Design Rules for Free to Play Games

Free-to-play is the most exciting thing to happen to the games business for decades. Each week brings new success stories, as creators around the world unleash the potential of free-to-play – building successful, thriving games for mobile, social and even console and PC platforms, all with a single, powerful price tag: free. Yet at the same time, many other creators are struggling to make free-to-play work for them – while some bad uses of free-to-play have even attracted criticism for the entire industry.

Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games cuts through the confusion, presenting 15 clear, direct rules that will allow creators to build commercially successful games. There are no exploitative tricks or get-rich-quick schemes here – this is a practical guide for game designers who want to make money from free-to-play games while respecting their audience and building a devoted fan following. Each rule is explained in depth and illustrated with several examples from real games.

The 15 rules were originally published on the popular GAMESbrief blog, and they appear here in a greatly expanded and revised form. Around three quarters of the content in the book is not available elsewhere, including an extensive section of new background information which explains the business, financial and psychological concepts behind free-to-play, and how to successfully apply them to your games.

This book is designed as a reference for all game creators – whether you’re a veteran of the industry trying to get up to speed with the free-to-play business model, a newcomer learning the ropes, or even an experienced free-to-play creator seeking to polish your knowledge and challenge your perceptions. It’s also a perfect read for anyone – game creator or not – who wants to understand how the free-to-play model works, and what the future of the games business looks like.