How we are okay with Free-to-Play games but shouldn’t be.
I hate (I won’t be yelling) and do not buy any free games that request or require me to purchase items to progress into any other state of the game. And even further shame be placed on games that are paid-for yet still request or require money to continue playing. Yes, this is mixed with a bit of personal principle as a game designer and player, but my focus is these requirements placed on the voluntary nature of games and the players playing, means they aren’t actual games, and if they aren’t games, what else could they be? Simple, greedy and/or obvious business objectives (Don’t worry all you business minded readers, I think games should make money — it’s all in the degees of how). Most importantly they are not and cannot be well-played games.
Bernard de De Koven wrote one of the best books on what it means to play well in games in 1973 and now renewed (2013) with a forward by the prolific game designer Eric Zimmerman (@zimmermaneric) and newer preface by the author. “The Well-Played Game” is simple, thorough, and complex all at once and if you love games, play, design, marketing, children, education, philosophy, and common sense then you have no choice but to learn everything from this book, apply, repeat.
At its simplest, “[A] well-played game becomes excellenct because of the way its being played.” So, briefly we need to understand play. De Koven continues, “I consider a game to be something that provides us with a common goal, the achivement of which has no bearing on anything that is outside the game.” And now we need to understand games.
In Eric’s forward he summarizes De Koven’s idea of a game with, “their elegant rules and challenging systems,” and play as, “the experience of the players and the community they form.” From this base, how could one call Candy Crush a game? Three reasons: Candy Crush doesn’t allow for a well-played game to occur because they require things outside the game (my money) and they take away my ability to choose when to play, when to quit, gain my own skill (which this game requires none to begin with, because you can’t get better at slot machines), and their insane success at making money can be scientifically studied through the profoundly seductive Skinner box and food pellets.
I pick on Candy Crush as a simple and most popular game to exemplify my point because when I had to either buy Continuations or wait a certain amount of time to play again, I realized right away, they took away my sense of a well- played game. I had no choice. And by definition, games are voluntary, by their means to join or quit. As well, Candy Crush asked for something outside the game — my money.
We join and quite games so ubiquitously we don’t realise when the understood affects of their volunteerism have been taken away. Begin crude example: “Hey guys I have a new drinking game, it’s hilarious, you wanna play.” My friends say, “Sure I have a case of beer right here.” Another friend says, “I can’t drink, can I play with Dr. Pepper?” I respond, “Of course, let’s all play.” As the game continues we get silly. Some players quite because they’ll get sick. Some quite because Dr. Pepper is boring. Sometimes it’s just too late at night and the game was fun while it lasted or we just ran out of beer. All these scenerios have nothing to do with the rules of the game and the game couldn’t force us into any of these situations. It’s a well-played game and we all laughed until we cried…or threw up.
You can pick your poison, it’s easy — look at the App Store and if the game is free, yet “offers in-app purchases” or worse has a price and still requires extra money. I never download these games. The only one’s I have downloaded are to be studied and I never spend real money on them.
When I play free games (digital or otherwise — tabletop for instance) or purchase them, I enter a trusted contract to enter a well-played game. If I play with other humans in-person, on a field, at a table, through wireless — if I play a single player game and my oppnent is then just the digital game and its rule system — I expect the chance to win, lose, progress, and gain skills I didn’t have before. I have options to do all those things. The game let’s me experiment with success or failure. And this makes my human or digital counterparts good players and at most provides everyone with a well-played game.
Yet, these free-to-play slot machines provide a barrier to every piece of all these chances— what we all expect a game to offer. And these games are taking advantage of our carelessness and worse — our animal nature to continue getting the food pellet. I have no way to progress in winning or gain skills unless I pay for it. My voluntary assumption and my expectation of being the hero is completely taken away or rendered useless. Instead, we are duped into entertainment for money’s sake and these digital experiences are called, games. I believe there should be a responsibility to this point.
When a company CEO or app description states, “this is the best way to give players the best experience,” what they mean to say (and I have yet to hear otherwise) is, “we couldn’t come up with a game good enough for you to pay for and play through. So, the only way we can keep making you stuff is if we find a way to squeeze money out of you and in turn make it seem like this is a well-played game. You’re welcome.” (Please don’t get me started on the Fu@*#&$ that do this for kid games, like Disney. #shameful)
And everyone’s thinking, “Well, these games are hugely popular. Everyone’s playing. Everyone’s spending millions a month just on Candy Crush. How are they not playing a game?” And that’s the rub isn’t it? Most people can feel when they are manipulated. And I can’t argue if you like being manipulated — food pellets are yummy — but the manipulation is alive, no doubt. After all, we seem to be playing a game. It’s on our smart phones. We can compete with friends. There is a common goal. There are rules and challenges. There are ways to win and lose. What I have a problem with is there is no way to make Candy Crush a well-played game. I can only voluntarily begin playing by tapping my app icon. After that all the rules created by the game require my money, not my skill, not my strategy, not even my effort. I can’t even decide how to play. All I can do is understand my choice to never play and never download shit like this again (I lied, I yelled that).
P.S. I do make an exception with some free-to-play games (and I’ve only discovered a few) that allow me to play the game to the end, gaining items or skills I want. But be mindful, these work only if I don’t have to spend 100% more time playing to get to the end because I don’t cough up lots of money to progress. Some games are conscious of this and balance progress to effort very nicely — where I feel I’m playing and being equally rewarded for my efforts. Notice I don’t talk about how difficult it is to win or lose either.