Avast Blog_ViewPoints: What does gaming cost you?

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The gaming industry uses psychological tactics to trigger addiction and more spending, but gamers can stay safe and sane with these tips.

Video gaming is now the world’s largest entertainment industry – bigger than music, even bigger than Hollywood. That means, for game developers and publishers, it’s also the most profitable place to be.

Uniquely among the entertainment industries, gaming is also a tech field – it’s part of the Silicon Valley revolution, and innovation has been a core part of it since the beginning. This means we don’t always pay for the products we’re getting in the same way we pay for movies, books, or music. It also means that some of the innovations game companies use to make money have unexpected side effects.

Other than direct sales, how is the industry making its money right now, and how can it affect us?

Subscription

Subscription-based monthly or annual fee models of monetization have long been the favorite of online multiplayer games, where players make regular payments for continued access to the product. In return, the game often gets continuous support, and may be updated, improved or refined over time.

Free-to-play

The term “free-to-play” has, to a degree, become orphaned from its original meaning. Originally, this was how games could be offered for free – no initial price, no subscription – and still find a way to make money. While the game itself was free, optional in-game enhancements would be offered for extra fees. These usually took the form of performing in-game actions more quickly, or a guarantee of rare in-game items. Loot boxes are currently a very popular form of free-to-play monetization, where players use an in-game currency (bought with real money) to open an in-game container. These containers have a chance of containing rare or powerful in-game items or exclusive cosmetics, but do not guarantee the player what they want.

The free-to-play methods of monetization are no longer just confined to games with no initial purchase cost. Full-priced games, especially multiplayer ones, now often include optional ways to spend money within the game. These are still known as free-to-play mechanics due to their origins, but it’s now possible for “free-to-play” to be incorporated within full-priced games.

In-game advertising

A way for games to make money without any cost to the player – at least directly – through in-game advertising is mostly seen in mobile games but has also made its way into big-budget markets. It’s a simple concept; game creators accept payment, allowing companies to advertise their product during gameplay. This either comes in the form of a brief commercial before play continues, or as part of the gameplay experience, much like product placement in films. For example, Mario being able to drive a Mercedes-Benz in Mario Kart, or being able to buy a Coca-Cola branded vending machine in The Sims.

Live service

The live service model is one of the latest trends to emerge from the gaming market. Acting as a hybrid between direct sale and free-to-play models, live service games can make use of various different forms of monetization. The defining feature of a live service game is that it is designed to encourage continuous consumer spending after the initial release. This could be done exclusively through free-to-play economics, or by asking players to pay a subscription despite being a single-player game.

The real-world implementation of the live service model has received significant backlash, especially thanks to some high-profile failures. Anthem, most recently, attempted to provide live service functionality, offering cosmetic character skins and outfits to buy within the game and allowing players to tackle missions together online. The game is considered a failure due to its low sales numbers and poor engagement stemming from a troubled launch and severe design issues.

Games like this, and the fact that the live service model requires an online connection even for single-player oriented games, have made it a contentious subject among players. On paper, however, there is at least scope for the live-service model to provide players with more content over a longer period, in a way which is financially viable for developers.

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