Focus on Skill in F2P Games

Apple's Editor's choice this week is CastleStorm - Free to Siege, by Zen Studios and

it got me thinking about the evolution of the mobile devices we play on today. 

Naturally you might say, shit evolve, get on with it - and I will. In a minute. 'Cause while the devices we play on, increasingly enable more and more complex games, what should we really focus on when trying to make a game, players actually want to play? - want to spend in? As always, I focus on the making of money, and why some more complex games today fail at doing so, because of just that, Complexity.

I would like to focus and discuss game design choices and their effect on the retention and revenue - When wanting to make players spend in your game, hopefully more than once, why should you focus on skill, and not the complexity of the game?

Before I dive in, I want to explain what I mean by the two expressions, Skill and Complexity. 

Skill in this post, is pretty much what you would expect. Mechanical or mental challenges, being it puzzles, button mashing or swipe-for-your-life mechanics.  

Complexity is a bit more tricky. The depth of the game, so to speak. Being it graphically or multiple types of game play, a game can be more or less complex. Vague explanation, but you hopefully get the point.  

Disclaimer: Social Features are not included in this post. Social features has proven to be one of the best retention and revenue factors, why its affect should be not discarded, but this post rather focuses on the actual game play to spawn that potential revenue and retention - I'll be social later. 

Enough excuses! Let me give you a few examples:

Flappy Bird, Subway Surfers, Tiny Wings and Threes are good examples of a F2P experience with very low complexity; the mechanics are fairly limited and the game sticks to one type of game play. Skill is the crucial factor here, and the reason for these games' success. Common for these games is that the mechanics do not change, though some of them introduce another layer, like mission, the player is still afforded to maintain the same type  of play. The game is limited to it. And yeah yeah, I realize Threes is not F2P, but didn't really feel the need to promote the other, and the price of those specific games, won't have an impact on the retention. 

Naturally, it is a balance. While these game have shown to be a more or less successful, a game should have some complexity to engage players that play the game to have an experience an not just display skills. Telling a story and creating ownership is not to be neglected. This is why we see all of Supercell's games high-five'n each other, at the top of the charts. The diversity in the game play, building, defending and attacking is creating a whole experience, but still focusing on the same gameplay just slightly altered. 

Even a game like Candy Crush manages to do this through various success criteria, being it points, nuts, gel, the game forces the player to change tactics and display skills in a different way, adding that needed portion of complexity. Even the recent Owl levels - complexity. If it was merely a match three survival game, I don't believe that game would have seen as much success, being solely focused on skill.

Last, and somewhat least, is the games that presents too much complexity to the player - and CastleStorm - Free to Siege is a great example. The game uses its tutorial to present 3-4 different game modes, and by the time it is done, the player is not completely sure what this game is about. 

I'm playing a Tower Defense, Angry Birds and Golden Axe at the same time, and none of them are very good. Three wrongs definitely don't make a right. There are a rise in the volume of games that does this. These crossbred games that unfortunately wants to do everything at once. I cannot tell if it is the possibilities then devices enable today or just unfortunate game design - but this is probably why the game is floating around in the mid 200s on the top grossing charts in the U.S. and U.K. (Source: AppAnnie)

You cannot simply make a list of top grossing games' best features, and shove them into one game and expect success. Independent of prior titles. Find the intrinsically fun mechanics in your game and focus on skill and simplifying those mechanics. Then you can use the technical possibilities to show the player the complexity of the game, don't ask them to engage in all of it.  

Developers need to keep in mind, the platform and the audience they are creating games for. You need to explorer the premise of which we play mobile games, and focus on that, when the goal is to increase the retention and revenue, especially long-term. 

A very important point to make is that complexity and skill is very bound by time. So don't look at Clash of Clans' level of skill and complexity and go; "If I just make this twice as fast, then I have a game twice as good." No! Wash those dollar signs out of your eyes and sit down - you're missing the point completely. 

The devices we make are increasing exponentially in power, but maybe the games we play don't need to be. So hold off on making that MMO-FPS-JRPG. Just for a little while, or you will be robbin' yourself of a whole lot-a-time and money.

Jump over to www.appcrimes.com for more or reach me @appcrimes