Comments on: Game Developer Column 4: Designing for Free

By: Art vs. Business: How Social Networks Reinvent Game Design | Game Industry News, Interviews and Videos | Game Theory

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:01:45 +0000

[...] the inconvenience has driven away enough of the core fanbase? (I made a similar point in my Nov 2008 column on designing free-to-play [...]

By: shaman leveling

shaman leveling — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:40:49 +0000

I think Riots League of Legends uses a similar system with two currencies. One is earned by playing games, the other one can be purchased.

All necessary/important things in the game can be bouth with the first currency, only skins require the real-money virual currency. It’s an interesting system indeed.

By: Pat on the Head, Kick in the Ass | RobZacny.com

Pat on the Head, Kick in the Ass | RobZacny.com — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:09:26 +0000

[...] business model, I get frustrated because I spent so much space rehashing observations that Soren Johnson had already made, and with greater insight. When I find that I have a brilliant behavioral economist explaining [...]

By: GamerCrazy

GamerCrazy — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:49:22 +0000

Yeah F2P is where the money is at. The game publisher of ZT Online makes a lot of money. They are called Giant for a reason.

By: DESIGNER NOTES » Blog Archive » “Fear and Loathing in Farmville”

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:04:08 +0000

[...] the inconvenience has driven away enough of the core fanbase? (I made a similar point in my Nov 2008 column on designing for free-to-play [...]

By: Top Indie Game Development Blogs | Gambrinous Blog

Top Indie Game Development Blogs | Gambrinous Blog — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:42:20 +0000

[...] DESIGNER NOTES: Writings by one of the designers on Civ 3 and 4 – I particularly like the longer posts. Example [...]

By: Soren Johnson

Soren Johnson — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:30:57 +0000

Thanks David, updated with the numbers you pointed out.

By: Alex Kierkegaard

Alex Kierkegaard — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:19:22 +0000

Soren, my dear friend, much like all Western designers ever, you understand fuck-all about arcade games. Read this and wake the fuck up:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/

Arcade games were never about “munching quarters” or whatever — only WESTERN arcade games were about that. JAPANESE arcade games were about THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

Meh. It doesn’t matter how many decades pass. The White Man will never understand the concept of skill-based gaming.

By: David desJardins

David desJardins — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:01:22 +0000

And here are their most recent earnings:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4PRN/is_2009_March_4/ai_n31412292

Revenue for the quarter is RMB 353 million, which is 1.29 million APA times RMB 272.7 (US $39.93) ARPU.

By: David desJardins

David desJardins — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:55:32 +0000

Here’s a link that seems to make it pretty clear the revenue is $40 per quarter.

http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/2291-Giant-Interactive-Revenues-Plunge-with-move-away-from-hyper-Free-to-Play-in-ZT-Online.html