Are free-to-play games ransoming our play time?
Written by Jason Tocci at 8:59 am on January 6th, 2012
Original illustration by Glenn Thomas
One of my favorite moments in any game comes after the first chapter of the excellent Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Following your first foray into a beautifully pixelated fantasy world, the narrator suggests: “Now that you’ve completed session I, how’s about we take a little break? I’ll be right here when you’re ready for session II.”
I would gladly give more money to game designers who are that concerned with my well-being. Sadly, the trend in mobile games seems to be toward demanding that players take a break just as things are getting good – or cough up some cash to keep playing.
We often refer to this mechanism as “cool downs,” with a countdown indicating when we’re able to use some game feature again. Other methods of regulating play time include “energy” or “mana,” indicating how many actions you can take – or what kinds of actions you can take – before you have to wait for stuff to start recharging. And, like any element of design, this one can be used both to good and ill effect.
Using cool downs for good game design is all about pacing. In role-playing and strategy games like League of Legends, Mass Effect and World of Warcraft, your characters’ most powerful abilities often have a cool-down period, encouraging you to save them for when you really need them. There’s an economics of choice involved, an ace up your sleeve that keeps play fun and unpredictable. And in the meantime, of course, you’re still playing.
It’s not the literal sense of allowing machinery to ‘cool down’ to avoid overheating (unless you’re talking about an Xbox).A well-paced game can even use (and incentivize) break time for the wellbeing of its players. World of Warcraft, for instance, gives characters bonuses for playing in moderation, and “resting” in between. Of course, when you play World of Warcraft, you’ve probably already paid to do so. Blizzard doesn’t really have an incentive to encourage your obsessive-compulsive habits – at least not as much as the average free-to-play mobile game.
We may not use the term in the literal sense of allowing machinery to “cool down” to avoid overheating (unless you’re talking about an Xbox, I guess), but that’s pretty much what we’re doing for ourselves as players when cool downs are done well: taking breaks so we don’t get worn out by doing the exact same thing incessantly. When a free-to-play game only gives you a minute to play before asking you to pay to keep playing, however, that’s not “cool” at all – that’s getting you engaged and riled up enough to want to keep striking while the iron is hot. It’s trying to leverage psychology to get you paying to keep playing.
Personally, I can’t fall in love with a game that won’t let me keep playing it. If I’ve already paid for it, or even if I’ve got a subscription to it, then the matter of money is no longer distracting me from play. In fact, the whole reason I’m playing many games in the first place is because I want the game to distract me from stressful stuff like money, a busy schedule, and the rest of the real world. I won’t keep reaching for my wallet each time the game holds its hand up to my face and jangles a cup full of coins in front of me. Clearly, however, some players will.
I realize I may be answering a question here that others aren’t really asking. Even as I’m wondering aloud, “How do you use cool-down timers for good and not evil?”, the real questions floating around are probably, “How do I make as much money as possible from this game?” on the one side, and on the other, “How do we discourage people from bilking innocent players?” I’m coming at it from this angle, though, because I think there’s some middle ground. There are ways to monetize play while still showing players respect and not wasting their time.
So, game publishers, if selling fancy in-game props and premium avatars isn’t enough to pay the bills anymore, please at least suggest break times at reasonable intervals, or even give your players something else fun to do in the meantime. Otherwise, your cute little farms and pet stores are little more than an extortion ring.
You can contact Jason Tocci at the following address : jason@pocketnext.com
