Why Freemium Won’t Destroy Gaming
I’m taking this for granted: not everyone who creates a freemium game wants to be (or work with) the sort of conscience-free shark that Eli Hodapp describes in his dystopian vision of the future here.*
I’m doing that for a few reasons:
- I know a few of you guys. You’re good guys, and you’re trying to make good games.
- I’ve played a lot of freemium games. Some of them are amazing. They might be made by assholes - I don’t know their developers personally - but they’re not made by that kind of asshole.
- I don’t believe that wanting to make money from a game means you’re greedy. If it’s not greedy to ask for money up front (and while some people make the argument that it is, I don’t think we need to take those people seriously), then it’s not greedy to give a game away and ask for money from fans that want to pay.
You might want to take that for granted, too. It’s hard to talk about the ups and downs of the freemium model when we assume that everyone engaging in it are villains. So let’s cast that theory aside.
Freemium gets a bad rap, but I don’t think it’s the apocalypse that some folks make it out to be. I’ve said it before: I don’t care how you choose to make your money, as long as you produce something that’s a game before it’s a monetization model.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of games out there that are simply monetization models wrapped up in cute art. And there are conferences and conversations and firms all setting out to make that happen more. So some people think “freemium” and they start thinking about all the people out there trying their damnedest to get them hooked on smurfberries.
But that’s lazy thinking.
The freemium market exists because there is a massive audience of people who want things for free, and are willing to pay once they’re hooked. You can tell me it’s wrong to take advantage of those people, and I will agree - insofar as the entire advertising and marketing industry is wrong. Let’s call that conditional at best. It’s wrong to abuse those people, and it’s more wrong to do so when your target market is kids. But it’s not wrong to try to make money, and right now the freemium market is where the App Store money is.
So if there’s blame to give out, let’s spread it around. There are developers who intentionally prey on compulsive people. There are firms who push and facilitate that behavior. There are bloggers and journalists who encourage it by not sufficiently distinguishing between good freemium games and amoral freemium games (and I’m raising my hand here). And there are users, millions of users, who are voting with their wallets. I’m occasionally one of those too.
Maybe this is ruining video games. A lot of people say it is. I used to worry a lot about the race to the bottom and the 99 cent price-point, and some of the things that worried me ended up coming true. Now I worry about the freemium market, and whether every type of game I enjoy will survive it.
But here’s what I expect to see happen: Awesome developers may dabble in the more soulless forms of freemium games, but ultimately talent and love win through. If they find that freemium is where it’s at, they’ll use their talent and love to make awesome freemium games. The bottom will fall out of the soulless awful compulsive game market, because there will be games that aren’t soulless and awful competing with them.
People will still play their assorted -villes, because lots of people like those things. But they won’t somehow become the only games around. And just as the death of PC gaming has proved to be an overblown prediction, developers will find that there are still plenty of people who are willing to pay for premium offerings.
When the App Store was first unleashed on the world, a few success stories made people believe it was an endless gold mine. People made millions. And then people didn’t, and those people vastly outnumbered the ones that did. Eventually, those that stuck it out found that they could (sometimes) make a living if they kept improving their craft, releasing games and doing their best.
Right now the gold rush has moved on to the freemium market. But the gold supply isn’t infinite, and there will come a point when the market stretches to its limits. The folks who keep on making games with love and talent will find that they still have an audience that adores them, and they’ll adapt. The sharks will move on, and they’ll leave the developers that bought into their pitches in their wake.
So let’s not panic, let’s not predict doom for all gaming just yet. Let’s continue to discuss the best ways to implement this sort of pricing model, and let’s celebrate the games that do it well. Good games matter. Pricing models don’t.
*I’m not suggesting @hodapp thinks all freemium game developers are that sort of shark, either. I’m responding to the reaction here, not Eli’s (excellent) post.
