Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Last week, I compared the perspectives of a pay-to-play (P2P) gamer and a free-to-play (F2P) gamer in regards to their investment in a game. My conclusion was that the F2P gamer is more likely than the P2P gamer to move to a new title for a fresh start since it costs nothing to try a game and the old one is always there waiting. Understanding the perspective of F2P gamers allows us to draft a blueprint for how developers can demonstrate their commitment to a title and draw in new players.

For starters, the quality of the game presented and the selection methods employed during beta testing are crucial. In a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, NetDevil’s Scott Brown shares his insight on the use of beta test phases to positively market a game and the necessity to be certain a title is as bug-free as possible during open beta.

The F2P approach to beta testing is quite different from the P2P goal of getting exposure and squashing bugs. F2P developers seldom have access to an established IP (Pirates of the Caribbean Online is one notable exception), so they must offset the need to build a player base from the scratch by using closed beta as the primary tool to market the game. Usually, developers do not implement NDAs to protect their F2P titles; the more user-created videos to reach YouTube the better for them. Word of mouth has to make up for a lack of advertising dollars, so beta slots go to just about any reputable network or publication that will distribute them.

F2P developers have to learn to take beta seriously if they want gamers to take their product seriously. Beta should be more than a marketing opportunity. The product presented to testers needs to be stable and robust for as much content as is available for the beta. Get the first ten levels polished to perfection during beta because anybody can try them and the window of opportunity to “sell” a player on the game is woefully small. Except for the rare F2P gamer who truly can’t afford to pay for subscriptions, most people who beta test a F2P title will not be satisfied with substandard gameplay. For solid examples of how to conduct a closed beta test, developers need to look no further than Wakfu or Runes of Magic. Very exclusive betas serve to create fervor for the game while recruiting serious testers. 

Once all betas have ended, companies have to release a polished product. Noting the importance of a smooth launch to retain customers, Brown asserts in the same Ten Ton Hammer interview that a game cannot recover from a poor launch. F2P publishers haven’t received this message yet, and they often treat launch as another chance to push their game through media outlets. The players may not notice a difference; barring major patches or features, a launch for a F2P title can be very lackluster.

After launch, F2P teams aim to get new players rather than focusing on the retention of current players. The first goal is to open the item mall and get people to spend money; item mall purchases pay for the development of the next game the community can try from the same publisher. Then the priority is to correct the most damning bugs to reduce any negative word of mouth. Content updates usually grow the game out (with content at various levels) to give players more ways to spend time in the game so that they will feel compelled to use the item mall. Expansions are rare in F2P games (even though Perfect World International managed it) because income from an expansion seldom makes up for the production costs without the aid of the box sales P2P games enjoy. In short, F2P companies work toward capturing new players while moving the departing ones to a new game in development. Growth of the entire gaming network hosting the game comes at the expense of the growth of any one game.

The next step in improving the appeal of a F2P title is to do some real marketing. Nexon adeptly used pig and fish commercials to market Maple Story. If TV spots are outside the budget, companies should spend some money on online ads (Atlantica Online is everywhere on the web!) or some print ads. These advertisements should not run for open beta but for the launch of the game instead, when the majority of deal-breaking bugs are no longer in the game. Finally, instead of relying on accidental customers to sustain their game, companies should define their audience and market to them.

Spending money on marketing for smaller studios will be tough, and it requires heeding my hardest advice for F2P developers to follow: RESIST THE URGE TO CHURN OUT ANOTHER GAME IN FOUR MONTHS! Everybody get that? I’m not saying to never make another game (Sony Online Entertainment has a full stable of games); I’m just asking developers to display some commitment to one title before flinging all of their resources into the next one. That means reinvesting the item mall revenue back into the game (not in the development of new one) to fix the bugs that turned people away earlier in the development cycle. It means releasing content updates that are meaningful to legacy players; grow the game up and out to maximize reach even if that means alternating content updates that add end game content and others that add a new class, trade skill, or mid-level dungeon. Most of all, developers who want gamers to invest in their game must first demonstrate their own investment in it.

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