La emergencia de la perspectiva narrativa

To better understand the free-to-play model and its popularity, it is important to look at how and why it appeared. The evolution of free-to-play games is not a straightforward line, as its roots and influences can be traced to several historical factors. The development is also not only a one-way process. While many technologies and platforms have influenced the free-to-play model, the free-to-play model has had an influence on games with other revenue models. There are some points in history that have been especially influential for the success of the free-to- play model: notably the development of online computer games in South Korea and virtual worlds in the West, the popularity of social network services, the distribution of smartphones and their marketplaces, and the model’s rising popularity among competitive online games.

Free-to-play’s roots and online games

The South Korean game industry is one of the pioneers of today’s free-to-play model. South Korea’s history under the rule of Japan in the 20th century caused South Korea to prohibit the import of Japanese goods, including consoles and games, into the country until 1998. While Nintendo, Sega, and Sony were internationally successful, only smuggled and pirated versions arrived in South

Korea. Due to this, console games did not enjoy a similar kind of success as seen in many other countries of the time. (Donovan, 2010, pp. 309–310.) At the same time, the economy of South Korea was rising, and the government made major investments on establishing a fast broadband internet connection throughout the country.

The combination of a lack of console games and a fast internet made online computer games the most successful products of the South Korean game industry. The concentration on online games raised opportunities for new ways to sell games and content and helped to fight the piracy issue that was blooming in the country. The success of these games revealed an interesting aspect: players were using money to buy virtual content from each other. This realization was one of the keys for the microtransaction model in games. Nexon pioneered the transition to offer games completely free and monetize them through in-game content. (Chung, 2015.) In 2004, the company offered Crazyracing Kartrider (Nexon, 2004) for free, including in- app purchases to monetize the game, typifying the free-to-play microtransactions approach. Due to the great success seen in South Korea, game companies started to break onto international markets, and free-to-play games such MapleStory (Nexon, 2003; see Figure 1) were popular also outside the South Korean market, reaching Japan, North America, and Europe.

Figure 1. MapleStory, a 2D MMO game and an early example of a free-to-play game. All photos and

The free-to-play model quickly reached the Chinese market from South Korea in the early 2000s (Donovan, 2010, p. 317). China not only adapted South Korean games, but also built their own free-to-play game industry. Importing games into China was challenging, and getting pirated games was not only cheaper, but also easier (Chung & Fung, 2013). The Chinese government gave considerable support and market advantage to the development of Chinese games, hoping to create a domestic industry instead of importing international games into the country. In 2003, the state focused on supporting online game development, excluding offline games from the funding (Fung & Liao, 2013). The improved broadband coverage and the emerging internet café culture were important factors as well. South Korean online games were successful in China, but ended up being copied by the Chinese companies, sometimes even by the local publishers of those games (Chung & Fung, 2013). The domestic industry adopted the free-to-play model, which proved effective and eventually became dominant in China (Fung & Liao, 2015).

Another early source of the free-to-play model resides in Western virtual worlds, such as the British Neopets (Powell & Williams, 1999), Finnish Habbo Hotel (Sulake, 2000), and the American Second Life (Linden Lab, 2003), which brought microtransactions and their possible influence into wider discussion. Users of these virtual worlds could create accounts and use the services without any costs, but could also pay for premium accounts or in-game currencies. Users buying digital content from each other proved to form a significant economy of itself (Donovan, 2010, pp. 315–316), and the realization was then brought to some Western MMO games.

The first big MMOs in the West were subscription-based, but as the free-to-play model proved effective in the Asian-Pacific region and in virtual worlds, microtransactions became more common in Western online games. Some companies even relied solely upon them, discarding all mandatory subscription fees. As the free-to-play model started to gain success in many areas of gaming, subscription-based online game companies felt the pressure to turn towards it. Especially as not all MMOs with purchase and subscription fees managed to draw the audiences they needed for their games to be profitable, changing to the model offered a possible solution.

Social network games popularize free-to-play

Free-to-play games found a new market in the late 2000s from social network platforms such as MySpace and Facebook, from which the latter was to play an especially crucial role in popularizing the free-to-play model in games. While there

were already some simple games on social network services, the introduction of the Facebook application programming interface (API) in 2007 allowed 3rd _party

developers to create content, and launched the social network game boom.

Mäyrä et al. (2017) have divided Facebook games into five generations. The first generation included several types of simple games, such as arcade-game clones and single-player games. Soon, however, games started to take advantage of the social networking platform and spread on the platform aggressively, marking the rise of the second generation (Mäyrä et al., 2017). For instance, Blake Commagere and AJ Olson developed a series of monster games: Vampires (2007), Zombies (2007), Werewolves (2007), and Slayers (2007). These games incorporated the viral possibilities of involving one’s friends on Facebook. The player could add other people into their army by “biting” them, if the bitten friend then also started to play the game. Players could either feed on other players or fight them, collecting experience and game money which they could then use to buy better equipment for their character. Real money was not yet used, but the games did use cross promotion advertisements as their means of monetization. Commagere later stated in an interview that he saw the potential of further monetization, but claimed that the games would lose their charm if the focus would shift into maximizing revenue streams (Au, 2007).

Later, in the third generation of Facebook games, developers started to monetize games on Facebook by giving players the option to gain in-game currency (Mäyrä et al., 2017). In Mob Wars (Maestri, 2008), it was possible to gain credits through third- party offers such as taking part in market surveys, or by purchasing paid memberships outside the game. Mob Wars rose to be one of the top-grossing applications of the time on Facebook, showing that social network games could be profitable. After the first success stories, the number of games on social network platforms skyrocketed. Zynga brought in their Mob Wars equivalent, Mafia Wars (Zynga, 2009), which became a long-time hit. Different farming games such as Happy Farm (5 Minutes, 2008) and FarmVille emerged. These games featured in-app purchases and offline progress mechanics, where the player could either wait or pay to instantly move forward (Paavilainen et al., 2013). Social casino games such as free- to-play versions of poker and slots games also became popular. Many of the most successful games such as Mafia Wars, FarmVille and FrontierVille (Zynga, 2010; see Figure 2) were developed by Zynga. These games typically featured aggressive monetization, and the included third-party offers to gain in-game currency were sometimes seen as suspicious, and even fraudulent. Consequently, these characteristics started to bring social network games unwanted negative attention.

Figure 2. A typical Facebook game, FrontierVille, showing soft currency (coins), hard currency

(horseshoes), an energy bar, and a friend bar (neighbors)

The model of Facebook games was to a large part based on virality and sharing game- related posts on the Facebook news stream, and getting people to join or rejoin the games in question. Facebook users who did not play games otherwise were drawn into the games too, sometimes to help their playing friends and family (Boudreau & Consalvo, 2014). Ultimately, Facebook changed their API in 2011 in the way that game-related posts were shown on the newsfeed, grouping them together and decreasing their visibility, which in turn forced the games to change their virality tactics.

This marks the beginning of the fourth generation in the history of social games. In this generation, the market started to stabilize, and acquisition and advertising in games started to be more central, which in turn led to aggressive marketing and cross promotion (Mäyrä et al., 2017). At this point, social network games featured a lot of banners and pop-up windows with advertisements. In 2013, Facebook games started to lose their user base. In 2013-2014, Zynga started mass layoffs, and their daily active player count dropped from 53 million to 28 million (Yin-Poole, 2014). In 2015, Zynga shut down several games, including CityVille (2010) and Pioneer Trail (formerly FrontierVille). Many other games were also either shut down or left with minimum maintenance. While some games still operated successfully on Facebook,

some used the platform merely to link to a mobile version. This is what Mäyrä et al. (2017) have called the fifth generation: social network games operating on several platforms. As a discerning feature, even if the actual game would not be playable on the social network service, it might still serve as user acquisition, including a link to the game and allowing the social sharing of events from the now more popular mobile game.

Free-to-play conquers mobile platforms

In the early 2010s, Apple and Android platforms provided new avenues for free-to- play games, while the popularity of social network games started to decline. Mobile games had existed since the early days of GSM phones, including simple games such as Snake (Armanto, 1997) that were embedded in the phones, while later it was possible to download small games for free or for a small price. This, however, changed dramatically with the introduction and increased distribution of smartphones. These phones were more powerful and could include more complex games, and the built-in marketplaces of Apple’s AppStore and Google’s Android Market (later known as Google Play) made installing and paying for games easier. Both major platforms included sales, in-app advertising, and in-app purchases, all important features in relation to how the mobile game market evolved (O’Donnell, 2017).

In the beginning, smartphone games were typically premium, having a small one- time purchase fee. Due to the sales and the saturation of the market, however, prices quickly came down, and when games could be purchased for less than a euro, it became difficult to sell games for higher prices (O’Donnell, 2017). Again, the free- to-play model offered a solution. King released their browser-based match-three game Candy Crush Saga on mobile in 2012, and during the same year, Supercell published their farming game Hay Day (Supercell, 2012) and their online-strategy game Clash of Clans (Supercell, 2012) on iOS and later on Android. The three games surpassed all premium games and have dominated among the top-grossing lists for several years. The revenues of free-to-play mobile games started to not only surpass those of premium mobile games, but all digital games including computer and console games. This has now escalated to a point where almost all of the top-grossing apps on mobile use the free-to-play model, the majority of which are games (Alha et al., 2016). In 2016, Niantic published Pokémon Go, the first location-based game to reach mainstream popularity and one of the most successful mobile games. Pokémon

Go’s success was especially visible as the game includes walking and uses real-world locations, and players convened outside to play it (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Pokémon Go view in and out of the game in an area where players have convened to play

the game and share lures, items that attract more Pokémon creatures

Competitive computer games turn to microtransactions

The success of the model allowed it to spread to most platforms and genres, including influencing the design of games using other revenue models (Davidovici- Nora, 2013). However, the model has not had similar success on all platforms and games types. In addition to MMO and casual games, competitive online computer games have been especially well suited to the model, and successful cases have inspired its use in directly competitive games.

As competition is at the center of these games, developers have typically tried to create monetization models where direct power purchases are avoided, and especially cosmetic purchases are favored. Some models focus on faster advancement in

unlocking content, helping to avoid time-consuming grinding. These features make these types of games more accepted as free-to-play games, as they help prevent them from becoming pay-to-win. They are also typically seen as being more hardcore than other free-to-play games, which is often valued by gamer hobbyists.

One genre comprising almost completely of free-to-play games since their appearance are multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA), which are team-based strategy games. In this game type, players compete in small teams, trying to destroy an opponent’s base while protecting their own. The genre was inspired by StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998) and Warcraft 3 (Blizzard Entertainment, 2002) mods, and gained further popularity in 2009 when Riot Games published League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009) under the free-to-play model. Several MOBAs have become popular esports titles.

Wargaming (a Belarusian game company) published World of Tanks (Wargaming, 2010) in 2010, founding it on the free-to-play revenue model. The game was a competitive team-based war game where the players would fight in teams, each player maneuvering a tank and trying to destroy other tanks. It went on to be very successful and was later followed by World of Warplanes (Persha Studia, 2013) and World of Warships (Lesta Studios, 2015). In 2012, Team Fortress 2 (Valve, 2007), a team- based shooter game, transformed from a one-time payment model to free-to-play. The game underwent substantial changes, and it was later reported that the game’s revenue had multiplied by a factor of 12 (Miller, 2012). This example encouraged even more game companies to turn towards the model.

Figure 4. In Fortnite Battle Royale players compete against each other until one player or team is

Another newer popular genre typically employing the free-to-play model includes battle royale (BR) games, where a large number of players compete on a single map, trying to kill others and to be the last player (or team) standing. While the first extremely successful BR game, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds or PUBG (PUBG Corporation, 2017) was a premium game, its follower, Fortnite Battle Royale (Epic Games, 2017; see Figure 4) used the free-to-play model and quickly surpassed PUBG both in player count and revenue. In 2017, Blizzard’s real-time strategy game, StarCraft 2 (Blizzard Entertainment, 2010) transitioned to free-to-play, offering the first part of the campaign and free access to multiplayer content, while Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Valve, 2012) turned to the model in 2018.

Finally, collectible card games (CCG) are worth mentioning here. Games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering Arena (Wizards Digital Games Studio, 2019) seem to suit the free-to-play revenue model well, especially due to the monetization model of original physical CCGs such as Magic: The Gathering (Garfield, 1993). In a CCG, players create their own decks of cards, and can get additional cards by buying booster packs. The boosters include a random selection of cards, and finding the suitable cards typically involves going through several boosters. The publisher regularly brings out new generations of cards, keeping the pressure on to buy new packs. This resembles the loot box mechanic and has been implemented in several free-to-play CCGs. CCGs are relatively easy to implement as multiplatform games, and especially the more popular ones are often playable both on computer and mobile platforms.

Interestingly, other big free-to-play computer productions have also recently expanded to mobile. Games such as Fortnite and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive have their mobile versions, and League of Legends is set to arrive on the mobile market in 2020. As mobile free-to-play market continues to offer the most profitable platforms, these moves further strengthen the position of the leading companies. Simultaneously, it likely validates smartphones as more “real” as gaming platforms in gamer communities.