There remain compelling opportunities for 'paid for' games in the mobile space despite the continued rise of F2P games, according to Nathan Vella Co-Founder & President of Capy, the creator of premium games like Critter Crunch and Sword & Sworcery.
Speaking at GDC 2013, Vella argued that, while an estimated 66% of revenue generated in the App Store in 2013 was from free-to-play games, around $2 billion came from paid games.
The argument that "paid apps are dead" is disingenuous, Vella said. "There is still a huge amount of opportunity in paid games - so long as you find the right game for the business model."
Vella argued that there are lots of niche genres with fans who are willing to pay for games up front when they appear. "Many players don't even know they want a game in a particular niche till one arrives," he said citing iOS titles The Room and Year Walk as games that have found vast success over the past few months despite being idiosyncratic titles that don't easily fit within an established genre.
"F2P has very specific genre effectiveness," he said. "I think in general the titles that don’t go that well as F2P titles can sell well in the paid space. For example, players of sports games expect to pay money up front for their game." Vella also pointed to console to mobile titles such as Dead Space and The Walking Dead as titles that work particularly well as premium apps. "Creators of these titles should understand and embrace the fact that their fans won’t be OK with a F2P approach."
Vella encouraged would-be premium game developers to split their promotion down the middle between speaking to players and speaking to Apple and Google as the platform holders who might potentially feature the game. "A significant part of this is understanding when you’re creating trailers and press you are specking directly to Apple and Google," he said. "Both companies have ear to the ground editorial teams so they will notice."
The producer had the following warning for studios considering switching to F2P from a premium business model: “Unless you have tons of experience and a really powerful backer who knows how to turn the most amount users into money, it’s an extremely risky place to play right now."
"The top 25 games in the F2P space are generating more than 50% of the revenue, immediately halving your market."
I honestly think that there are a lot of contributing factors to success in either camp. Too many developers want it both ways and that simply doesn't work (in most cases). They release the game for a few bucks, but then still feature micro-transactions. If you want people to pay up front for your game, then you better make sure they get a complete game.
There is also the issue of pacing. With a premium game the pace tends to be strongly dependent on the player rather than the game. If you want non-stop action and something to do, a premium game tends to facilitate that. F2P games on the other hand tend to keep a very tight reign on pacing and make sure it's dictated either by the game, or the player's dollars.
The business models available to your project determine what you can and cannot do effectively with your design. Trying to use the wrong business model for your game design can be catastrophic. Being committed to the use of only one monetization model that you insist is "best" severely limits what you, as a company, can produce. It also can make you extremely susceptible to competition if enough of your peers feel the same way. Ideally you want to have a robust stable of monetization models at your disposal as this can promote a creative explosion in your studios as they produce ideas that would have been otherwise stifled.
Your GDC talk on how Premium games can stay viable in a free-to-play saturated market was really informative and carefully metered out. I think it is definitely important to make sure that there is space enough for both free-to-play and premium mobile games, if not more, in the mobile games market. I perhaps wonder, though, if part of the reason why most, not all, premium mobile game content succeeds due to advertising outside the mobile space itself. The Walking Dead game seemed to be more successful on the PC side of things, and that the iOS ports served to just expand the audience a bit more to either a consumer who just wanted the experience on a mobile device or the off chance someone was repurchasing it again. And a game like Sword and Sworcery was buoyed by indie game fan support before Apple got around to Featuring it on their App Store page, but at least from last year’s reports, only sold 350,000 units. Though I could understand if 350,000 units is successful since it sounds like this is what you meant by aiming for a target niche audience. I feel like, with the compounded difficulty of making an excellent game to attract players, perhaps proper targeting and promotion/marketing may not be enough. But I suppose there are enough examples to support that premium models, even from transitioning from free-to-play to premium, are effective in providing both value for the players (perhaps even allaying their guilt) and stability for the developers.
I also wonder if it is at all possible to replicate premium mobile game experiences on a free-to-play-model? Perhaps this problem of creating successful premium mobile titles is an issue of just not making the “right” game? Logically speaking, I don’t see mutual exclusivity between a free-to-play game design and an experience that’s akin to Dear Esther, so to me, it just seems to be an incredibly difficult design challenge. I don’t think I could offer any clear game ideas to that point, but perhaps a place to start would be something that critiques free-to-play models in its theme. I wonder if you might agree that Vlambeer’s recent Ridiculous Fishing could have been still successful if it did in-app purchases on top of its premium pricing, while not losing its “integrity.”
There is also the issue of pacing. With a premium game the pace tends to be strongly dependent on the player rather than the game. If you want non-stop action and something to do, a premium game tends to facilitate that. F2P games on the other hand tend to keep a very tight reign on pacing and make sure it's dictated either by the game, or the player's dollars.
Your GDC talk on how Premium games can stay viable in a free-to-play saturated market was really informative and carefully metered out. I think it is definitely important to make sure that there is space enough for both free-to-play and premium mobile games, if not more, in the mobile games market. I perhaps wonder, though, if part of the reason why most, not all, premium mobile game content succeeds due to advertising outside the mobile space itself. The Walking Dead game seemed to be more successful on the PC side of things, and that the iOS ports served to just expand the audience a bit more to either a consumer who just wanted the experience on a mobile device or the off chance someone was repurchasing it again. And a game like Sword and Sworcery was buoyed by indie game fan support before Apple got around to Featuring it on their App Store page, but at least from last year’s reports, only sold 350,000 units. Though I could understand if 350,000 units is successful since it sounds like this is what you meant by aiming for a target niche audience. I feel like, with the compounded difficulty of making an excellent game to attract players, perhaps proper targeting and promotion/marketing may not be enough. But I suppose there are enough examples to support that premium models, even from transitioning from free-to-play to premium, are effective in providing both value for the players (perhaps even allaying their guilt) and stability for the developers.
I also wonder if it is at all possible to replicate premium mobile game experiences on a free-to-play-model? Perhaps this problem of creating successful premium mobile titles is an issue of just not making the “right” game? Logically speaking, I don’t see mutual exclusivity between a free-to-play game design and an experience that’s akin to Dear Esther, so to me, it just seems to be an incredibly difficult design challenge. I don’t think I could offer any clear game ideas to that point, but perhaps a place to start would be something that critiques free-to-play models in its theme. I wonder if you might agree that Vlambeer’s recent Ridiculous Fishing could have been still successful if it did in-app purchases on top of its premium pricing, while not losing its “integrity.”