After years of working on big-budget games at EA, developer Caryl Shaw switched gears to help create F2P social games for companies like Kixeye and Ngmoco. Several years (and several games) later, she decided to venture back to the world of traditional game development by joining Telltale Games, and gave a frank talk about the topic at GDC Next 2014. 

She shared lessons learned while working on F2P games and why she decided to leave them behind (at least for a while), as well as what traditional game designers can learn from the pioneering work F2P game designers have done in mastering metrics and listening to their players in order to satisfy the needs of a diverse audience. 

It's a good talk that's one part inspiration, one part practical career advice, and one part reminder to never stop questioning how you think about and interact with the people who play your games.

We've taken the liberty of embedding the video of "Reclaiming My Soul: Why I Quit Making F2P Social Games" above, but you can also watch it here for free on the GDC Vault.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

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