Free game, sell content...

Hi, I'm curious to hear your opinions and/or experience with making games that are free, but where you pay for extra content. Like different clothes for your avatar, possessions, property or other stuff. I'm specifically thinking of games where you can enjoy the whole experience of the game for free, and what you pay for is just the icing on the cake.

Games like Toribash have done this. At first it was sold for $19.95, if I remember correctly, but then they changed to a model to where the game is free, but you pay to customize your fighter. Most of the people playing the game online have payed for the extra content and have customized their avatar. They don't get any extra powers in the game, they just look cooler.

Does this model work well? And does it only work for specific kinds of games?

What's your thoughts?

seems to work well for the Asian market (look at Nexon as just one of many examples), not sure if the western market has grown accustomed to that idea yet. Would be interesting to find out though.

Battlefield Heroes by EA will be free, you will just have to pay
for the clothes etc. This is why they made it
3rd person view. So you can always see how nice
your heroe looks with all the gimmicks.

> you will just have to pay for the clothes etc.

I heard the developers say you could also pay for enhancements as well, so you can purchase your way to a more powerful character in the game (the specific item I saw was that you could buy an experience booster - so you earn more experience points then those without)

The in phrase is "micro-transactions", it's getting bigger all the time and we will be seeing a lot more of it.

How about a 3d shooter with a nice nude babe, oodles o' polys 'n details, perfect curves, perfect shape.. free, and we'll promise we'll buy the clothes later! :P

> How about a 3d shooter with a nice nude babe, oodles o' polys 'n details, perfect curves, perfect shape.. free, and we'll promise we'll buy the clothes later! :P

Watch out, your describing a Barbie product...

I think some people are realising that a product, once sold in its entirity, has now fulfilled a customer and that's one less source of income after the initial purchase.

Ironic as it may be, the theory is that you actually WANT customers to remain `in need of your product` and you don't want to *really* give them everything they want otherwise they won't come back. In order to make them slave to your system, you would have to dangle a carrot which says `you can have it, but you cant`. You give it and then you take it away sufficiently to require them to want it again so that they will pay again.

In many markets other than games, such as in general sales and marketing, and perhaps take Microsoft as an example, they know that if they control the product and give it to you `with conditions` and that they somehow retain a hold over you or over the freedom of the product, then you will be forced/required to give them some future return commitment in order to continue the phase of satisfaction. That's why people create planned obsolescence.

You give the person what they want, but but strings attached, and you get them really loving it and dependent on it and attached to it, then you reel them in by suggesting that they now have a new `need`, or that the fulfillment of their existing need has now run out. This is exactly the same approach as subscription systems where you keep making these micro transactions and you keep the customer AS a customer, ie they need to continue to pay in future, because then you would potentially get more money back in the long term.

This is commonly known in sales circles, as far as I can tell, whereby in order to make a customer a `repeat customer` you have to limit what you give them - enough to satisfy and to make them want more, then when they come seeking the continued satisfaction it's ok, time to cough up some more money. In the meantime you do what you can to thoroughly addict the person to the product, ie tie their needs to it, so that they can't live without it, in which case your product is basically a sales pitch for its own future sales.

That's also what, I think, we're seeing more and more advertising in games, because basically what is a game if not a giant persuasion device to get you into it, addicted to it, wanting it, being a part of it, so that you'll be much more inclined to give over your money. I am *sure* we're going to see games in future, if not already, that are thoroughly saturated with tonnes of ads, amounting to much the same as an ad-filled sales brochure or one of those magazines which is almost entirely advertising. And these games will basically be turned into marketing machines - you think you're playing them to enjoy the game, but really the whole game is designed to reel you in and make you hungry for more, so that you'll fill someone's pockets.

To me this is really the classic behavior of the ego. I'm not saying it's wrong as such, but one of the ego's behaviors is to give but only with conditions. It is highly contradictory, and is actually insane. It would sell you the *illusion* of receiving something that you want, but would really be giving you an empty nothingness, just some nibble at a fake carrot which looks appealing but is really worthless, and would make sure that you are just satisfied enough but not permanently fulfilled, so that you'll keep searching and searching and searching and never really totally finding any answers to your life's problems. And then you'll look to the ego again to fulfill you further, thus having to meet its conditions and play by its rules in order to continue to think that you're having a great time. This is precicely what's happening in this approach of making money. And it can be very effective, if you want to pursue it.

I am actually thinking of adopting this approach myself, in some form, although it really runs heavily against my sense of values - but it may be the only sensible approach. I was thinking to have an engine of sorts which would be free, complete with tools and stuff which anyone can use for free to create content/modify with it, but then I would also create good quality content and sell it at a price, perhaps also along with selling services. I would then be competing on an equal playing field with other people's creations that they've made with my platform, so naturally I better be sure that my content is going to be good, and hopefully having insider knowledge about the system will help in that regard. I think this would be a pretty reasonable sales model so long as you carefully orchestrate it so that you actually do make plenty of sales still.

Very. I hope lots of people do it, because it just makes my life easier, leaving me free to sell to the people who don't like (or used to like but are now fed up with) having every penny squeezed out of you for things you don't even really want.

Interesting replies. I'm mainly thinking for smaller independent games, the kind most people are making here.

One of the reasons I mentioned Toribash, is because you can download it for free and you get the whole game. What you pay for is some basic color and texture for your avatar, if you want it. It doesn't give you any advantage, it only appeals to your vanity. :) I guess some people pay just to support a cool independent game too.

This is somewhat less cynical than what ImaginaryHuman talks about, where you're basically getting people hooked on your product, and trick them into paying for what they think they must have. I tried Project Entropia a few years ago, where you exchange real money for your characters in game money, and found people there spending more than $120 a month on the game. :P

Would the Toribash approach work for a side scrolling adventure game? A puzzle game? Or a Sims like game? Or any kind of single player game for that matter?

Or would it require some kind of online connection?

As a side note, I read Maxis was going to offer something like this for The Sims, where instead of buying whole expansion packs, you could pick up what you wanted from their online store.

One good example also is the MMORPG Rappelz, free game with premium/consumable items which are sold in the cashshop. Stuff like capes and helmets are only available in the cashshop as well as Stamina Saver to level faster.

In their case I think this works very well, Cashshop items are sold a lot ingame or traded for other rare goodies or for lots of rupees(money). I also buy Gpotatos sometimes to buy stuff in this game to make my character more unique and cooler.

Toribash is a good turnbased fighting game, but in that game it wasn't worth for me to buy other types of skins.

So it al depends on the concept and what people playing those game like.

Yah I guess the type of game has to sort of be structured with this kind of thing in mind. It'd be nice if you could make real payments from within the game without having to go to a browser or whatever.

ImaginaryHuman: With downloads, if the customer likes the game, they may well buy others of yours so it's not the end of the sales pipeline (unless you have no more games, but then you should have affiliate titles ready).

I've got a short attention span for games these days. After about five hours, I've pretty much had enough of any individual game. I've never bought an expansion for a game. I'm not into sequels. For all these reasons, additional content would need to be substantially more interesting than "more of the same" to tempt me to pay for it. But then, I'm not a typical gamer.

and charging more moeny for extras only pulls in the hackers more...are you secure? ;)

Gray, of those who bought one game through you, how many of those people came back and bought another?

I think the most important part of the "free with extras" model is to make it easy to pay for enhancements. For example, small sms payments using a cell phone will make it very easy for the players to purchase something.

Talking of expansions, avoid C&C: Kane's Wrath. It's full of bugs and still won't run properly with all the patches applied... Seems to be a common problem.

About the idea of free game, paid content, then yeah, i'm all for it. If the original game is good enough with no add-ons, i'll leave it to the suckers to spend all their cash on add-ons.

Problem is, if the game is good enough, and considering everyone seems to be a bit short of cash(?) then you might end up releasing a game, and no-one buys the content. Then your screwed, so to speak.

Or make the game have a low price and then have add-ons at a low price?

A considerable number. All people selling multiple games find it's a REALLY high percent. I don't have exact figures to hand, but I know that cross-selling is very powerful.

Makes sense I guess that if they bought something and they like it and they trust you they'll come back to see what else you have rather than go off to some unknown place.

It's called brand recognition. If you buy an EA game and you like it, chances are you'd be willing to try another EA game. I took a marketing class while finishing up my bachelors and absolutely adored it.