research-article

Free-to-Play Games: Paying Players' Perspective

Authors:

Elina Koskinen,

Janne PaavilainenAuthors Info & Claims

Mindtrek '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Academic Mindtrek Conference

Pages 49 - 58

https://doi.org/10.1145/3275116.3275133

Published: 10 October 2018 Publication History

Abstract

This paper investigates the free-to-play revenue model from the perspective of paying players, focusing on high-spenders. As the free-to-play model has proven successful, game developers have increasingly adopted it as their revenue model. At the same time, worrying concerns over the revenue model have been voiced, calling it exploitative, unethical, or simply claiming it to offer poor gameplay experiences. We investigated these concerns by conducting an interview study with 11 players who have spent money on free-to-play games, on their perceptions about free-to-play games, experiences on playing them and paying in them, and opinions on ethical issues in the games. The results shed light on how players themselves experience these games.

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Cited By

Wiik EAlha K(2023)Playing on life's termsEludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture10.7557/23.711514:1(125-145)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.7557/23.7115
Bank D(2023)Problematic monetization in mobile games in the context of the human right to economic self-determinationComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.107958149:COnline publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107958
Gibson EGriffiths MCalado FHarris A(2023)Videogame player experiences with micro-transactionsComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.107766145:COnline publication date: 1-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107766
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Index Terms

Free-to-Play Games: Paying Players' Perspective
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
      1. Computer games
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Virtual worlds software
        Interactive games

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cover image ACM Other conferences

Mindtrek '18: Proceedings of the 22nd International Academic Mindtrek Conference

October 2018

282 pages

ISBN:9781450365895

DOI:10.1145/3275116

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Tampere University of Technology
UTA: The University of Tampere
SIGCHI Finland: ACM SIGCHI Finland
Tampere University of Applied Sciences

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 10 October 2018

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Mindtrek 2018

Mindtrek 2018: Academic Mindtrek 2018

October 10 - 11, 2018

Tampere, Finland

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Mindtrek '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 34 of 68 submissions, 50%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 110 of 207 submissions, 53%

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Cited By

Wiik EAlha K(2023)Playing on life's termsEludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture10.7557/23.711514:1(125-145)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.7557/23.7115
Bank D(2023)Problematic monetization in mobile games in the context of the human right to economic self-determinationComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.107958149:COnline publication date: 1-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107958
Gibson EGriffiths MCalado FHarris A(2023)Videogame player experiences with micro-transactionsComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2023.107766145:COnline publication date: 1-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107766
Lischer SJeannot EBrülisauer LWeber NKhazaal YBendahan SSimon O(2022)Response to the Regulation of Video Games under the Youth Media Protection Act: A Public Health PerspectiveInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health10.3390/ijerph1915932019:15(9320)Online publication date: 29-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159320
Woods O(2022) The Economy of Time, the Rationalisation of Resources: Discipline, Desire and Deferred Value in the Playing of Gacha Games Games and Culture10.1177/1555412022107772817:7-8(1075-1092)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120221077728
Macey JBujić M(2022)The Talk of the Town: Community Perspectives on Loot BoxesModes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_11(199-223)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_11
Tyack AMekler EKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)Off-Peak: An Examination of Ordinary Player ExperienceProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445230(1-12)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445230
Steinmetz FFiedler Ivon Meduna MAnte L(2021)Pay-to-Win Gaming and its Interrelation with Gambling: Findings from a Representative Population SampleJournal of Gambling Studies10.1007/s10899-021-10042-138:3(785-816)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-021-10042-1
Petrovskaya EZendle D(2021)Predatory Monetisation? A Categorisation of Unfair, Misleading and Aggressive Monetisation Techniques in Digital Games from the Player PerspectiveJournal of Business Ethics10.1007/s10551-021-04970-6181:4(1065-1081)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04970-6
Melzer ARoarsen AHagen MJaccheri L(2021)Towards Suitable Free-to-Play Games for ChildrenEntertainment Computing – ICEC 202110.1007/978-3-030-89394-1_20(264-276)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89394-1_20
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