How F2P games exploit your brain

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Virtual economist explains tricks behind popular freemium titles

Not all free-to-play games are trojan horses, expertly fashioned to work their way into your habits and drain your bank account. But many are, and virtual economist Ramin Shokrizade has detailed their mechanics in a GamaSutra blog post that is as fascinating as it is stomach turning.

How do they convince you to spend money? One of Shokrizade's favorite examples is "fun pain:" putting your players in an uncomfortable situation, and offering them a way out via cash--like when Puzzle & Dragons lets you avoid losing all the treasure you earned by spending $1 worth of "gems" to get back up.

"If the shift from skill game to money game is done in a subtle enough manner, the brain of the consumer has a hard time realizing that the rules of the game have changed," Shokrizade writes. "If done artfully, the consumer will increasingly spend under the assumption that they are still playing a skill game and 'just need a bit of help.'"

It's a booming market, but there's still money to be made from more savvy consumers. As awareness spreads, hopefully more F2P games will appeal to the latter.

"In the current market, especially with most adults and children not familiar with the nature of these products, the environment is still ripe for fast profits, and likely will continue to be so for a few more years. Note that while these methods can be very successful with young and inexperienced gamers, they find less success with older and more experienced gamers, and this population represents a group with potentially very large gaming budgets."

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.