From Development to Launch: The Keys to Building a Successful Free-to-Play MMO

Min Kim (Director of Game Operations, Nexon America, Inc.)

What Are FTPs?

Min Kim comes from a background well suited to his position. Born in South Korea and moving to the states when he was about 5 years old, when he was older his parents would regularly send him back to South Korea for the summer to live with his relatives. As such, he got to spend time living in both cultures and has been able to apply this unique viewpoint to the Free-to-Play (FTP) MMO experience here in the US, which is just starting to pick up speed, having been a fad in South Korea for many years (and Asia in general).

What makes FTP games so scary to lots of people is the business model: You create a game that players are then allowed access to and are able to play… for free. As in, no money. You then create revenue through ads and/or micro-transactions within the game itself. Obviously you present such an idea to a publisher not familiar with the concept and they’ll laugh in your face. But Nexon has pioneered the field over in Asia since 1994 and they’ll show you that it’s no laughing matter at all, taking in $230M in revenues for 2005. They employ 1,900+ people around the world and run over 15 game services globally. If you haven’t heard of Nexon, perhaps you’ve heard of the games they’ve published/created, including MapleStory, KartRider, Mabinogi, and Counter-Strike Online.

While Min posits that the FTP industry will surge over the next 2-3 years in North America, a lot of it will be based off of imported products from the East. As these services grow more accepted with the NA market, developers and VCs will become more attracted to the idea. As with all things, the increasing amount of competition will serve to weed out the low-quality entries and the worthy ones will rise to the top. The biggest barrier Kim sees among the NA market is perceived value: people viewing FTP games as light or of lower production quality than the games they’re shelling out hard cash for. It makes sense: a buyer would naturally feel that a game which costs $60 is of a higher quality than a game you can play for free. This, Min argues, is simply not true. Don’t believe him? Have a good look at Combat Arms.

Key #1: Play the Games

If you want to get into the FTP business, you need to do your research. And don’t forget that the best part about this research is that it’s practically free! Immerse yourself in the popular and successful FTP MMOs like Dungeon and Fighter, MapleStory, KartRider, Sudden Attack, Combat Arms, Freestyle Basketball, Mabinogi, Perfect World, Sherwood Dungeons, etc. You might even want to try others that are not so successful and see if you can determine why. Don’t forget that these games are also meant to be a social experience, so be sure to rope in some friends and co-workers to play them with.

Key #2: Focus on Fun, Not Money and Items

FTP games that are not fun fail even more spectacularly than paid-for games. If someone buys a paid-for game and hates it well, you still make some money. If someone plays a FTP game and hates it, they will leave and never generate a single cent for you (other than maybe a few ad impressions). Obviously this is a very important concept to keep in mind! While you want your game to have items people can buy and trade, don’t make the mistake of designing your game around them. Your items should always be designed around your game. Items are a way for a player to enhance their gaming experience. If they get no value from the game itself, they will have no reason to buy items to enhance it and continue playing.

Key #3: The “Free”way is NOT About Collecting Tolls

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re creating some kind of shareware. Shareware has its own rules, and none of them apply to FTP. FTP is its own animal and as such, your players should never see a charge window to access any of the main content of the gameplay. This would be akin to telling people in Combat Arms they can enter the game for free, but have to run around defenseless because they first have to buy a gun. Expansions and content updates? Also free. Again, it’s about social experiences. You don’t want your players to be separated from their friends because some bought a cool new map they now like to play exclusively and others didn’t. Finally, don’t bombard your players to upgrade to any sort of “Premium” account. Min’s slide on this key said it best: “Spending money should feel positive, but playing free should not feel punitive”. In bold text, no less.

Key #4: Watch Your Weight

FTP games need to be quickly accessible. A person is thinking “okay, the game is free – which means I don’t have to buy it, I don’t have to get it from a store – it’s right here in front of me and I want to play it now”. Then they eagerly click the Play Now button and are dismayed to find they have to download the 500MB client application first. “Well, screw that, it’s probably not worth it anyway, being free and all”. Once again, the player’s perceived value vs. the value of their time comes into play. Don’t forget also that the nature of an MMO is to grow. The more successful it becomes, the more clients you get, and the more downloads you have. A smaller client will make a smaller impact on your content delivery scheme. One of Nexon’s ideas is to have a starter client and a full client, one for people just checking out the game and another for players ready to fully immerse themselves in it.

Even if a player downloads your client with no problem, make sure they can actually run it. You’re targeted a mass-market with your FTP service so you have to be careful and watch your specs. Make sure you design your game for the common denominator among PC’s out there today so that low-end machines have a chance of running the game just as much as high-end PC’s do. Alienating the high-end users is only a small percentage of your total possible user base, and if a game is fun to play, its graphics don’t matter.

Key #5: Create a Social Experience

Unlike single-player titles, in MMOs almost everyone is another human being. As such, interaction between players it to be both expected and encouraged. Give your players means to invest in the game through building buddy lists or clans, allowing their in-game characters to progress in skills or looks, etc. The more time a player puts into a game the more they will be willing to open up their wallets to further increase the value of their game play. The more money the put into a game, the more they’ll feel like they need to stick around. But in order to get there, you have to be sure to protect your newborns and challenge your veterans. Don’t let first-time players get camped or head-shot all the time, and don’t give well-worn players a chance to be bored with the gameplay and leave.

Key #6: You are creating a SERVICE

FTP MMOs are not products. They are services that you will support for anywhere from 5-7 years or more on successful titles. Because of this they require constant attention and updates. Nexon has whole teams assigned to each service for the duration of that title’s lifetime. Make sure your community is interacting and getting value from the game. Run events often so that people have reason to come back and play more, and to make the service itself feel more alive. Your service is always running so be sure to keep an eye on the vitals and be able to handle things like server outages or maintenance.

Conclusion

FTP games may seem like an easy-in to the MMO world and appear to offer great benefits to the developers, but don’t forget that they’re still MMOs. This means a lot of server-side support to keep them up and running. Still, you’re avoiding many of the obstacles that retail games face, and the zero cost of entry creates an expanded reach for your product. Even if only a small minority pays, you’re sill reaching 10x the amount of people because those who normally wouldn’t pay are playing anyways, and they’re telling their friends, some of whom will pay. And those that don’t pay you can also potentially monetize through proper advertising. The viral nature of the game helps with the marketing as well. If you want to hear more about FTP, check out the summary of Sherwood Dungeons, which is an FTP game created and maintained by a game development couple.

Coverage by Drew Sikora

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