In the gaming industry, it is so hard to resist taking inspiration from games that are huge hits or make vast sums of money. Though there are instances where systems from a top hit could fit into some games, unfortunately most of the time they will not. Shoehorning systems into a game can spell disaster for even the most veteran studios, and nowhere is this more frequent than the faulty pursuit of adding and monetizing statistical modifiers to otherwise skill-based games. Not only will “pay-for-power” monetization likely anger existing players by making the game feel more pay-to-win, but chances are that player skill will still undermine the monetization potential of the stats.
For the purposes of this Blog Post, I’ll be using 8-Ball Pool and Golf Clash as examples of Skill-Based Games, and Rise of Kingdoms, Marvel Strike Force, and Clash Royale as examples of Stat-Based Games. You might be asking yourself what is a Skill-Based Game. For me, the key definition of a Skill-Based Game is that the physical interaction of your hand makes a critical difference in the outcome of the action. In 8-Ball Pool or Golf Clash, hitting that perfect shot with the correct amount of force is way more important than the quality of the Cue or Club.
A bad shot with an amazing Cue or Club is much worse than a perfect shot with a mediocre Cue or Club.
Contrast this with games like Marvel Strike Force or Rise of Kingdoms, where physical interaction is not as important as the stats of what you are working with. While strategic decisions can carry a Player far, ultimately they’ll need stats to succeed. But where does a game like Clash Royale fall? On the surface Clash Royale seems like it is skill-based, with player positioning of Units and Spells being important. But given that everything runs on rails after the Player uses a Card, stats plays an important role even with the physical skill involved. On rails = stats, for all intents and purposes.
So if 8-Ball Pool and Golf Clash are skill-based Games, how are they monetizing? The answer is that they make a lot of money off of both soft currency needed to play matches as well as entry costs to mini games and events.
Because these two games have a cost to play, they are able to use things like Trophies and Event Leaderboards to push Players to pay a lot in soft currency.
And because the Game is skill-based, Players are more likely to believe that they can win on their Skill alone, rather than worry about whether they are strong enough to compete in an event.
The lesson of all this is that monetizing a skill-based Game means monetizing the actions, not stats or items. Monetizing the actions might mean using strong soft currency sinks, or even IAP entry costs. The downside of this monetization strategy is that it tends to result in spikes of revenue versus steady day to day revenue. But that is better than nothing.
That’s it for me. Comments and Questions are welcome! If you want to check out more of my blog posts, subscribe to ggDigest at https://medium.com/ggdigest. Stay safe and happy gaming everyone!
Jeff
Principles of Free to Play Game Design 