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Opinion: Fun Is Important, But So Is Your Business Model
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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August 24, 2010
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["If a game is built around a business model, that’s a recipe for failure," Realtime Worlds co-founder Dave Jones said in 2009. But with online games that utilize untested price schemes, should building fun really come before establishing a business model? Gamasutra's Kris Graft investigates...]
When reading a recent analysis on Gamesbrief about the collapse of APB and Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds, one quote from studio creative director and industry veteran Dave Jones stood out:
"If a game is built around a business model, that’s a recipe for failure." -- Jones at GameHorizon 2009
There's a part of me that admires that mentality -- in a time where the game industry is becoming increasingly focused on blockbuster hits and monetization of Facebook users, it's kind of nice to hear someone say that if you focus primarily on making money, you will fail.
The implication is if the fun is there, everything will just work out, and it makes sense that the guy that created Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings would say such a thing. Those games became successful and memorable because they were, above all else, fun.
He told me as much in a meeting at E3 in June this year, which turned out to be just two months before Realtime entered administration. I asked if he had any overarching philosophy about game creation, and between sips of coffee the confident, affable red-haired designer answered, "I have very simple goals, and that is just make a game as much fun as possible. So that was our goal with APB."
Now let's just admit here first that APB didn't quite nail that goal, according to game reviewers, anyway (I did spend a very limited amount of time with the game -- mainly morphing my custom character into a twisted abomination). So even with a better focus on a business model, APB may not have been all that successful at launch. Also, I should note that judging by comments Jones made to me personally, I don't think that Realtime just blew off consideration of a business model and a month before release said "Hey, let's charge people this way!"
Anyway, Realtime's APB business model is a somewhat controversial hybrid of free-to-play, monthly subscriptions and hours-based paid subscriptions. There's also a user-to-user marketplace for player-created items. Realtime tried to convince gamers the scheme was "flexible," but when some gamers saw that APB was more like a tactical online shooter than a typical MMO, they were critical about the subscription model in any form.
Money As An Afterthought
While I think that Realtime had some solid reasoning behind its pricing scheme, it appears that instead of building game around or atop that business model, Realtime tried to shoehorn a business model into a design (a move that might have been necessary when examining mid-development how the studio would pay back investors). With online games that utilize emerging, untested business models, is this really a wise decision?
Even without picking apart the mistakes of Realtime, which essentially burned through $100 million of VC funding and whatever Crackdown earned over the course of a few years, you can pretty easily argue that some of the best, most successful and fun games take their business models into careful consideration in a game's early stages. How a game will money -- especially one with a recurring fee -- shouldn't be an afterthought if you're making games as a business.
We can go as far back as arcade games in their heyday to see how a business model and "fun" can fit together. In games like Donkey Kong you get three lives, or with Street Fighter you're allotted two losses per match before you have to insert more coins. Did the game designers arbitrarily choose to implement those parameters?
No, they knew the platform they were building on, and that platform was an arcade machine that made money by requiring the user to put in more coins to beat the challenge provided by a very fun game. The designers of these games had a business model in mind; maybe not at the forefront, but it was implemented within the creative process and certainly was part of core design decisions.
Online game models are a different beast and are a bit more complicated than pumping quarters. But again, for the most successful games out there, it's pretty clear that the designers, as much as they focus on a game's fun, have the platform or method of delivery in mind at an early stage. Look at World of Warcraft -- you don't think that the game's designers knew from the start that they had to keep players coming back month after month to pay the subscription fee, designing the quest and leveling system, the expansions, the guild system, the frequency of updates, etc.? Ever hear of the term "sticky"?
But tying a business model to an MMO is not just about getting gamers to pay monthly subscriptions. I spoke with Guild Wars studio ArenaNet about their online franchise in 2007, and from the beginning, the developer didn't want to charge monthly subscriptions, rather aiming to release frequent standalone expansions.
"By adopting the business model we have, not only do we think it will make it very easy for people to get into the game and try it out… but it also allows us as designers and developers to just focus on mechanics that are fun and we don’t always have to have the thought in the back of our mind about whether or not something is 'sticky' enough," said co-founder Jeff Strain at the time. Again, the business model was there right at the beginning, and the developers made successful design decisions to accomodate that.
Also, I think that today's expanding online Asian companies that have seen huge success with their microtransaction-based games would absolutely disagree with the sentiment that a base focus on a business model spells doom. Even smaller developers who release games exclusively on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or the Wii Shop need to consider that most games on those services sell for $10-$15, and a game needs to be designed according to the expectations established by that price range and distribution method.
And as much as some people like to make social game companies out to be villains for their sometimes overzealous approach of business-over-design, maybe packaged game companies can take a couple cues from these money hoarders before jumping headlong into the online market.
APB's "Real Killer"?
Now it might seem like I'm singling out Realtime and its management, as I look back on the unfortunate disaster from my armchair with 20-20 hindsight (actually that is exactly what I'm doing). To his credit, when I spoke with Jones earlier this year at E3, he in fact did express some business foresight, and did not seem to blow off the importance of a business model when designing a game.
At the time, a spokesperson for Realtime even told me that the game's designers were "heavily involved" in coming up with a business model in the game's "pretty early stages." Jones said that Realtime decided to go with the game's controversial flexible pay model a little over a year before the game's release (a decision that really might have been later in the game than it should have been).
But a credible-sounding post on PC-focused Rock Paper Shotgun had a purported former staffer on Realtime's other project, MyWorld, state that the model was ultimately "out of the team’s hands" and in the poster's opinion, "the real killer" of APB.
"You can’t simply charge what you feel like earning and hope the paying public will agree with your judgment of value," said the poster. "Many of us within RTW were extremely nervous at APB’s prospects long before launch, and with good reason, as it turns out."
Really, even for a great game, the business model for APB would still be a difficult sell. Even the traditional buy-the-box-pay-the-subs model that so many MMOs use isn't all that appealing to many gamers, hence companies' move to low-barrier free-to-play models.
On Tuesday, Realtime administrators Begbies Traynor, which is assisting in selling off the studio's assets, revealed that APB may not have been a complete failure. The game reportedly has 130,000 registered players, with the average player playing four hours a day and the average paying player spending $28 per month between game time and user-to-user marketplace trading. Joint administrator Paul Dounis said the figures "prove this is a very enjoyable game." So maybe APB in its current form could eventually become a viable business under the right guidance. Maybe.
I'm not arguing that game designers should be sitting around deciding what business model to use, I'm just saying that building a game around a business model isn't necessarily a recipe for disaster, and in fact there are games out there that show otherwise. Maybe the creative minds in a game maker can view a business model as a constraint, a scenario that can often bring out one's best work.
Building a game on top of a business model is where a huge chunk of the industry is going, and the practice of slapping a price tag on a box is slowly but surely going away. If you're still resistant to that sea change, at least make sure you're not making games with $100 million of someone else's money and if you are, be absolutely, positively certain that the final product is in fact fun.
[Thanks to industry consultant and Gamasutra expert blogger Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief for his Realtime post-mortem and his declaration of "Bullshit" that inspired this editorial.]
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And then there was that bizzarre post-launch interview where Dave came out and did some damage control that amounted to "No, no, you're playing it wrong!", which pretty much nailed the coffin shut.
Suffice to say, I love Red Dead Redemption, and there are so many elements in it that make it worth getting. But the multiplayer coupled with some of the morally questionable killstreak challenges that result in rampant n00bicide? Call those players bullies if you must, punish them as you desire, but you cannot blame them for interpreting the gameplay differently from the developers' intentions.
It seems to me that the key question is: how does fun get delivered to the player? What is the core mechanic of the game through which the player is most directly connected with fun? Decide that, then monetize it. If your revenue isn't directly tied to that particular mechanic, then you're asking the people most likely to play your game to pay for something that isn't why they're playing your game.
The advice to "find the fun" when designing a game seems important for more than one reason.
For example, suppose you want to make a game where access to content is gated by the possession of objects that enhance your personal stats or equipment. The core gameplay will thus be to find, collect, and apply those objects. In that case, a microtransaction model in which some regular objects and a few special objects can be purchased may be the most effective way to make your money. By charging for the main thing players of your game will want to do, you maximize the odds that every person who chooses to play your game will want to pay to do the one thing that is most interesting to them about your game.
This is probably an even better fit if the typical user profile shows short bursts of play. This kind of gamer will probably be more willing to pay only for things they actually use, which I think would make a microtransaction system much easier to accept than a subscription model.
Similarly, a game that encourages long stretches of play and whose primary "fun mechanic" is exploration of an online world might work well as a subscription-based game. If your enjoyment comes from pretending to live in an alternate world, you'll probably be willing to pay a flat rate to insure that you can always spend as much time there as you want.
As yet another example, a game that is somewhat bursty in its usage and whose gameplay is built around brief, intense, and highly varied scenarios might work best with a free (or inexpensive) core game engine with the bulk of content provided on an ongoing basis as DLC.
The point is, in a rational world, why would a game's design and its revenue model ever be at odds? (I'm admittedly weaseling a little bit here with that word "rational." Design choices or revenue models that are forcibly imposed on a development team by some external entity prevent completely rational planning.)
Again, all this is the perspective of an outsider on how it seems things "should" be. I'd like to hear from those who've actually tried to rationalize their game's design and revenue model. Does that work?
Sometimes, I think it can be quite different to this. In many free-to-play games, much of the microtransaction revenue comes from status items that are more about self-expression than about progress or usage. That involves building a world where people connect and communicate and see each others avatars. In other words, I agree that you need to connect the mechanic and the revenue; I just wanted to point out that much of the microtransaction model is not about "useful" stuff.
I think that the future lies in the Indy development teams that make just enough money to put food on the table and keep making great games at the same time.
That could be a company's 10th game or their first. Plus, it doesn't take "Board Members" to ruin a company. Producers and CEOs don't really need that much help.
If a company is a cartoon character, management (money) and creatives (game) are the angel and devil on the shoulders, except they're humans, not angels/devils and the character only wins if he listens to both of their advice.
There's barely a creative in Hollywood, for instance, that doesn't have their purse strings watched at every step of the way - even if they do go over budget. And there rarely, and I mean rarely, will you find a $100M film that doesn't even see the light of day (or even a $40M one).
Here is my reply to that quote
"The business model is based around the noob, because once you lose your noob base of players that is a recipe for failure." -- Raymond Domingo (The noob hunter) I game to poon noobs not pros. Must be an equal balance.
and to to the comment before mine, starcraft 2 hopefully will solve this problem by letting creators make a percentage of there moded map sells. Free map editor is all we want so we can sell our game and make a profit. Of course blizzard can have a cut of the money also, as long as they dont touch our games.
Online is major step ahead in the videogame creation as it must take care of all face of the product. Active control of the creative and production activity, iterations, revenues statistic recognition…
I for one just don't see the value in MMO type games. It annoys me that I should pay ~$50 for a box and disc and then have to pay another $10-15 bucks just to play it for a month. If I have to pay to play the darn thing why should I be charged for the packaging. Some newer games are getting away from this and just allowing you to download the software or pick up the discs for a few dollars, that makes sense.
Even then I still don't see how I can spend roughly $120-150 a year playing one game. Maybe its that I don't have the mental energy or time to devote to the hours needed to really get into an MMO. I live APB's idea of pay per usage. That would work for me and my game playing habits.