GUEST BLOG: The digital pinatas.

Creating a game itself can be understood as an act of psychological study. For games are digital piñatas, stuffed with rewards that satisfy deeply ingrained human needs. Or rather, a given level, stage or in-game task is a conceptual piñata of its own, and as each is cracked, the contents tumble forth, showering the player with a bounty that replenishes our internal reservoirs of mental wellbeing. 

Will Freeman, freelance games journalist and former editor of Develop 

We humans crave interaction, freedom over our own actions and the ability to achieve; they are what keeps us happy, and games can satisfy all those needs. Game designers may not consider it to be so, but in every choice they make as a project takes life, there is an element of predicting how to best satisfy those base-level human desires. And so it is that psychologists, like F2P Summitspeaker Berni Good, have applied their craft to games design, helping developers to better understand how to make players enjoy their games.

But game psychology is not only about making your games more playable; it can also make them more bankable. Designing game mechanics to encourage the player to commit to microstransactions is rightly a much-debated topic, and there is a paper-thin moral line that must always be considered with this kind of approach. From A/B testing to academically elaborate methods, psychology’s application to free-to-play and monetisation must always be considered in a firm ethical framework.

Yet that does not mean it is inherently wrong. From advertising to packaging, psychology to sell is a long established model that can – and should – be applied in a way that is not exploitative. Indeed, game psychology can be called on to better a freemium title’s ethical standing. And, most intriguingly, applying psychological theory to free-to-play game design is no longer the strict reserve of the model’s giants, who have long paid handsomely for academics to assist in making their creations turn a profit.

Free-to-play can, of course, today serve as a vital monetisation model for start-ups, and for small teams it makes for a hugely tempting way of bankrolling a studio’s first months or years in business. But those teams are unlikely to have the budget for much in the way of psychologist, be they on staff or in a consultant capacity.

But, Good, who is always a fascinating speaker at conferences, once again looks set to reveal that the tricks of understanding the human being are well within the realm of the layman, as she this time takes a look at the psychological perception of the value of purchasing online game items. She will explore how human traits like jealousy and envy impact the player’s buying process, and it should serve up vital lessons for designers looking to better understand their player’s minds.

If a start-up can add psychology to their arsenal of game design tools, they may well make not just more profitable releases, but creatively superior ones. Indeed, psychology could be the key that unlocks that ultimate in free-to-play creations; a title where gameplay and monetisation mechanics are inseparably fused, for the benefit of the game as a creative endeavor, the player and a developer’s need to pay the rent, all within a ethical credible framework. It’s something every studio should pay attention to.

This blog was written by Will Freeman, former games journalist and former editor of Develop. Berni Good is speaking at F2P Summit, 10 October 2013 at RichMix in London. www.f2p-summit.com 

GUEST BLOG: There’s been a GaaS explosion but we missed the fun.

Boy oh boy, games as a service is a hot topic.  You can’t move without someone talking about retention or in-game events or PvP or how in the hell GREE’s Modern War is back in the Top 5 App Store grossing charts again.  Or how Puzzle and Dragons is making forty-three billion dollars a day or how King is going to be worth more than Facebook….

Struan Robertson

Fine, so I’m stretching the truth a little – not everyone is talking about games as a service.  For a start, I’m sitting on a train from Oxford to London and the two smart looking gentlemen sitting near me are doing what I would imagine to be the opposite of talking about games as a service – sleeping and reading a book about maths.  (I’m not making that up, dude’s reading about the golden ratio right now).  But increasingly developers and publishers are realising that the world of free-to-play has moved into a state where the service portion of the game is of prime importance and that retention should be prioritized ahead of monetization.  And this approach is resulting in titles that blow up and then stick around the top grossing like they own the joint.  As a neat way of proving my point, I can see at least three people playing Candy Crush Saga from here.

And you can kind of see why this hyperbole-riddled world of GaaS is taking hold.  As a principle for development, free-to-play games as a service offer quite an enticing opportunity.  If you get it right, you can keep people playing (and paying) in your world for years.  What seems to be eluding people is what ‘getting it right’ actually means.  People (myself included) spend a lot of time talking about the kinds of mechanics you need - for a tasty game as a service, stir in one part PvP, one part clans, three parts collectable cards, a dash of mystery box to taste and then bake for three years.  And sure, there are some mechanical aspects of a GaaS that will help with its success but mechanics alone is kind of missing the point. 

If you don’t have a fun thing in the first place – characters that people care about, a thing that makes people’s faces light up when they play it, something with its own sense of charm or place in the world - then you won’t develop anything of lasting meaning.  Concentrate on those game development principles of old like establishing your game pillars, establishing your game world and its history and concentrate on gameplay and player feedback to develop a Creative Core for your game.  Then use that ‘Creative Core’ as a foundation for the rest.

Maths Guy has moved onto quadratic equations now in case you’re interested.

This blog was written by Struan Robertson, Microsoft Lift London. The F2P Summit takes place on 10 October 2013 at RichMix in London. www.f2p-summit.com

GUEST BLOG: The Science of Listening.

Unlike many other sectors, we are awash with data in the games industry. Through this data publishers and developers can see what players like, what they don’t like and how they want to experience games. But are you really listening?

 Mark Robinson

With thousands of free to play games now on the market, understanding exactly who is playing your game, how they like to play it and how best to engage them forms an integral part in developing profitable games. The art of successful monetisation lies in something we call the Science of Listening. Listening to your players and using that data to create the right messaging strategy is a true science that many publishers and developers are yet to master.

The Science of Listening allows us to highlight players who are frustrated and intervene with them to improve their experience through tailored hints and tips or resource gifts.  It also allows us to understand playing styles so players get appropriate offers to encourage them to monetise; for example, aggressive players getting weapons and ammo offers, strategic players getting boosters. Ultimately it is about personalising the game experience based on player behaviours so that we move away from the one-size-fits all mentality and improve the game environment for all players.

The key is to treat players as unique and to not look at the mass as an amorphous lump, which is where analytics can help publishers and developers cater for these different player types.

This player-centric approach is a massive opportunity for publishers ensuring

good returns on their investment in the game. Understanding key segments of

actual players avoids the reliance on focus groups and testers to optimise the

game design.

The Science of Listening is about combining analytics technology with human expertise to analyse player performance in real-time, using advanced data mining and predictive modelling to segment and act on various different player behaviours simultaneously. By using analytics to segment players into different groups, you can then develop a messaging strategy which is relevant for each group.

However, it is worthwhile understanding the theory behind the science as effective analysis of behaviours combined with appropriate and timely message

interventions, equals the potential to dramatically improve a game’s retention

and monetisation metrics and can generate revenue uplifts in the range 20-40%.

Players are trying to tell us what type of gaming experience they want; and now

publishers and developers have the ability to listen and to create more responsive and engaging games.

This blog was written by Mark Robinson, COO and co-founder of predictive analytics specialist GamesAnalytics, will be presenting on ‘Using Segmentation to Really Understand Your Players’ at F2P Summit on 10 October in London. 

GUEST BLOG: Mind the Gap!

Standing on a tube platform yesterday after a few days of back to back meetings with game developers, it dawned on me that people in this industry need to show high levels of caution when thinking about applying methods and strategies to the F2P model that claim to be focused on gamer behaviour. Why? Because it is crucial that developers are critical of whatever is being recommended to them. They must ensure it is robust and, where appropriate, scientific. Any assumptions from a gamer psychological behavioural perspective must be backed by concrete evidence and be reliably tested.

I see lots of articles and assumptions made about the psychology of video games, some of which just don’t seem to me to have good scientific status. I would not go as far as saying the advice is pseudoscientific, but making claims, beliefs or practices that are presented as scientific from a gamer psychology perspective but cannot be backed up with robust valid scientific method is dangerous and, ultimately, can be damaging for business, not to mention compromising the gamer experience.

Whilst there is a gap between the academic scientific findings about gamer psychology and how the industry can utilise this to enhance the gamer experience, any recommendations must be critically evaluated and credible. Psychology is a science and, used well, understanding human behaviour and applying this to the gaming development process can only be a good thing. But this is dependent on it not being used to manipulate, which is just as bad as using assumptions about the psychology of the gamer that are not found on scientific research and calling it psychology.

For example, using popular psychological models such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and applying it to influencing gamer behaviour would require, because of the nature of the model (i.e. a psychological model of motivation), that you are assuming the model can be used to influence motivation to play and/or address psychological needs at the point in the game where you are trying to change the behaviour.  

If you were using this theory to understand at what point to introduce a particular monetisation tactic you would need to test and retest scientifically to understand whether there are any statistically significant results within that particular point  of the game play. If there were, then you could assume it actually triggers the behaviour you want. It’s far better, however, to utilise models within psychology research that have already been tested scientifically by researchers and applied to video game play and that have already shown statistically significant findings about influencing player behaviour.

Both the F2P model and video game psychology are very new fields and really there are only a few people in the world that specialise in this science who have the proper background and exposure to the game industry and the scientific training to really understand how human behaviour aligned to psychology of video game play works. There are some truly great innovative psychological academic papers available around the F2P model which examines gamers' motivation. One of these is the research that seeks to understand the gamers' perception of value in purchasing in game items, for example, that developers can utilise in their work, (I will cover this off extensively in my talk at the F2P Summit) with the knowledge that the findings are robust and have good reliability and validity.

Working back in the games industry after years of academia training to be a psychologist for me is thrilling as well as stimulating and, frankly, in my humble opinion, the industry has some of the best minds in the world working in it, so I am not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs. However, I do advise that claims of a psychological nature in terms of gamer behaviour should be especially critically evaluated and developers ought to ensure that any suggestions and recommendations about gamer psychology they use in their work are grounded in scientific evidence.

This blog was written by Berni Good who is the founder of Cyberpsychologist Limited (www.cyberpsychologist.com) and who is speaking at F2P Summit on 10 October - www.f2p-summit.com 

WHY I LOVE FREE TO PLAY, by Andy Lane, dad of three.

My name's Andy. I'm a dad of three. And I love free to play games.

Why, you ask? Why not, is my reply.

Seriously, what's not to love about free to play? The first clue's in the name. They are free to play. And when you have three kids, the word 'free' is always a pleasure to hear.

Don't get me wrong. I am not averse to spending money on games. Good games that offer hours and hours of unputdownable gameplay are absolutely worth the £40 price tag. If I thought otherwise, I'd have been in the wrong business for the last 20 years.

But, as a dad, when there are so many other things competing for that £40, you need to know that you're spending it wisely. That it's being spent on a game that will keep the kids - all of them, of different ages - truly immersed, engaged and entertained before you put your hand in your pocket.

It offers you the chance to try before you buy - you can decide if you like it before you're asked to consider parting with any cash. Or not.

What's more, I also love that they have the power to appeal to different age groups and both genders in a way that console games generally don't, which means all three of my kids can play the same game, and I can also compete against them. So in spite of us playing games on individual devices, the games are oddly successful in bringing us together to play as a family.

And finally, there's a lot to be said for the quality and variety of free to play games. Being free means the market is uber competitive. Players have made no investment in the game, so there's nothing to stop them turning off after 30 seconds and moving on to the next one. This means the quality of most free to play games is incredibly high. The cost of development and ease of self-publishing has also made free to play an incredibly accessible marketplace which means the variety and quantity of titles on offer is mind blowing.

Sadly, though, not everyone is so happy to wax lyrical about free to play in the same way. Back in April, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched an investigation into whether children were being unfairly pressured into paying for additional content. It followed a number of high profile cases where children had racked up bills in the thousands playing iOS games because their parents had failed to lock their Apple IDs and, therefore, their accounts.

It's important to note, I think, that the OFT never implied micropayments were wrong. At the time, the OFT was quoted as saying: '[We are] not seeking to ban in-game purchases, but the games industry must ensure it is complying with the relevant regulations so that children are protected.'

As a parent, and as someone who works in the games industry, I do think it's important that developers are transparent about payments and parents & children are not misled. In fact, I think it's such an important topic that, at the F2P Summit in October, we're hosting a panel debate about the extent to which it's OK to market in-app purchases to kids. Where do you draw the line? How pushy can you be? What's morally acceptable and what's not? 

Of course, I also think if we're going to avoid any repetition of earlier scandal that parents also need to take a little responsibility in understanding the technology they're putting into their children's hands and learn how to manage their child's access to their billing and payment information better. With marketers and parents working together then there's no reason why our kids can't continue to enjoy the fantastic entertainment that free to play offers. 

Andy Lane is managing director of Tandem Events, which organises the F2P Summit at RichMix in London on 10 October 2013. www.f2p-summit.com. The debate about free to play and marketing to kids is the focus of one of our panel sessions. Come along - have a voice.