F2P or Premium? And if F2P, then what kind of F2P? These are questions often asked and answered in many of our articles and in the comment sections. Despite the tons of metaphorical ink spilled, there still are important voices in these debates we don’t often get to hear from, for example the voice of a developer of a huge mobile game. So, I was glad to read Timothy Harris’ blog on Gamasutra that deals with the relation between different kinds of gamers and F2P systems. Timothy Harris is part of the development team behind Midnight Star (Free), the first-person shooter built with mobile in mind. The game got good reviews when it released a few months back, with some reviews (including our own) complaining about the game’s monetization decisions. In an interesting move, the developers updated the game a week ago and completely removed the energy system. Harris’ blog provides us with a valuable look into the minds of mobile game developers who’ve had to make these difficult monetization decisions.

It’s obvious from reading the blog that the developers are very proud of their game – as they should be if you ask me – because its control system worked well, there was plenty of content, and the game was primed to engender a highly competitive scene. Harris talks about how the energy system in F2P games has been used with various degrees of success, and how Industrial Toys eventually decided to experiment with it too. Harris doesn’t pull his punches in his post-mortem of that decision: “by saying we botched the energy mechanic, I mean we botched it…by using it at all." The retention, purchase, and dropoff data, Harris goes on to say, told a very clear story of players not appreciating being told they have to stop playing the game. While some players did pay to bypass the energy system, there weren’t enough of them to make this version of F2P worthwhile for the company. And, most importantly for Harris, the energy system send a negative message to the game’s best players, which Harris calls without hesitation “core gamers." Harris implies that they built the game with core gamers in mind (which is unsurprisingly because this game is in no way a casual game), so they have now decided to switch to a more “ownership-based economy," making the players feel that they are playing a game they own rather than one they are “renting" from the developers for short periods of time.

I believe that many of you reading about this “confession" are feeling vindicated in your beliefs that energy systems, well, suck. Harris’ admission, though, is more nuanced than that; for Harris, there was a monetization-player style clash; “core" gamers have often migrated from other platforms (PC and consoles) to iOS and resist the kind of F2P trappings that other, more “casual" gamers seem to be fine with (judging from games like Clash of Clans). Even though many core gamers are perfectly fine with F2P games (Dota 2, LOL, Hearthstone), the energy system impacts gameplay too much to be palatable. I’ll be very curious to see what effect, if any, Midnight Star’s new monetization system will have on player retention. If the well hasn’t been poisoned, I think this update might make players take another look at the game, which is, in my opinion of course, an excellent iOS shooter.