Retention is the key measure of success for a free-to-play game. This fact should send a frisson of fear down the spine of games marketers and salespeople across the globe. The truth that their skills are becoming much less valuable in the parts of the industry that are growing, rather than those that are in terminal decline. Don't We Need Customers? All games need customers. Free-to-play games are no exception. How free-to-play games acquire customers, when they ask them to pay and how much they charge them are fundamentally different. The reason is fundamental: in the world of free-to-play, all customers are different; in the world of packaged goods, they are all the same. Let's explore that idea in more detail. When I walk into a GameStop or GAME, the sales assistant can't scan my brain to work out how a big a fan I am of each of the games in the store. They have no idea if I would be prepared to pay $200 for copy of BioShock signed by Ken Levine or if I have so little interest in the game that I'd only buy it if was priced at a single dollar in the bargain bin. As a result, marketers and retailers set the price to maximize revenue based on what the average person will pay. The amount that customers pay is fixed at a single price point (or perhaps two if there is a Collector's Edition), so generating revenue becomes a matter of increasing volumes of sales, not in offering a continuum of prices from free up to thousands of dollars. In fact, the day one launch is absolutely critical: the finance director of a major games publisher once told me that he could predict the lifetime sales of a game to within 10,000 units based on the results of the launch weekend. Hence the focus on launch hoopla, on event marketing, on generating massive pre-orders and generally trying to shift as many units as possible on the first weekend. Free-to-play Games Are Different Free-to-play games are not about launch. A traditional games business cares about getting money out of a customer upfront. Sure, the designers care about building a long, compelling, interactive experience that wins plaudits and prizes, but the commercial team just cares about getting that $49.99 out of the gamer. If they don't like the game, tough, the publisher already has their money. (See Pat Garratt's excellent piece on why publishers manage the review process so carefully for a clear explanation of this process). A free-to-play game lives and dies on whether it can persuade people to spend money over and over again. On whether it can move players along the curve from freeloaders to minnows to whales. On building long-term retention mechanics into the game. There are many places where this can go wrong. A free-to-play game can be very dull in the first 20 minutes (this is particularly true when it is made by a team that has graduated from AAA). It can fail to keep people coming for a whole week. It can lose people at many places on the journey. And every time you lose someone, you lose a player who might become one of your biggest fans. Who might evangelize your game to his or her friends. Who might spend £1,000 on a single item. Marketing is no longer about the launch. There is no point in a massive launch event that drives millions of players into a leaky funnel. Instead, it is about using metrics, analytics and insight to find the areas of your game that are not working and fix them on a rolling, iterative schedule. The marketing team becomes integrated into the development team, not a silo far away. If you work in marketing for games, I would suggest that you start retraining. If your skill is managing journalists, building hype or holding parties, that need is urgent. Marketing is becoming measurable. This is great news for the games industry. It might be terrible news for some individual marketers.
The End Of Games Marketing As We Know It
Nov. 24, 2011

Tags:
2011
Subscribe to our newsletter
About JikGuard.com
JikGuard.com, a high-tech security service provider focusing on game protection and anti-cheat, is committed to helping game companies solve the problem of cheats and hacks, and providing deeply integrated encryption protection solutions for games.
Top

BATTLEFIELD 6 Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer Revealed With Open Beta Dates Confirmed
Aug. 1, 2025

BATTLEFIELD 6 Release Date And Pre-Order Details Revealed
Aug. 1, 2025

MADDEN 26 Rookie Ratings Fully Revealed With Travis Hunter And Ashton Jeanty Atop The Rankings
July 31, 2025

BATTLEFIELD 6 Closed And Open Beta Dates Reportedly Revealed
July 31, 2025

Xbox content and services revenue up 13% year-on-year
July 31, 2025
Recent

BATTLEFIELD 6 Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer Revealed With Open Beta Dates Confirmed
Aug. 1, 2025

BATTLEFIELD 6 Release Date And Pre-Order Details Revealed
Aug. 1, 2025

MADDEN 26 Rookie Ratings Fully Revealed With Travis Hunter And Ashton Jeanty Atop The Rankings
July 31, 2025

BATTLEFIELD 6 Closed And Open Beta Dates Reportedly Revealed
July 31, 2025

Xbox content and services revenue up 13% year-on-year
July 31, 2025

Capcom's back-catalogue titles dominate its Q1 2025 game sales
July 31, 2025

IWGB Game Workers union condemns its exclusion from the UK Video Games Council
July 31, 2025

Casual mobile game downloads are up, but revenue remains flat
July 31, 2025

Roblox reports "significant growth across key metrics" as revenue jumps 21% YoY in Q2 FY25
July 31, 2025

Milky Tea co-founder Jonathan Holmes steps away from CEO role after 20 years
July 31, 2025
Blog

JikGuard game protection supports Google Play's 16 KB page-size compatibility requirement
Aug. 1, 2025

JikGuard game protection supports Steam Deck
July 30, 2025

Security Risk Analysis for Racing Games
July 28, 2025

Are there hacks that increase gacha pull rates?
July 24, 2025

VMOS Open-Source: New Threat to Game Security
July 18, 2025

How Games Detect Black and Gray Studio
July 15, 2025

How Games Detect iOS Jailbreaks
July 11, 2025

FPS Game Anti-Cheat Solution
July 9, 2025

Black and Gray Industry Insights: HappyMod
July 7, 2025

Online Game Anti-Cheat Solution
July 4, 2025
Random

Dead Space creator and Sledgehammer Games co-founder admits "it's tough out there": "Maybe I've directed my last game"
July 29, 2025

7 in 10 German game purchases are now digital downloads
July 29, 2025

Indiana Jones' creative director to headline Game Republic New Horizons
July 29, 2025

Passwordless Future Years Away Despite Microsoft Authenticator Move
July 31, 2025

Over 200 Malicious Open Source Packages Traced to Lazarus Campaign
July 31, 2025

IGDA "seriously alarmed" by recent crackdown on NSFW games
July 30, 2025

EA kicks off Q1 2025-26 with a "strong start" and "better-than-expected" performances for EA Sports brands
July 29, 2025

OWASP Launches Agentic AI Security Guidance
July 30, 2025

Third of Exploited Vulnerabilities Weaponized Within a Day of Disclosure
July 30, 2025

Google to Publicly Report New Vulnerabilities Within One Week of Vendor Disclosure
July 30, 2025
Most Views

How Games Detect GameGuardian
March 17, 2025

Explanation of Game Anti-Cheat Solutions
March 17, 2025

Cheat Engine Modifier Detection Solutions
March 18, 2025

Explanation of Unity Engine Encryption Solutions
March 17, 2025

How to Anti Hack in Client-Side Games
May 21, 2025

Cocos Engine Encryption Solution
April 8, 2025

How Games Anti-Debugging
April 15, 2025

Cloud Phone Detection Solution for Gaming
May 21, 2025

How Games Detect Frida
March 25, 2025

How Games Detect PlayCover
March 26, 2025