate gaming, without forethought. The purchase and consumption of these games is more of an impulse than an informed acquisition. The success of Xbox Live Marketplace rests largely on this motivation. Let us not forget that full-price games are costly, and the consumer who does not think twice before snapping out his/her credit card is rare.

The design of these games will thus have to adapt to this new way of "consuming" games, which players would not have bothered paying for otherwise. If the games do not bring sufficient immediate gratification, their users will quickly abandon them.

Players will be willing to spend more time discovering games they have paid for than those obtained freely. The gameplay must therefore be instantaneous; i.e. the interface kept simple, and the player's objectives shown clearly.

This necessity is all the more obvious for cell phone games. The current trend is to draw inspiration from concepts and controls found in console gaming, adapting them as fully as possible to the mobile format; the results are a mixed bag. We shall probably see new concepts -- native to mobile platforms and largely removed from those of console games -- arise.

These new concepts would draw from cell phone specifications (communication, geo-location, near-constant presence of the owner, integrated camera, etc.) and would disregard their limitations (small keyboard, tiny screen, etc.). We may thus see games interacting with current sporting events, or even cultural, political, and economic trends. We might even witness the apparition of games centered on socialization. Who knows... after speed dating, we might have to prepare ourselves for game dating!

Games relying on micropayments are founded on a somewhat different logic. Like fast gaming, these games are conceived to be immediate hands-on experiences, but are also designed to entice the players to deepen their experience of the game by purchasing affordable additional components.

These components vary from simple cosmetic elements, such as improvements on the appearance of player's avatar, to elements affecting the gameplay itself. This economic model is fast-growing in Asia, and we can expect to witness an important impact on the west -- perhaps even a major one. The design for such games will have to be thoroughly adapted, even for established genres such as racing games or shooters.

The first constraint is the ease of set-up. All must be arranged so that the player has a minimal number of actions to perform before playing. Today, the great majority of downloadable games ask much of the player: one must register online by often giving (too much) information, validate the registration by accessing one's email client, download a (typically) sizable file whilst hoping that the connection stays stable, unzip and install the game, and finally register and download updates!

All of these operations can be simplified or rendered invisible to the player. Another solution is to develop games strictly for Internet browsers. InstantAction is one of the pioneers in this field.

Secondly, the game mechanics themselves must be as simplified as possible, so that they will be easy to grasp and master. This does not mean that the game cannot retain any complexity; rather, it ought to be introduced progressively.

Dream Execution's War Rock

Lastly, the game design must support a great number of add-ons and upgrades without leading to blatantly unbalanced players. Interesting solutions are surfacing, such as equipment rental in War Rock or systems grouping more or less advanced players together.