Monetizing Gameplay

The amusing thing about Free 2 Play games is the amount of analysis one ends up doing while evaluating whether one should pay or no. (See, even Tobold has been rationalizing to himself regarding his recent fascination with World of Tanks.)

I have been stuck in this cost-benefit analysis over the last three days or so, as my attraction (some might even say, addiction) to Spiral Knights grows ever stronger.

The thing that compels me to indulge with this analysis is this game's payment model. So direct is the link made between money and your gameplay experience. That is, the quantity of gameplay experience, and a little bit of quality. $20 gets you 7500 energy. Which means roughly 26.7 cents per 100 energy. We can round off to about 30 cents. Or rather, to be more accurate in terms of SGD, 33 cents per 100 energy.

Each little dungeon delve is broken up into stages that cost roughly 30 energy to complete. Tier 1 has two of these stages. A truly profitable delve goes down to level 8 or thereabouts, costing about 60 energy. I believe Tier 2 is structured similarly, with perhaps longer between rest stops.

So far, my solo gameplay sessions as limited by my equipment and my skill (at arcade-like Zelda combat, and learning the patterns of the enemies) has run around 100ish energy each time. It takes me maybe an hour or two to play through, I didn't keep track, alas, but I was, of course, having fun. Else what would be the point? That would mean I spent about 33 cents for that enjoyment.

(I haven't studied my energy expenditure during PUG sessions yet. I want to say that it costs roughly the same energy, plus maybe 10-20 extra for emergency revives, but it goes by much much faster.)

The other use of energy is in crafting. If I want a new sword or armor or bomb or whatever to play with, I'm going to need to spend energy. 1 star items cost 10 energy, 2 star items cost 50 energy. These can be made with accumulated mist energy, so these are essentially free to any who can wait. Or you can assume they cost 3.3 cents, and 16.5 cents, whatever.

The bigger ticket items are 3 star items that cost 200 energy, 4 star items that cost 400 energy and 5 star items that cost 800 energy. Since the mist tank only goes to 100, crafting these items requires that someone, somewhere, has spent real life cash. A 3 star item costs 66 cents, 4 star items cost $1.32, and 5 star items $2.64. Now this is certainly rather remniscient of microtransactional games where you buy weapons/armor (power/prestige) with cash.

Truth be told, I don't know that I want to hit the the 4 and 5 star stage just yet. I am content with experimenting with the 2 star items, and maybe if I find something I like, then I'll bring it up to 3 stars, and if it turns out that I am hopelessly addicted and really want to progress, then I'll think about it.

Now I have to point out that I could always grind in-game money (crowns) to buy someone's energy on the exchange, so -I- don't have to spend cash, but to do that, I need to either a) wait a day for mist energy to regenerate, so that I can do a dungeon delve for crowns and convert that into more solid crystal energy, or b) hope the exchange rate is such that I can earn more crowns using 100 energy dungeon delving, and still buy back 100 energy while accumulating a small profit that will eventually grow into a large enough profit to buy another 100 energy for crafting.

The exchange rate, I'm afraid, may not last. It dropped to a very low 3300 odd crowns from the influx of Steam players with too much money to throw around, but it has started to rise back to 4000-4500 crowns (presumably as the Steam players started to wise up to the system). Apparently before Steam, this was earlier inflated to about 7000-8000 crowns, which quite destroys any free-to-play newbie starting out (one earns roughly 3000-5000 crowns per 60 energy delve.)

Developing players sink crowns by buying up recipes from vendors, and to a limited extent crafting (which also uses crystal energy.) But elder players are missing a crown sink. Once they get the weapons and armor they want, they get to go delving really deep, earning tons of crowns, and have nothing much to spend it on besides buying up more crystal energy and doing lots of throwaway crafting in the search for Unique Variants (which are a special random bonus on equipment.)

Who supplies the crystal energy? Someone, somewhere, needs to pay for them. Presumably elder players who are convinced the game is worth a $10-$20 a month "subscription" buy crystal energy. I'm not sure they SELL them for crowns though.

I did encounter one instance myself where I wanted a top up of crowns fast, a recipe I wanted popped up at a traveling vendor deep underground, and I had spare crystal energy and no way to gain any crowns. So I offered to sell. But if I had lots of crowns, then I wouldn't get stuck in that situation.

Players who are far too impatient for their own good with lots of money might sell crystal energy for crowns so that they can buy the good equipment fast. Presumably rich folks and kids who have talked their mom into topping up their game wallets with a certain sum. Judging by the number of microtransaction games that sell anywhere from 99 cents to $9.99 to even $99.99 sums, there are people out there who would pay. The question is, does Spiral Knights have enough of these people?

Still, it may be a moot point for me, as I don't intend on living completely off someone else's cash. I would not mind paying a modest sum for my own gear, and my own gameplay experience. After all, it is akin to paying an MMO subscription per month.

Which immediately brings to mind, just how much entertainment am I getting out of a subscription like that I am paying for Rift? It is much harder to monetize a per hour, or per dungeon delve rate for a game like that. Ostensibly, it is $11 per month, but that neglects the initial cost of the box as well as future paid expansions.

Let's assume I play a modest average of 2 hours per day, for 30 days. I have paid for a six month subscription. The box cost $60, if I recall correctly. So that makes about $126 for 360 hours. Or 35 cents per hour. That is alarmingly closer to the Spiral Knights rate than I thought possible.

(I have to confess that I am less entertained per Rift hour than Spiral Knights hour. But Rift has more options and variety than Spiral Knights, and is probably more nimble to change. It has also been an entertaining exercise estimating the cost per hour value out of some of these games.

Using Steam as an estimate, I spent 25 on Batman: Arkham Asylum and played it 22 hours, a dollar thirteen an hour, but certainly a worthwhile experience. Given how alarmingly little I play certain other singleplayer games, I have likely squandered my money more carelessly there, if not for the fact of them existing in potentia for me to play any time. One could, of course, argue that all MMOs also exist in potentia for me to play at any time if I was willing to put up with the download and register my credit card with them.

And of course, there was Alien Swarm which was free and lasted 39 hours, but those are outliers.)

Ironically though, in Spiral Knights, it is the people who play the game the most, who will end up spending the most. Rather than in a standard monthly subscription, in which there is one flat fee, and it is up to you how many hours you want to throw into the game, leaving the casuals supporting the hardcore, in a sense.