The Top Free To Play Monetization Tricks

Gamasutra: Ramin Shokrizade's Blog - The Top F2P Monetization Tricks


From Behavioral economics of Free to Play games (Cory Doctorow)
(http://boingboing.net/2013/07/09/behavioral-economics-of-free-t.html)
- Ramin Shokrizade's "Top F2P Monetization Tricks" shows how the free-to-play world deploys practical behavioral economics to convince players to spend more than they intend to, adapting to players to hook them and then pry open their wallets wider and wider. I was very interested to learn that some games look for behaviors that mark out "spenders" and convert themselves from "skill games" (win by being good at them) to "money games" (win only by spending):


From Ramin Shokrizade's Paper
-Premium Currencies :  Research has shown that putting even one intermediate currency between the consumer and real money, such as a ?game gem? (premium currency), makes the consumer much less adept at assessing the value of the transaction. Additional intermediary objects, what I call ?layering?, makes it even harder for the brain to accurately assess the situation, especially if there is some additional stress applied.

-Reward Removal : The technique involves giving the player some really huge reward, that makes them really happy, and then threatening to take it away if they do not spend. Research has shown that humans like getting rewards, but they hate losing what they already have much more than they value the same item as a reward. To be effective with this technique, you have to tell the player they have earned something, and then later tell them that they did not. The longer you allow the player to have the reward before you take it away, the more powerful is the effect.

-Social Layer : In money games that contain a social layer, this social layer is used as an added incentive to show off your ?skills? to other players that may still not realize they are in a money game. This is the purpose of the mini-leaderboards in Candy Crush Saga, to make it look like you need to try harder to beat your more ?skillful? friends.