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[baconman]

Yes, we all know what the proverbial devil of game design looks like. But you know... in one perspective it's genius, and not too unlike the "overly-difficult-from-random-factors-beyond-our-influence" Rogues we seem to LIKE for all of the same reasons. Except for one factor - the buy-out. Rogue games just kill you off, and that's it. Could you imagine how ridiculous it would be if it offered you a 'continue,' like Gauntlet?

Then again, Gauntlet itself did this ages ago, and is still considered a 'good' game, even by my own standards.

The puzzle game itself, I believe, is not made in terms of 'margin of error,' so much as a 'margin of failure.' The certainty of level failure in this game is pretty much cement-solid; how else would the app even offer you the ability to buy your way past a level? And whether this is 'genius monetization' (on a free game, here) or 'terrible game design' really boils down to perspective. And that perspective changes nothing about the fact that it's been monumentally successful.

What do you think or feel about Candy Crush Saga's design, from all perspectives - player and developer; hardcore or casual gamer?

[ThemsAllTook]

Relevant:



(I haven't actually played it myself)

[Sved]

Someone somewhere convinced you to try Candy Crush. A hard game, but if you get stuck, they will help you and give you lives. You play, you like it, you invite all your friends. When they struggle, you help them. It feels good.

But soon, the number of stuck people outgrows the number of people having lives, you all get stuck and the mood dwindles. Your friends regret playing with you. It feels bad.

To keep the fun, your little community going and the status you earned in it, you have to step up and buy some stock to distribute and keep the flow. Isolated people who feel they can't reach for friends anymore will start to buy moves for themselves...

I would say that Candy Crush is not famous because it's a great game, it's famous because it's using time wasting feel, social status shame and pyramid scheme spreading besides its game design.

The smart trick is that they do not promise profit and release all initial material for free. So they are not a scam, they just sell you time, and let you hook your friends to save some.

[Muz]

Getting stuck means that there's a high score in there. I know a lot of people who were bragging about getting to further levels in Candy Crush Saga. It's very similar to those old arcade games, where you pay to try again, just for a shot at getting your name on the arcade. Except Candy Crush lets you do it for free at first.

IMO, it's not bad design. The payment bit only kicks in for the hardcore players. Most of us will just get bored and play something else.

[s0]

IMO, it's not bad design. The payment bit only kicks in for the hardcore players. Most of us will just get bored and play something else.

it's not really good design either tho. all of the good arcade games are "fair" in the sense that you can't randomly lose.

candy crush is basically a form of "soft" gambling but as far as f2p tactics go it's not that bad.

[Udderdude]

Less a study of game design and more a study of human psychology ..

Also http://www.p4rgaming.com/king-stock-price-skyrockets-after-adding-a-buy-stock-microtransaction-to-candy-crush-saga/

[SirNiko]

I admit I had to google to figure out whether the offer of stock via microtransaction was part of the satire or just the subject thereof.

I haven't played Candy Crush, but am I correct that you can simply put down the game and come back tomorrow to get more lives if you don't want to pay? I liked how Kingdom of Loathing used per-day turn restrictions to enforce careful use of your daily resources (and if you died in combat, you'd waste turns recovering). I could see a game like Candy Crush ditching the paywall and making it a hard limit to encourage players to sparingly use resources and being a more interesting game. I'd enjoy seeing more of that, in fact.

[HyMyNameIsMatt]

Someone somewhere convinced you to try Candy Crush. A hard game, but if you get stuck, they will help you and give you lives. You play, you like it, you invite all your friends. When they struggle, you help them. It feels good.

But soon, the number of stuck people outgrows the number of people having lives, you all get stuck and the mood dwindles. Your friends regret playing with you. It feels bad.

To keep the fun, your little community going and the status you earned in it, you have to step up and buy some stock to distribute and keep the flow. Isolated people who feel they can't reach for friends anymore will start to buy moves for themselves...

I would say that Candy Crush is not famous because it's a great game, it's famous because it's using time wasting feel, social status shame and pyramid scheme spreading besides its game design.

The smart trick is that they do not promise profit and release all initial material for free. So they are not a scam, they just sell you time, and let you hook your friends to save some.

I have an mmo to stop playing now.

It's a bland puzzle game with micro transactions, and that's all I can see it as.  I wouldn't invest money in it and I wouldn't want to make a game like it.  I'll acknowledge its financial success and admit that it worked and say I have no interest still.

[Graham-]

You get 5 lives every half day or something. So you can get one session a day, easily. You will lose a lot, but as long as you are willing to play infrequently you can get a lot of gaming in.

I find that I don't want to play that much (at a time) because the mechanics are so simple. There is some randomness, but basically if you plan your way around you can do 10x as good as you would otherwise be able to do. You have to see moves ahead, and set up chains, and so on.

I don't put money into it.

A lot of these freemium games have good mechanics under there, but then there is this kind of strangeness surrounding how they make their money. Reports I've read say that a lot of these games make huge swathes of cash from a tiny portion of their player base, who get addicted and just pour crazy dollars in.

There was an article where the Candy Crush guy was saying that micro-transactions are the future for all games. I don't know if I disagree, but the Candy Crush model is not the right one. It just scratches the surface.

[Chromanoid]

Nice extra credits video from two weeks ago on f2p:



At least my wife treats many games more like worry stones. Candy Crush definitely falls into this category (like 2048, Triple Town, Solitaire etc.). Candy Crush offers a huge variety of match 3 puzzle challenges. It's like a worry stone where you discover new "edges" in the right time (or you can pay for new ones). Why is the worry stone game market so hit driven? I guess it's a matter of discovery, execution, network effects and maybe conformity.

[Graham-]

That's an interesting analogy. So many games are worry stones.

Also, there are a lot of hit driven sectors to the games industry. I don't know why it is that way with these kinds of casual games. I think... a large part of it has to do with access. The biggest draw to Candy Crush isn't the mechanics. If mechanics were the drawing factor then other games would rule. Candy Crush is accessible.

Word-of-mouth creates access. The "genre" lives by looking comfortable, hence the value of your analogy. If everyone is playing it you will play it. There is only so much mind-space for these kinds of games, so you have to be one of the few. Eventually we get bored with one and move onto the next.

I've solved the problem.

[Chromanoid]

slightly relevant
[via Gamasutra]

[Graham-]

That's hilarious.

[s0]

Nice extra credits video from two weeks ago on f2p:

"good" f2p according to this video is not something i look forward to

[SirNiko]

Nice extra credits video from two weeks ago on f2p:

"good" f2p according to this video is not something i look forward to

I was a little iffy at the start, since paywalls and pay-to-win strategies do manage to make money (Farmville being one notorious success, Candy Crush another) even if they turn off the majority of players, but I think their overall point was valid.

Their description of "Making players want to spend money" is a trivial recommendation. Of course that's how you make money. They wasted a lot of time like that until they got to the good example at the end.

Vanity items (like the Money Bomb example) are a great way to introduce content that doesn't discourage the player by removing challenge, isn't required for progress, and gives the player value for their purchase. Alternate costumes, decorative pets, party favors or private chat channels are all things I think make for "good" F2P design. They "make the player want to spend money", but do it in a way that when you look back it doesn't feel exploitive because it's truly optional (assuming, of course, that the vanity shop isn't uncomfortably in your face).

Did you maybe interpret their recommendations differently?

Overall, I prefer simply buying games outright and would rather do that than play anything with a F2P model. Maybe that's where you're feeling iffy, in that F2P no matter how you monetize it feels like renting a game for months when it'd be cheaper to buy it outright?

[baconman]

A new Extra Credits, directly aimed at Candy Crush Saga. It's kind of where I was drawing the line between ingenius and insidious.





Now, to get to that balancing point of 'x moves = usual win - 5 moves'; somebody must have group playtested the crap out of that game first, but in a format that counts your moves up rather than down.

[s0]

Overall, I prefer simply buying games outright and would rather do that than play anything with a F2P model. Maybe that's where you're feeling iffy, in that F2P no matter how you monetize it feels like renting a game for months when it'd be cheaper to buy it outright?

yeah, pretty much. i would prefer not to have any "monetization experience" at all. just let me buy your product and leave me alone please. i also feel iffy about paying for consumable items in a game, because it's essentially paying for nothing.

and even f2p games that sell you actual content are ALWAYS more expensive than normal retail games if you choose to actually pay for all the content, same reason why CoD-style ultra segmented dlc is bad.

[Graham-]

f2p I think still has a strong future. There must be a non-exploitative way to do it.

edit:

I feel like f2p should sell only content. The idea of a "money ball" given in the EC episode first mentioned is interesting. You buy power for your friends, and that is effectively content for you.

The case you're talking about Sinclair is probably true only because too many people do not buy the content packs. If content-focused f2p experiences are more expensive than non-f2p counter-parts then that's the fault of bad design. f2p is just hard to do right.

[SirNiko]

F2P is a good business model for online multiplayer-only games Kingdom of Loathing or League of Legends. It gives the developers an opportunity to keep making money off of long-term players where where they might not be able to offer as much content if they had to develop it all up front and charge a flat fee. Flat fees put the risk on the developer that they might not be able to keep servers running if they grossly underestimate the popularity of their game or the cost of long-term things like community management. From an indie multiplayer game perspective F2P is a good middle ground and works with the recommendations from the video.

But yeah, I agree with Sinclair that as a consumer you're almost always better off paying a flat rate for a complete title when it's available. You pay less in the long-term and sometimes you get a better community of players since getting booted from the game has more sting to it. If the developer is good, you may still get the long term benefits of constant updates and good community management.

Single player F2P like Candy Crush is where it falls apart - you're generally getting the worst of both worlds because you're paying more for content than you'd get in a standard game, and there's no obvious benefit to the player in the form of a large community. There's an audience for those games but I can't think of anyone I'd actually recommend become part of that audience (there are many match-3 titles available). If you're a little developer looking to make money off your game, you're probably better off with a pay-what-you-want system or a robust demo or just ask for donations.

Content packs and DLC are another thing entirely, because of the whole sticky mess of what is withheld content and what is actual additional content. The CoD thing or Dead Space 3 style material purchases after paying retail are a whole different discussion.

[Graham-]

I go out on a date in the city. I'm walking around. I get on the streetcar. We stop off to get some fancy hot chocolate, like espresso but with chocolate. We window shop a little bit, then catch rush seats at a small play - rush seats are cheap seats you can't pre-order. That's a couple of dollars, then only 10 more.

It rains in the afternoon. Shit, forgot the umbrella. We need one anyway, and buy a decent one for 20 bucks. I buy a pair of decent pants - should get some years out of those - after popping into a store my partner noticed in a part of town she brought us to. That purchase was the most expensive so far.

We use our mobiles to find a place to eat, and choose one from 3 we liked. We order appetizers, a main dish. After we get dessert, then because we are pigs get some pastries for bonus dessert an hour later to eat on a park bench.

Our purchases range from a couple of dollars to up past 100. Our products give us use from several minutes up to several years.

The city is free-to-play.