The previous model of battle pass (BP) focused on average daily monetization cap (ADMC) as the key lever in driving more monetization from BP. Special attention was paid to the role of tiers and we’ll continue to do so here. One of the more interesting shortcomings of BP is the inner temporal nature of the…
In 1931, American economist Harold Hotelling published the seminal paper The Economics of Exhaustible Resources. Harold described a problem many firms face: how much of a non-renewable resource should they sell at any given time? This problem is more apparent when thinking about managing an oil supply but just as relevant when considering how to…
Professional sports give us something to aspire too. Players are celebrated as heroes and children grow up wanting to become them. It’s no secret that the internet, and games in particular, have found even more ways to engross us in the world of sports. But the terms of that engrossment are not incidental, they’re crucial.…
In Six common mistakes when moving to live-service games and free-to-play, Ben Cousins argues that cosmetic-only monetization is a mistake:
Monetization’s modern paradigm is defined by a direct store and battle pass (BP). After years (and ongoing) criticism of loot boxes, Fortnite re-wrote the rulebook in a way that seems to make both developers and players happy. However, it’s important to consider that at sufficient scale any monetization scheme looks like a winner. It’s unclear…
Modern live-service games have self-segmented in genres: match-3, 4x, collection RPG, battle royale, etc. We know these genres evolve and start to incorporate new mechanics. Over time, these mechanics become standard genre fare. For example, invest-n-express titles like Gardenscapes are an outgrowth of the match-3 genre, adding collection mechanics to the core match base. In…
The “metaverse” discussion seems more about cultural “in-group” signaling then a thorough exploration of an idea. It’s frustrating. Rather than talking about “what the metaverse will look like” instead we should examine the forecast of a “metaverse” altogether.
Psyonix credits PS+ with vaulting Rocket League to success. Mediatonic decided to follow suit with Fall Guys. And after its success, Destruction All-Stars delayed their launch to be included in the program. Does PS+ deserve all credit it’s been given? There are some stark trade-offs worth examining.
Cyperpunk 2077 launched and it turns out the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game were riddled with bugs. This has lead to an avalanche of omniscient pundits declaring “I told ya so!”. My personally favorite roast in this Miyamoto meme. Rushing development feeds into narratives around greedy firms. “If only they didn’t want…
I recently came across this Tweet: I love the way Ran writes https://t.co/3XUxfsXjDL — Growf (@pinchedforgrowf) December 22, 2020 The article’s writer, Ran Mo, is a Lead Product Manager at EA according to his Linkedin while the quote Tweeter is a fellow product manager. Dive a bit deeper and the retweets are all from fellow…