Influence and Drawbacks of Freemium Games : Atmegame Blog

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The combination of free and premium world is actually driving the online gaming scenario, globally, buoyant after the diminishing impact of retail gaming, considerably.

The existing free online gaming scenario based upon the freemium is a free-to-play app offered through download with in-app purchase to in order to generate revenue and money.  Some freemium apps are therefore having ad-supported features that can be disabled after getting some revenue. There also happen to be certain other complicated features for the revenue generation in the freemium games.

The freemium model of online games is immensely popular mode of gaming over the past few years, primarily on mobile devices like smartphones, tablets and Internet-connected PC games. Due to its popularity, massively, multiplayer online games (MMOs) like Everquest 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic has moved to the freemium model of gaming.

Working of Freemium Games

Free to play online game is a very successful gaming model that has been now adopted by the most of the game development companies as a successful revenue model. The freemium application offers the core functionality of free offers and with certain important featured added to it. It is similar to combining the lite version of a gming app with premium feature provided for the paid version. The most basic idea is that a free app will be downloaded more than a paid application.

The best example of Free online games are that are offered completely, whereas, the cosmetic changes of the game are being paid for money. The best example of free-to-play game is being evident from the success of Temple Run a game about crazy running. In the Temple Run you will have to pay for the certain important features of the game like certain enhancements and short cuts, otherwise, the entire game there is completely without spending any money. Players are also not forced to pay for any items to extend their daily game time, which means you can play the game as much as you want.

With the help of in-app purchase the new content to be added to a game. Another popular game category using freemium actively is the Multiplayer Online Battle Games (MOBA) where most of the cases the core game is free, however, other characters can be purchased in the game. In-app purchases can also fuel larger expansions like new maps, adventures, etc.

Clouds of Doubt on Freemium Games, Online

Though, immensely, successful among online gamers, the Freemium games are sometime very bad experience for some of the gamers. The players get frustrated when some of the gamers try to get their best of game corrupted with lots of ads between them.   It sometime actually spoils a good free online play to game series.

The worst part of the free game is that players are forced to change the base of online gaming to a greater extent. Now, the players simply play and hardly care about the paying the money again. It has even made it difficult for a Developer to convince the gamer to pay an initial price and shifted some of the developers towards free-to-play model.

As much as many players wish for games that they can simply pay for and never worry about paying again, gamers as a whole have become accustomed to downloading a game for free.  This makes it harder to convince people to pay an initial price for that download and pushed some developers towards the free-to-play model.

How Far Free to Play Games are Good for Gaming?

However, there are certain good aspects of freemium games making them so much popular among gamer pushed through the in-app purchases. The best part of freemium game is age of a game. A much popular game with a rapid Fan base is much easier to keep the gamers intact without letting them to wait for the sequel of the game. This aspect of longevity leads to more content in the game through in app purchases as well as content updation out there.

Life of Freemium Games

It has been observed that an average age of Freemium game happen to be around less than a year.  It is trend that mobile apps generally keep only 25% users after a single day and after a month, there, only 2.3% average will remain after a month. It is very difficult for companies have found the secret sauce to keeping keeping players invested in their game.

The reason for the games to be so much short lived is attributed for them to be pre-packed and trouble adapting. As the developer depend upon the App Store for any feedback and help. On the other hand company spends entire budget upon product development and user attainment.

However, "Freemium" is still A Winner!

Whatever the drawbacks, free app download games are ruling the mobile games from Candy Crush Sage to Clash of Clans they account for the 70-80% for online gaming revenue. However, the popular computer games there too are now-a-days freemium as well too.