Features

Did going free to play actually make Spymaster more fun?

Developer PlayRaven states its case

Did going free to play actually make Spymaster more fun?
|
| Spymaster (iPad)

Free to play continues to be a divisive issue in the world of mobile gaming.

It's either the saviour of the industry, or the death-knell of gaming itself. The business model of greedy money-grubbers, or the best way to open your game to a wide audience.

At Pocket Gamer we proudly sit on the fence. Many free to play games grind our gears, but we've found plenty that we enjoy whole-heartedly like Hearthstone, World of Tanks Blitz, and Pokemon Trading Card Online.

What often marks out the top titles is a monetisation model that fits the game and doesn't frustrate the gamer. Hearthstone is based on physical collectible card games, so buying new packs feels right and natural.

Most traditional free to play titles, by contrast, rely on actively annoying the player to bring in the cash. Rather than a smooth play curve, these games throw out timers and difficulty spikes that force you to spend or grind.

Negative perception of these mechanics is so entrenched that when I found them in Spymaster, I immediately assumed it was a bad game.

But after spending some time with it, I actually found a fun, innovative title.

With my assumptions thoroughly proven wrong, I wanted to know more about how Spymaster incorporated such loathed elements with success. So I spoke to its designer, Tiago Rocha.

To my surprise, he began by telling me the game wasn't originally concieved as a free to play experience.

"We were actually very detached from existing free to play mechanics," he said. "We almost avoided talking about best practices. We looked up to games Civilization and those by Paradox and tried to create a similar feel, with less complexity."

So how did it end up going down the free route? "We wanted to give players a reason to come back and so initially implemented a resting system, akin to World of Warcraft," Tiago explained. "It slowly evolved to the current injury mechanics since we already had injury as a result of pushing your spies too hard."

Painful injuries

Injuries are at the heart of the games' monetisation model. You can either wait real time for a spy to heal or pay the premium currency. One of the ways in which Spymaster improves on most free titles is that the risk of injury is under player control.

More skilled players can end up waiting (or paying) less.

Tiago was clear that this was an active design choice. "We didn't set out to do a game in which waiting or coming back to the game was by itself enough to get you rewards, " he explained. "It wouldn't be the kind of game we wanted to play."

But he wanted to make sure that players at every level had some agency. "It was a nice way to give players control on how long they could play," he continued. "Being able to play safer for longer or riskier but in shorter sessions."

Another key difference between Spymaster and its peers is that it only has one currency, which can be earned in-game as well as purchased. This is another purposeful choice to keep the freemium elements palatable.

"We avoided having a premium-only currency because we wanted the whole game to be playable for free," Tiago explained. "Players can pay for more options, like more spies, and less grind. But everything is available by just playing the operations and earning gold."

The most expensive thing in the game is rescuing agents captured by the Gestapo. Because it has role-playing elements and spies get better with experience, losing a skilled operative can make later missions very tough.

As ever, though, the game has a get out clause to avoid paying. Before resorting to cash you get the chance to stage a rescue mission. It's only if this fails that premium currency is required.

While flexible, it felt a bit like blackmail to me. But Tiago was keen to contest that opinion. "Rescue missions use the same logic as other raids, so the player should be, at that point, comfortable with the mechanics," he explained.

He also put me right on my assumption that rescues were their biggest source of income. "The most popular ways to spend gold are recruiting new agents, expanding the size of the team and training new skills," he revealed.

Premium begging

On release, there were a flurry of posts from players demonstrating the usual suspicions about free to play. Many beseeched developer PlayRaven to make a premium product instead.

But perhaps surprisingly for a game that wasn't originally envisaged as free, the studio staunchly defending its choice. It's easy to dismiss this as a money grab, but Tiago was effusive about the positive aspects of the model.

"With so many games coming out, asking for money before a player gets to try your game is becoming risky when you don’t have a big marketing budget," he explained. "This is still early days for the free to play model and there is still a lot to be discovered and experimented with."

As a designer, he felt excited by the unexplored possibilities free to play offered, not held back by its negatives. "It’s great to see so many people having access to your work, he enthused. "Many of whom would never have thought of paying for a strategy game."

And he's of the opinion if Spymaster had been a premium title it would have been a double edged sword.

"It would have been more directed and scripted, probably with a clear ending," he said. "But the stress-injury mechanic would have to be rethought. There’s this extra layer of meaning and anxiety when you know that pushing too hard will end up forcing you to stop playing earlier."

Whatever you might think about free to play, the games' unique interpretation of the model seems to be working. Critics met it with cautious acclaim, and gamers are downloading it.

Tiago was happy to talk numbers. "We’ve had around 325,000 downloads so far," he told us. "And reached the top 10 strategy games list in 99 countries."

The monetisation model is working, too. "Around three to four percent of the players choose to pay," Tiago said. "The game is making a decent amount of money."

Also, "we did not foresee having so many girls, teenagers, or middle-aged players in the game," Tiago admitted. "It was a welcomed surprise. For me, it means that we have the freedom to forget a lot about old design tropes and experiment with new ideas."

In spite of Tiago's assertions, I still think Spymaster would have been better as a paid title. But it's true that free to play elements can make a game more tense and exciting. And I'm impressed with the creativity and skill he and his fellow designers have shown in trying to make the traditional free to play model fun for everyone.

As a hobby gamer, it's easy to forget that legions of other players aren't happy at paying upfront for games. Like it or not, free to play is here to stay. And it's thanks to studios like PlayRaven that we can hope for a future where it can be identified with the best of games, instead of the worst.

Matt Thrower
Matt Thrower
Matt is a freelance arranger of words concerning boardgames and video games. He's appeared on IGN, PC Gamer, Gamezebo, and others.