GDC 2010: Ngmoco justifies the freemium model
When we post about Ngmoco, the first comment on the post is often "Here's Ngmoco trying to steal our money again." What do you think when you see a reaction like that?
It's very, very odd because it's strange to see those moments when our goal as a company is that we want to give you a full game experience for free. That's really what Eliminate is. You can log into Eliminate any time you want, and play the game against anyone else, for free. And it's Quake 3 on the iPhone! So it's very interesting when people go oh they're scamming us because they want us to pay ten to twenty dollars to play through a game experience. That really is not true. Because you can never pay for the game and get the same exact experience.
Well, it's not the same exact experience.
It is, it just takes longer to get there.
That in itself makes it not the same.
Well does it or doesn't it, right? Because I feel like there's a lot of games out there where you're paying to do something faster than someone else. There's a whole black market that exists in World of Warcraft where you can buy a level 80 character for hundreds of dollars. There's this market where people are willing to do that. We're just doing that in a way where it's legitimate and fair to everyone.
Well, but a lot of players frown on that even in World of Warcraft. A lot of players say if you buy a level 80, that's cheating, because the game is designed to be played the other way.
And in Eliminate, we would never let you buy a fully maxed out character, right? In Eliminate specifically, what we're allowing you to do, we're still allowing you to play the game, but we allow you to earn credits at a higher frequency than other people. You still have to play the same amount of games, you can't cheat your way to max level, but in actual total number of days to get there, you're lowering it.
I think another reason that people have an issue with this is that you guys, Ngmoco, have said that you're not even bothering with paid apps. There are some people who are willing to pay for a good experience, they're even willing to pay ten dollars for a solid, worthwhile, whole unlocked version of the game. And Ngmoco is saying we're not doing that, it's all freemium or nothing. What would you say to that?
We're just finding that, with paid, you can't make any money. There's only a handful of companies that are able to charge more than three dollars for a game. Gameloft, EA, Square Enix. Anyone else, they charge more than two bucks, no one's even going to look at their game. There's no way that we could have built Eliminate, for the cost per install or cost per SKU that we would have sold, to actually be able to make back that money in the timeframe that we wanted to. It's funny, because people are saying that they're willing to pay, but when push comes to shove, they're actually not willing to pay. That person that says they're willing to pay $10, they'll probably wait for it to drop to 99 cents before they actually purchase it. What they really want is a $10 game for 99 cents. What we're giving them is a $50 game for free. That's really our stance right now.
When you set out to make these games, even a game like We Rule, are you still thinking about it in the old model of, the premium experience for this is $50, or the premium experience is $10? Is there a "right amount" of money to spend to get the full game, or are you just saying the sky's the limit on the amount of money you should pay?
I think what freemium allows us to do is continually make the game better. So instead of going, OK, you as the user have to take a gamble to see if this game is worth x amount of dollars to you; instead, why don't you come in and try the game. If you like it, throw us a couple of bucks. When you do that, we know that you like that piece of the game, and we'll give you more of that, so that if you continue to like it, we'll keep designing these things, right? The ones that you don't like, we'll stop doing. For example in Eliminate, people really wanted co-op. So we're going to give them co-op, because they're going to keep playing the game. Some of them will continue to keep paying to play the game, and that's encouraging as a developer to keep making it better and better. And this is why World of Warcraft works, right, because users are willing to continue to pay to play the game. Unfortunately, not every game can be as excellent as World of Warcraft where everyone in the world is willing to pay for it. I could point you to a game like Dungeons and Dragons Online, which used to be a regular MMO and now is a free-to-play MMO, and they're saying that they're making like 60-80% more revenue as a free-to-play game than when it was paid. And they're now updating the game way more frequently than they did when it was paid.
So it sounds like you're not even thinking in the old model of, "here's this experience for this amount of money." You're thinking of it as a dialogue, where you pay us for what you like, and we'll return more content. You're not just investing two bucks to speed up your game, you're investing two bucks in the game and in future content.
Yeah. You're paying to support the game, and you're paying to support all of the free players that weren't willing to pay for the game. So when you think about it that way, you're paying so that we can maintain the servers that allow all of the people to play. So again, going back to Eliminate, our game that's working right now, you're paying for the game, so that you can continue to own people that don't pay for the game.
Great, thanks very much.
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Source: http://blog.ngmoco.com/
We have a lot of questions for the company, and we'll be asking even more of them coming later this week. But first things first: we...
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I generally HATE this model.
For a while I was really, really, like REALLY into the game League of Legends. Then the retail release hit and out comes the freemium model. Prices were of course so jacked up that your options were either A) Obsessively play the game for months, spending hundreds of hours to unlock things; or B) Pay over $60 (it goes up with every new character added) for a game that should be $30. And that's just for things like characters, if you were to buy non-gameplay stuff like skins you'd be paying well into the hundreds.
I haven't played this game I once loved for months now. It's a "casual players pay double, obsessed players pay nothing" model. Sorry, I've got more games in my collection than I can play as is, YOUR game doesn't deserve hundreds of my hours no matter how good it is.
Free apps can definitely generate revenue in the long run, espcially if it's a trial version that leads to higher premium priced apps.
Check out http://www.AppsFreelancer.com if you have an iPhone app idea, you can get a bunch of quotes completely free. Cool website.
From Ngmoco's perspective: I get the fact that they want to introduce a new business model; a model that in their eyes is better for them ánd for their customers. They should, however, keep listening to the latter: if too much customers are complaining and they really care about them they should "adjust" their business model a bit - or at least on some occasions (Rolando, anyone?).
From their customer's perspective: I get the fact that some are complaining. E.g. I bought Rolando 1 and 2 from the app store. It was a great experience and well worth the money. However, since the freemium model was introduced, these "old" games were COMPLETELY left in the dust. The Plus+ network does remind me of my junk email box. They literally abandoned these games, which makes the fun part (getting to #1 ranking) not funny anymore. I used to hold #1. Now there are 2902 "better" players, if you know what I mean - kind of defeats the purpose.
Well this is a great article and well done on asking such good questions and really pressing them on the matter. Many of the questions you asked were exactly what i was hoping you would.
I now feel that i understand their angle a great deal more.
My problem is though that in the early freemium models, potentially great games like Touch Pets Dogs were ruined by an unbalanced system. You could barely play with your dog without having to purchase new credits. This is what got peoples backs up and as much as i really wanted to enjoy Touch Pets and Eliminate i couldn't. I also haven't even bothered to see if they have updated or improved the balance.
I was cool with their little "freemium" experiment until they axed Rolando 3. I hope somebody else makes a blatant copy of it and also blows them away. Gameloft is usually good to go for that sort of thing.
Why can't they release Rolando 3 for free, first world only, each world after that $3? Then release extra world packs every month or so. I'd keep buying them!! $3/mo isn't too bad and they'll make a ton of cash.
I feel like a world without future Rolandos isn't a world I want to live in. When it first came out, Touch Arcade compared it to being the "Mario of the iPhone." Imagine if Nintendo, one day, said there will never be another Mario game. How sad would that be? And nothing could be done about it because they own the rights. Lame!
I feel like a piece of gaming history is being casually tossed aside so they can make an extra couple bucks. Rolando was revolutionary and helped jumpstart a brand new gaming platform. It will always be remembered. Sleep sweetly, my little Rolandos. Finger will always love you! RIP.
^^^^^Stupid 1Password, downrank please ;)
I have nothing personal against the freemium model in and of itself. I just wish they hadn't cancelled Rolando 3; Rolando 1 & 2 were really solid, probably some of the best games on my iPod touch.
We Rule is just bad though.
Magic Mouse works lovely with my older white Bluetooth keyboard (the thick one with a numeric keypad). No battery issues. Fingers crossed for those who're having them.
March 10 2010 at 10:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI agree with him that it's crummy how undervalued games are on the iPhone, but this isn't a good solution, in my mind.
I absolutely loved Rolando, but I'm not going to be playing any of their games going forward, because I hate the freemium model. I'm not saying it has no merit, I just don't like it and refuse to participate.
I have been trying to wrap my head around this topic and why I generally dislike this model in gaming.
On one hand the model makes sense regarding low or no entrance cost and charging for further pieces or enhancements. At its core I understand and its logically sound.
On the other hand I think something is lost by going this route, and it bugs me. Games for me are enhanced by the shared experience of playing the game with others. Either actually with others in a multiplayer game or around the same time as others in a single player game. Having the same experience or at least put against the same set of game design and rules is important I believe in having a great shared experience.
Each layer of micro-transactions added too the mix and the deeper the micro-transactions get into the design of the game the more I think it detracts from the experience of playing.
Thoughts?
Like it or hate it, it does give you the opportunity to play a game before you buy it. Everyone says they'd pay more for quality, but if that was true, life would be a lot different.
March 10 2010 at 4:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI think it is true, but finding that quality is not so easy. I have spent hundreds of dollars (maybe over $1000) on games for my iphone.... I'd say that I have spent less then $100 on games that I play more then a couple of times. It makes me leery to buy games at this point. Most likely the game will be a bust... at least that is my perception. I love the games that I love (of course) and would pay as much as $10 or more for those games, but it costs money to find those games.
March 10 2010 at 4:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@Dave:
May I suggest these awesome games (in no particular order):
1) Plants vs Zombies
2) Angry Birds
3) Glyder
4) Harbor Master
5) Airport (or Airport Lite)
6) Field Runners
7) I Dig It
8) Spider
9) Flight Control
10) Canabalt
11) Tower Bloxx
These are all super games that were worth the price for me :).
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