In free-to-play (F2P) games, development has rapidly progressed in recent years with the introduction of numerous new games as well as new revenue models. In 2014, a survey was conducted to understand how game developers themselves viewed the genre and its revenue models, but since then, there have been changes in the F2P model and the gaming industry. This survey aims to again examine how developers currently perceive the model and its evolution in recent years. Among players, there has been a perceived sense of unfairness regarding the F2P model, and the revenue models have been perceived as intrusive and aggressive. Some of these revenue models have also been linked to problematic gaming behavior due to their design. The research question underlying this study is: How do game developers view the current in-app purchase (IAP) model in mobile games? Is it possible to design it in a way that is not perceived as intrusive and unfair, while still serving as a viable revenue model for companies? To answer this question, the study employed a qualitative approach, conducting several semi-structured interviews with individuals working in the gaming industry. The interviews were then subjected to thematic analysis to identify codes and themes. The results indicate that developers generally have a positive attitude towards the F2P model. However, they do see issues with how some of the revenue models are implemented and presented to players. The interviewees expressed optimism about the future of F2P games, but they also believe that the revenue models may undergo changes.

Free-to-play gamers' spending habits are crucial for game developers to generate revenue in games. The unique thing about free-to-play business model games is that players don't have to pay to play the game, but need to make in-game purchases if they want a better gaming experience. The users are diverse，the trend to personalise services for users based on their diversity has become unavoidable, but identifying user needs is a large and complex problem, so an in-depth understanding of players' spending behaviour in games is essential. This thesis assists researchers in addressing this issue by constructing a game user profile based on player consumption patterns. In order to build a profile of a game's users, a great amount of data needs to be collected. However, simply providing raw data may not be of value to the development. For this reason, this thesis explores a methodology for effectively analysing and communicating survey data. This methodology collects data from user surveys, analyses the data using the author's proposed logic for creating user profiles based on consumer behaviour, and uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to create a realistic game user profile. On this basis, through the application of the proposed logic, four categories of player consumption archetypes could be identified: players with Positive attitude(POSA), Moderate attitude (MODA), Reluctance attitude (RELA), and Negative attitude (NEGA). Subsequently, these archetypes could then be used to establish design guidelines for creating game mechanics and services to better encourage in-game purchases. However, as these methods have not been put into practice, the effectiveness of using them is open to question.

An exploratory discourse analysis was performed on a community of practice based on Discord, an instant messaging platform. The community of practice is a group of gamers (people who play video games), dedicated to the cross-platform free-to-play game Genshin Impact. A corpus of messages was gathered from the community’s public message logs, which spanned a period of three days during the release of Genshin Impact’s most financially lucrative character banner. From the corpus, numerous themes in players’ discussions have been observed; such as reactions to the gacha’s probability system, displays of problem gaming, sexualization of female characters, and opinions regarding monetization & the game’s developers. This study would be beneficial for future studies that pertain to player behavior and gamer culture that can also use communities of practice on platforms such as Discord, in order to gain insight into niche communities of engaged users. / En utforskande diskursanalys utfördes på praxisgemenskapen baserad på Discord, en plattform för snabbmeddelanden. Praxisgemenskapen var en grupp spelare dedikerade till det plattformsoberoende gratisspelet Genshin Impact. En korpus av meddelanden samlades in från gemenskapens offentliga meddelandeloggar, som sträckte sig över en period av tre dagar under lanseringen av Genshin Impacts mest ekonomiskt lukrativa karaktärsbanner. Från korpusen har många teman i spelarnas diskussioner observerats; såsom reaktioner på gachas sannolikhetssystem, visningar av problemspelande, sexualisering av kvinnliga karaktärer och åsikter om intäktsgenerering samt spelets utvecklare. Framtida studier som avser spelarbeteende och gamerkultur kan också använda praxisgemenskaper på plattformar som Discord, för att få insikt i nischa gemenskaper av engagerade användare.

Video games have become a great source of entertainment and emerged as a massive industry in the past few decades. Technological advancements and evolution of smartphones have made it easier for developers to develop and launch their games on different platforms mostly in digital form. Where the technology has facilitated game developers, it has also made this industry very competitive. Companies/developers need to consistently review their monetization strategies and make necessary changes to them in order to stay profitable. This study evaluates the monetization approaches of a case game by conducting a public survey. By analyzing the responses received from users from different regions of the world, this study found out how users from different regions have different attitudes towards gaming and how these can affect monetization approaches. Users from different regions spend time on gaming differently and their total number of gaming hours also vary. The findings from the thesis show that the specific hours might be a potential for gaming companies monetization investigation. In-game advertisements is one of the most popular monetization approaches and majority of the users from all age groups, regions, genders, and professions have no issues watching ads to receive some in-game benefits. Similarly, in-app purchase model of the case game proved to be very popular among its users. Subscriptions model, on the other hand, may prove to be another popular model for generating revenue, however, the company needs to address some issues to make users continue with their subscriptions. This study points out some reasons why users stop spending money on the case game. The study identifies some mitigation points as potential aspects that might have impact on monetization.

Online gaming is today a popular everyday activity among both young people and adults. This has led to several new design methods such as dark game design patterns which aim to manipulate the user to act in a certain way that may not necessarily be in their best interest, with features that can be destructive to the user.  The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the presence of dark patterns on two popular gaming platforms – a free to play mobile game and a slot game at a popular online casino – to then investigate what the implementation of these patterns means for the given context. This was considered important to study to identify if the implementation of dark patterns is used differently depending on the gaming platform’s target group, especially as several studies show that it is mainly children and teenagers who play mobile games that are free to play, while slot games are aimed towards adults. The conclusion of this study has shown that the amount of identified dark patterns primarily depends on the game’s construction rather than it’s target group, but also that dark game design patterns are implemented to encourages the user to actively play online games, which in the long run should make the user want to support the gaming companies monetarily.

Submitted by Maria Aparecida (cidazen@gmail.com) on 2017-04-27T14:21:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ruy Guilherme.pdf: 4333694 bytes, checksum: dc411f45b9fe05154bdee07704d50d65 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-27T14:21:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ruy Guilherme.pdf: 4333694 bytes, checksum: dc411f45b9fe05154bdee07704d50d65 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-01-23 / The recent emergence of Free-to-Play games, also known as Freemium games, has considerably changed the way games are made. The definition of monetization strategies is now part of the process of making games. Choosing which strategy to adopt among the various ones and understanding how they work could be an arduous task. When analysing the market, to realize that popular games use similar strategies is not difficult, which demonstrates that the reuse of strategies is common among developers. Although there are catalogs of popular monetization strategies used by Free-to-Play games in the literature, little attention has been given to formalize the description of those strategies, leaving openings for misunderstandings and making the reuse harder. For that reason, a meta-model of Free-to-Play games monetization that allows the representation of Free-toPlay games monetization strategies based on a set of popular strategies is proposed. That meta-model, called Meta-F2P, was elaborated from the investigation of the most rentable Free-to-Play games for mobile devices. Besides that, case studies were used to validate and refine the accuracy, expressiveness and extensibility of that meta-model. Based on the results obtained, the applicability of the meta-model in the process of making games and the advantages and disadvantages of the use of case studies in the concept of meta-models are analyzed. / A recente ascensão dos jogos Free-to-Play, também conhecidos como Freemium, provocou mudanças consideráveis na forma como os jogos são produzidos. A elaboração de estratégias de monetização passou a fazer parte do processo de desenvolvimento. Escolher qual estratégias adotar dentre as diversas existentes e entender o seu funcionamento pode tornar esta uma tarefa árdua. Ao se analisar o mercado não é difícil perceber que os jogos mais rentáveis abordam estratégias de monetização similares, demonstrando que reuso de estratégias é uma abordagem adotada por diversos desenvolvedores. Embora existam na literatura catálogos de estratégias de monetização populares em jogos Free-to-Play, pouca atenção tem sido dada no intuito de formalizar a descrição das estratégias, dando margem para interpretações errôneas e dificultando o reuso. Assim propõe-se um meta-modelo que permite representar as estratégias de monetização de jogos Free-to-Play a partir de um conjunto de estratégias populares. O meta-modelo denominado Meta-F2P foi elaborado a partir da análise de jogos Free-to-Play para dispositivos móveis mais rentáveis. Além disso, utilizou-se estudos de caso para a validação e o refinamento da exatidão, expressividade e extensibilidade do meta-modelo. A partir dos resultados obtidos analisa-se a aplicabilidade do meta-modelo no processo de design de jogos e as vantagens e desvantagens da aplicação de estudos de caso na elaboração de meta-modelos.

This diploma thesis deals with the new trends in the monetization of the video gaming industry with emphasis on crowdfunding, free-to-play model, selling games by "pay what you want" bundles and sales on Steam and other digital distribution stores. The purpose of this diploma thesis is to describe how the players on personal computers react to these trends in the Czech Republic. First, the situation in Czech gaming industry and the situation of players in the Czech Republic is described. Then, the new trends are analyzed thoroughly using foreign researches. The practical part analyses the effects of the new trends on Czech players with the results of an online questionnaire. First, the methodology is presented and subsequently the collected data is analyzed. Gradually, the thesis are answering the three research questions which are clarifying various aspects of how the Czech players respond to the new trends in the video gaming industry monetization. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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In recent years, microtransactions have become a norm for monetization and a standardbusiness model in free-to-play games. This is something that affects multiple individuals andhas caused quite a stir among players. Through this research, we want to gain anunderstanding of why some microtransaction types might be considered more acceptable thanothers. In addition, to gaining potential data that could possibly give us a look into the futureof the design of microtransactions. We have gathered our data by conducting online chatbased semi-structured interviews with current and former university students studying gamedesign at Uppsala University.The research found that game design students have a predominantly negative opinion aboutmost microtransactions, especially when they were affecting the gameplay, contrary to whenthey were not.

This thesis deals with a complete analysis of real data in free to play multiplayer games. The analysis is based on the methodology CRISP-DM using GUHA method and system LISp-Miner. The goal is defining player churn in pool from Geewa ltd.. Practical part show the whole process of knowledge discovery in databases from theoretical knowledge concerning player churn, definition of player churn, across data understanding, data extraction, modeling and finally getting results of tasks. In thesis are founded hypothesis depending on various factors of the game.