Issue: "Free" as a Business Short Article: Why Free-to-Play Games Aren't Always Free
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Issue: “Free” as a Business
Short Article: Why Free-to-Play Games Aren't Always Free
By: Sharon O’Malley
Pub. Date: November 23, 2015
Access Date: May 13, 2023
DOI: 10.1177/2374556815621291
Source URL: https://businessresearcher.sagepub.com/sbr-1645-97593-2704622/20151123/short-article-why-free-to-play-games-arent-
always-free
©2023 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
©2023 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Psychology explains why people pay to keep playing
Executive Summary
Many mobile games are free to play, but offer options to pay to advance. Most players never pay. Those who do are motivated by a variety
of factors, according to one game company executive.
Full Article
Fans of mobile, free-to-play games can fell trees, slay bad guys, build cities and color-code rows of candy anytime and anywhere they
have Internet access and a phone, tablet or computer. And they can enjoy the chase for hours at a time—without paying a dime.
Eventually, though, the players will reach a level that they cannot surpass, or they will find themselves in a sticky situation that they can't get
out of without paying for a solution.
At that point, 97.7 percent of players will shut off the game and log back on some other day for another round of free play, according to a
report by the mobile marketing company Swrve. 1 The remainder, however, will pull out their credit cards and buy another life, a mightier
champion or a boatload of doughnuts with the hope of outsmarting the challenge and advancing to ever-higher levels of play.
Those remaining 2.3 percent of players spend an average of $350 a year playing games they can never win, Swrve found. 2 Game
developers are experts in the psychology that compels gamers to ante up for experiences they could get for free if they could resist the lure
of the bigger, better unknown.
Joseph Farrell, chief executive officer of BiTE Interactive, a Los Angeles-based developer of mobile apps,
points to four ways that game developers use psychology to get players to pay for games labeled “free”:
Reciprocity: Car dealers for years have relied on the human compulsion to return every kindness.
“They almost always offer you a can of soda,” Farrell says, “and your dad would say: ‘Don't ever take
the soda.’ … He was right. If I give you something, even something small, like a can of Coke, you'll
feel a conscious desire to return that favor by giving me something as well.”
In the case of a buyer and a seller, however, the price of what the seller has offered most often is immensely
less valuable than what the buyer purchases in return.
A free-to-play game gives its players lots of freebies. For starters, it allows a gamer to play without paying,
often for long periods. If the player does well by executing a demon, by advancing to a higher level without
being assassinated—or even, in the case of “The Simpsons: Tapped Out,” by picking up trash—the game Joseph Farrell
rewards the player with extra rounds or free currency to spend on sharper swords or magical abilities.
Page 2 of 4
Short Article: Why Free-to-Play Games Aren't Always Free
SAGE Business Researcher©2023 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Players of the free game “The Simpsons: Tapped Out” can rebuild Springfield after Homer causes a meltdown at the nuclear
plant, but they will need to pay real money for some doughnuts to get the most out of the game. (The Simpsons: Tapped Out
screenshot)
Along the way, however, the game will prompt the player to spend actual cash—as little as 99 cents at a time—for a bank of currency that
the gamer can exchange for a few extra moves or for unlocking a special character. By that time, many players feel like they owe
something to the game in exchange for the many hours of free play they have enjoyed.
Ego depletion: Not everyone feels guilty about accepting something for nothing. But even the strongest-willed players eventually
can lose their resolve if they play long enough, Farrell says.
Games are designed to reward players with many wins early on, he explains. The more they win, the longer they will play. And the longer
they play, the more opportunities they have to buy upgrades.
As the wins pile up, the game becomes more challenging and the invitations for players to buy their way out of various binds become more
frequent, will power erodes, Farrell says. “Once that will power is gone, once that ego depletion hits,” he says, “we see a substantial
tipping point, so a player who has not paid for a game for a month or two will start spending a large amount.”
Intermediate currency: Games deliberately don't call their money “dollars and cents.” They call it gold, gems, points, doughnuts or
another clever pseudonym.
That's a strategy similar to the one casinos use, Farrell says: “Most people would say, ‘I wouldn't put $1,000 down on a dice roll, but if I put
10 pretty chips on the table, they're just chips. They don't mean anything to me.’”
Most free-to-play games further confuse the player who tries to keep track of spending by having at least two types of currency. (In the
Simpsons game, for instance, players can buy not only pink-iced doughnuts but also tickets good at the Krustyland theme park.) And
purchases at the lowest levels of gameplay cost far less than they do at advanced echelons, where players are more invested in winning.
“As humans, we have a strong desire to finish something,” Farrell says.
“Fun pain”: The term, coined by Roger Dickey, founder of software developer Gigster, refers to the feeling a player has when stuck
3
in an uncomfortable situation while playing an enjoyable game. Many players are willing to buy their way out of this position.
Once they are invested at a high level in a game, players sometimes are faced with a choice: Buy currency or die. “If you die,” Farrell says,
“you might have to wait until tomorrow to keep playing for free” if the game limits each free session to a certain number of “lives.” “Or you
can pay to keep playing today.”
Farrell says this psychology is not limited to video games. “All over the world, we're using this in nontechnical commerce,” such as car
dealerships and casinos. “And we've been doing this in games forever. The game is unwinnable without paying.”
Page 3 of 4
Short Article: Why Free-to-Play Games Aren't Always Free
SAGE Business Researcher©2023 SAGE Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About the Author Sharon O'Malley, an instructor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, is a freelance writer, editor, consultant and trainer who has published articles in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including The Arizona Republic, USA Today, Ladies' Home Journal, Working Woman and American Demographics. For SAGE Business Researcher, she has written reports about Internships and Mortgage Finance. She has ghost-written three books, including “Where Winners Live: Earn More, Sell More, Achieve More Through Personal Accountability.” Notes [1] “New Report Finds Over 60% Of All In-Game Revenues Are Generated By Only 0.23% Of All Players,” news release, Swrve, April 9, 2015, http://tinyurl.com/nnl4a9f. [2] Ibid. [3] “Roger Dickey On How To Monetize Games,” Vimeo, Nov. 10, 2011, http://tinyurl.com/nqwlj88. Page 4 of 4 Short Article: Why Free-to-Play Games Aren't Always Free SAGE Business Researcher
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