The F-Words of MMOs: Free-To-Play
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The current thrust in the F2P "revolution" aims to remedy both these inefficiencies. It's what I call the "Convenience" model. This model is based on the very model I've been describing here, that money and time are scarce resources, and people tend to have one or the other. In the convenience model, you can play to progress, pay to progress, or any mix in between.
From a purely marketing standpoint, it's genius. People can spend all the time they want, and all the money they want. There's no missed opportunity to monetize people here. However, from a game design perspective, it's a catastrophe.
In order to make the convenience model work, games have to be designed with a very high barrier to get that "worthwhile" experience from the game. The requirement in time/money has to be very high in order to get the most money out of everyone. If that bar slips too low, people stop paying what you expected to get. If that bar slips too high, people stop playing, period, because they don't have any fun even after spending all the time and money they have available.
The convenience model tells game designers: design a game that is as inconvenient as possible so that we can sell convenience to players. Actually, make a game that is horrendously addictive so people have to play it, but make it as unpleasant as possible so people are willing to pay money to avoid having to actually play the game. Most game designers I know didn't get into this industry to make games that people loathe so much they pay real money to not have to play it.
Plus, gamers are on to it. They're getting savvy. They're starting to realize they're just being taken advantage of and abused by these sorts of addictive games. Gamers don't want to be a blue/green bar on some economist's spreadsheet. They want to be playing games. They want to be having fun.
