It’s the incentives, stupid. Players want to unlock content and the most efficient way to do so is to maximize how many FPS games control progression speed: SPM or score per minute. Score is usually a formula composed of objectives and kills. The key is that it’s uncapped: there’s not a fixed amount of XP…
Eric Suffert acutely describes the dangers of extending payback windows. At every t+1 the accuracy of LTV declines while the variance in cohort profitability increases. LTV, however, is not an exogenous variable and clever design can incentivize players into revealing their long-run time horizons within a game. Consider the design of a many subscriptions: you…
There’s a compelling aspect to achieving group oriented goals: being apart of something larger than yourself. Lots of F2P developers harp on the importance of social features. Yet the social experience in many games is abysmal. Lots of teammates or clanmates don’t seem interested in participating instead preferring to “free-ride”, putting forward little effort but…
Economists like Tyler Cowen or Brad DeLong are too self-respecting to study reality shows. Fret not, this economist has no such self-respect. Previously, we examined the economics of the reality show genre but just as interesting are the economics of the a particular reality show’s design. To Hot Too Handle introduces of the most interesting…
In the 1950’s, Peruvian inflation forced Coca-Cola to charge more per bottle of Coke. Unfortunately, their vending machines required physical updating to accept a new and larger domination. Instead, Coke devised a probabilistic system: the machine would charge the same amount as before, but randomly refuse to give a bottle. This raises the expected price…
F2P is as much of a design choice as it is a business choice. Given this, F2P has its own set of design challenges among which is the content problem. Developers will only continue making additional content until the benefits are greater then the costs. This is specified when expected marginal revenue from content…