{"id":402,"date":"2014-04-03T23:05:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T06:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/?p=402"},"modified":"2014-04-03T23:05:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T06:05:39","slug":"learning-about-free-to-play-from-devil-may-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/?p=402","title":{"rendered":"Learning about Free-to-Play from Devil May Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first 20 minutes of\u00a0Devil May Cry<\/em>\u00a0are really clever. \u00a0What happens is this: you breeze through several rooms, chopping evil marionettes left and right and flicking that silver hair around like you own the world. \u00a0After the second or third room the game offers you the option to switch to “Easy Automatic Mode,” in which the game becomes easier. \u00a0It’s pretty easy at that point, so you probably ignore the offer. \u00a0But a few minutes later\u00a0Devil May Cry<\/em> throws you at the first boss (a giant lava spider) and you die. \u00a0I mean, you die<\/b><\/span>. \u00a0You get your butt handed to you on a platter. \u00a0The giant lava spider is way, way tougher than anything you’ve seen in the game so far. \u00a0It’s not even clear how to damage the thing at first. \u00a0You get beat down, hard. \u00a0You try again, but it’s futile. The lava spider is too difficult. \u00a0At this point you have four options:<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/a>

It’s hard to find a better arrogantly androgynous fashionista super hero.<\/p><\/div>\n

    \n
  1. Quit playing,<\/li>\n
  2. Turn on Easy Automatic Mode and try again,<\/li>\n
  3. Step up and become much more skilled to beat the boss, or<\/li>\n
  4. Figure out that you can go back and keep killing marionettes to grind for items which you can then use in a shop to power yourself up to make the boss more reasonable.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is a genius little bit of manipulation because what the game is really doing is forcing you to identify, early on, the kind of experience you want. \u00a0If you quit, well, you probably do not have the patience required to enjoy the rest of this game. \u00a0If you turn on Easy Automatic Mode, you’ve identified yourself as somebody who wants to play but isn’t interested in a pride challenge. \u00a0If you skill up, you’re a hardcore mofo and the game should throw everything it’s got at you. \u00a0The last option, the one that I think most players choose, is to go back and grind.<\/p>\n

    But grinding serves a purpose. \u00a0It forces you to learn about second- and third-order game systems, like controlling your combos to increase the number of style points you get. \u00a0It is here that you unlock the real meat of the game design: you’re not just supposed to button mash through dudes, you’re supposed to control your combos to destroy the opposition as stylishly as possible. \u00a0Doing so increases your style score, which increases the payout of each felled enemy, which lets you upgrade to become even more badass. \u00a0This is a much more interesting (and difficult) challenge, and adds a lot of depth to the moment-to-moment gameplay. \u00a0Devil May Cry<\/em>\u00a0uses its first boss as a forcing function to figure out what kind of player you are, and it compels you to unwittingly select a play style that you prefer.<\/p>\n

    Why does it do this? \u00a0Because the rest of the game is even\u00a0harder<\/em> than that lava spider boss, and becoming skilled enough to make progress requires that you be really invested in the core game mechanic. \u00a0Button mashing isn’t enough to sustain most players’ interest through the incredibly demanding difficulty curve that\u00a0Devil May Cry<\/em> employs, but by tricking you into learning about the extra depth in the combo system, the game is actually ramping you up for a more interesting experience.<\/p>\n

    \"Easy<\/a>

    Easy Automatic Mode pop-up in Devil May Cry 3.<\/p><\/div>\n

    It’s really quite manipulative if you think about it. \u00a0The system is designed to carry the maximum number of people through the level content, and hopefully make them feel good about it. \u00a0It’s a carefully constructed trick, aimed right at the psychology of the player who feels that he has something to prove. \u00a0Going a step further, we might even see the offer to switch to Easy Automatic Mode as a challenge: “hey, if you can’t take the heat, there’s always training-wheels mode over here.” \u00a0Players who aren’t putting their pride on the line will see Easy Automatic Mode as a welcome way to reduce frustration. \u00a0Players who want bragging rights for their skills see it as a personal insult. \u00a0The game uses this form of manipulation to ensure that both types of players are put on a path to having a good time.<\/p>\n

    This is the type of design that a good free-to-play game should pursue. \u00a0One of the many complaints about free-to-play games is that the addition of purchases leads to manipulative game design. \u00a0But manipulative design is not limited to attempting to extract money from wallets. \u00a0As with\u00a0Devil May Cry<\/em>, it can be used to improve the game experience, and widen access to players with different play preferences. \u00a0If you want to get technical about it, contemporary free-to-play experts would probably call\u00a0Devil May Cry’s\u00a0<\/em>lava spider a\u00a0retention system<\/em>. \u00a0The lingo might make you feel yucky, but the concept is sound: it’s a way to get more people to give the game a second or third chance, to identify what kind of game they want to play, and prepare them for the dramatically deeper content ahead.<\/p>\n

    \"DMCs<\/a>

    DMCs core loop supports different play styles, but it identifies which you prefer early.<\/p><\/div>\n

    There’s no question that the addition of real-money purchases changes the emotional tone of the game for some players. \u00a0There’s no question that many of the mechanisms used by free games to make money could be considered manipulative. \u00a0Certainly there are games that are designed without respect for their audience, but what of games that manipulate out of respect? \u00a0But what if the purpose of that manipulation was to improve the fun factor? \u00a0What if the purpose was to force the player to choose between a skill-based challenge or content tourism? \u00a0What if we could use the emotional impact of a real-money purchase to manipulate some players into\u00a0enjoying the game more? \u00a0<\/em>Traditional games do this all the time; should free-to-play games be any different?<\/p>\n

    We think that in-app purchases can be put to better use than just fishing for a small fraction of the audience that likes to spend big. \u00a0We think they can be used as a way to increase the quality of the game, both for those who purchase things and for those who do not. \u00a0In the next post I’ll write about how we’re trying to do that with\u00a0Wind-up Knight 2.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The first 20 minutes of\u00a0Devil May Cry\u00a0are really clever. \u00a0What happens is this: you breeze through several rooms, chopping evil marionettes left and right and flicking that silver hair around like you own the world. \u00a0After the second or third … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design","category-mobile-games","category-wind-up-knight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robotinvader.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}