The next-gen cash grab: why ‘paymium’ fundamentally compromises console game design

January 30th, 2014, 00:43 Posted By: wraggster

Every car in Forza 5 can be bought with standard credits or the alternative ‘token’ currency. Tokens can only be purchased with real cash at an exchange rate of 100TK to 79 pence. Buy 10,000 for £64.99 and you’ll receive another 10,000 for free.

The name is as ugly as the concept. ‘Paymium’, where you’re encouraged to buy content in a game you’ve already paid for, has been lurking in the shadows for years, but it’s become overt with the arrival of a new generation. This is particularly true on Xbox One, where the model has been embraced wholesale, with developers even compromising design to make the cynical system work.Almost all of Microsoft’s launch exclusives featured in-app purchases of some kind. Take Forza Motorsport 5. While players could pay real money for virtual vehicles in Forza 4 and Horizon, the system moved to the foreground this generation. Your real cash currency is forever visible in the game’s menus; the value of in-game currency is now limited, with reduced prizes for victory and huge price tags on the most desirable cars; and the Free Play mode has been gutted to force you to spend more money just to sit behind the wheel of a Lotus F1 car.Internet forums are filled with gamers reacting with indignant horror to the paymium creep, while game sites post hand-wringing editorials on where it will lead. Players’ reactions to Forza 5’s use of the model were so hostile that the game was patched within a month, slashing car prices by up to two-thirds and upping the prize pots.The problem is fundamental, though. Paymium means pairing two diametrically opposed business models. In free-to-play titles, there is an understanding that the basic experience is free, but in return the studio can encourage players to pay for certain elements throughout the game. Indeed, free-to-play titles are designed from the ground up as monetised systems, their core compulsion loops built around concepts of friction and conversion. Everything is geared towards getting the player to the point at which they’ll spend.“We call it the threshold of engagement,” Chris Wright, CEO of research company GamesAnalytics, says. “We have done a lot of work to understand what motivates players to spend money and when that crossover occurs. We find there is an optimum point in all [F2P] games where players who spend money exhibit a very different behaviour. These players will become very engaged in the game, change how they play and often become advocates, driving viral activity. Getting players to this point and not pushing them to spend too early is very important.”Forza 5’s most expensive vehicles are the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Lotus E21 F1 car, at 6,000,000 credits (or 2,334TK), pre-patch. The December update cut both the credit and token prices for the highest-end cars by two thirds.

In a retail purchase, the contract is different. You have paid a premium price, which is ostensibly for all the content necessary to enjoy the game. In this context, free-to-play conventions can feel exploitative. “F2P evangelists will insist it’s about player choice,” says Size Five designer Dan Marshall. “They’ll insist that you can skip all this nickel-and-dime stuff if you want, but it’s not even remotely true. Gameplay is bent out of position right from the off to accommodate F2P mechanics, and the whole game crumples flat as a result. It becomes about how you get the player to pay, not how you get the player to have fun.”Microtransactions in full-price games aren’t new. As soon as broadband speeds allowed for widespread digital distribution and seamless post-release billing systems, the business model started creeping into mainstream retail titles. EA’s The Godfather was among the earliest examples. Borrowing the ‘grind or pay’ mechanic from the eastern MMORPG world, the title allowed players to purchase in-game money to boost their crime empire’s fortunes. The Godfather might be patient zero for paymium but FIFA Ultimate Team made it viable as gaming’s most toxic revolution. Ultimate Team charged for packs of player ‘trading cards’, the constructed teams available to play with online. It was fun and players loved it, in part because it felt fair and because it felt like it belonged – the kids who traded World Cup stickers in the playground could now trade virtual men in FIFA 09.Mass Effect 3 and Dead Space 3 microtransactions followed, and in February 2013 EA’s chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, told delegates at a media and telecoms conference that the company would be putting paid-for content into all its titles. “Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of business,” he declared.It’s easy to see why the model is so appealing to publishers. During an investor call in September 2012, Ubisoft’s worldwide online director, Stéphanie Perotti, stated, “Free-to-play is a very flexible business model. The player has the capability to spend more than in a traditional model.” And when players are already paying £50 on FIFA before doubling that on Ultimate Team with a smile, it must seem like
a model to emulate.But FIFA Ultimate Team is special. It’s a part of the game kept separate from the main career modes – an opt-in extra lots of players have come to enjoy, rather than the entrenched game-compromising cash grab Dan Marshall mentions

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