You need to make players feel that they can “just pop in for a quick go”. Then you need to lock them in for much longer. As game designers have been doing with traditional games for years.

This is a critical consideration for any game being designed for a smartphone or tablet. If your free-to-play game is in the browser or on the console, it may be less crucial, but “short loops” remain key...

Nicholas will be speaking at the Free to Play Summit next month, on 26th September at Rich Mix in London.

The first rule of free-to-play is make the game fun. It shouldn’t need to be stated, but it does.

This series is intended to provide a short sharp introduction to the key ways you need to adapt your game design to make successful, profitable free-to-play games. It will be helpful to AAA game designers, to creative...

Working with traditional game developers is an interesting challenge for me as a business model designer. I am working with several different studios on a total of 15 different games. It is making me re-evaluate how I...

When I was planning to post this instalment, I was preparing Greedy Bankers: Bailout! for launch - that is, the free version of the game with expanded game modes for in-app purchases. I fully expected this to...