Free-to-Play Games: Professionals' Perceptions
VANKKA, ESKO (2014)
2014
Informaatiotutkimus ja interaktiivinen media - Information Studies and Interactive Media
Informaatiotieteiden yksikkö - School of Information Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2014-03-18
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201403251260
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201403251260
Tiivistelmä
Free-to-play (F2P) is a relatively new way for the game developers to get revenue from their games. The game client is given to the players free of charge and they can play it for free for as long as they want. The revenue is created by selling virtual goods inside the game for real money.
Some of the F2P companies have managed to make huge profits. Unfortunately the revenue model creates some potential problems with ethics and game design. These two sides of the phenomenon make F2P an interesting and important subject to study.
F2P has been researched a lot in the recent years, but game industry professionals' perceptions on the subject have not yet received much attention. This thesis analyzes 69 articles and blog posts from 40 game industry professionals in order to get a high level overview of their perceptions on F2P phenomenon and its effect on game design.
The results of the study seem to indicate that these chosen professionals feel F2P games should be designed ethically and concentrating on providing fun and meaningful experiences to players. Designing F2P games just as quick revenue vehicles is seen as short sighted. Maximizing short term profits is believed to be harmful for developers and for the game industry as a whole.
On a higher level the results indicate that F2P game designers have to continuously balance business interests with their own vision, game experience design, and ethics.
Some of the F2P companies have managed to make huge profits. Unfortunately the revenue model creates some potential problems with ethics and game design. These two sides of the phenomenon make F2P an interesting and important subject to study.
F2P has been researched a lot in the recent years, but game industry professionals' perceptions on the subject have not yet received much attention. This thesis analyzes 69 articles and blog posts from 40 game industry professionals in order to get a high level overview of their perceptions on F2P phenomenon and its effect on game design.
The results of the study seem to indicate that these chosen professionals feel F2P games should be designed ethically and concentrating on providing fun and meaningful experiences to players. Designing F2P games just as quick revenue vehicles is seen as short sighted. Maximizing short term profits is believed to be harmful for developers and for the game industry as a whole.
On a higher level the results indicate that F2P game designers have to continuously balance business interests with their own vision, game experience design, and ethics.