I’ve had enough Twitter debates with disgruntled game designers to know that even if free-to-play is now accepted as a lucrative business model, it’s still considered to be the handmaiden of bad game design. Too many free-to-play games are about hiding content behind paywalls or nagging players for money, without offering a particularly valuable experience to players.

Does this mean that a good quality game necessarily has to charge up-front? Absolutely not.

There may be an ocean of appalling free-to-play games out there, but there are enough excellent examples to show that the business model doesn’t necessarily poison the game design.

I’ve just finished getting everything I can out of Jetpack Joyride, a game that I relished spending money on, but that my sister has never paid a penny for and she enjoyed it even more than I did. In fact, she has started playing it again, not because they developed new content or levels - considered by so many game designers to be the bread and butter of their craft - but because they added more in-game items. Even though it’s all about the stash, there is no paywall with Jetpack Joyride - you either play it for hours upon hours to get the items you want, or you buy them.

It’s really hard to make a game that good. It’s a skill I hope to learn, and personally I think the question of good f2p game design comes down to one question: why am I alive? Or at least, it comes down to John Green’s answer on why we’re alive, and how to be a good boyfriend. This video is ten minutes long, but like the rest of the Crash Course series, well worth getting a cup of tea and watching in full.

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

Why is the Indus Valley civilisation relevant to game design?

Because our lives are essentially lived in concert with others, and no amount of clinging or nagging can help you to survive if you have nothing to give. With any human endeavour, it’s worth considering what motivates us to co-create these massive structures, and what motivates us to bother making anything at all. Whether you believe in profit or philanthropy, we’re fundamentally making things because they are good for others.

Jetpack Joyride is a good boyfriend. Jetpack Joyride doesn’t nag, it doesn’t compell, it doesn’t manipulate. But it does seduce and enthrall, it makes me feel like I’ve achieved something, it makes me feel like I’m genuinely happier for having it in my life.

If a free-to-play game feels nagging and bothersome, then it’s a bad game. There are plenty of bad games released with an up-front fee. There are even more reasonably good games that were ruined by cutting corners to cushion the financial risk of old fashioned development cycles. And there are even more bad boyfriends out there who will try to take every emotional resource you have and give you nothing but guilt and shame in return. Selfish tactics are not limited to any business model or any human endeavour, but they’re never the best course of action - maybe they just feel like the safest option at the time.

A good free-to-play game has genuinely tempting IAPs. I want to fly around wearing a top hat, propelled by a stream of rainbows. I’m willing to pay for that, because I find the idea so appealing. If a game has to nag you to spend money, that’s because the designers couldn’t think of any products to include in the game that were adequately tempting. It’s not the business model that’s at fault. It’s selfish designers.