10 Ways to Make them Pay for Microtransactions
The concept of microtransactions is to get players to pay for unlockable content in a game. The tough thing though is getting a player who is used to playing flash games for free to part with their valuable cash. What you need to do is give them a good reason to pay for that extra content. Here are 10 ways to get players to buy in-game content:
1. Offer new missions to play. They will add more play time and value to the game.
2. Add a follow-up to the storyline. What happened after the main villain or rival was defeated? Will there be more villains? Or maybe it will be a prologue to the sequel?
3. Grant the player new characters to play as. While changing the look will be enough for some people to buy, you can also offer different dialogue or special items and levels that can only be unlocked with a certain character.
4. Give them bonus items, weapons, armor or vehicles that are the best in the game. Make sure these are the best looking items in the game too, so they not only are better than the rest but look good while doing it. This could ruin a multiplayer game though, so I would advise leaving this one out if you plan on making a multiplayer flash game.
5. Offer multiple modes of play. When a player is finished your campaign mode, they are going to be looking for something else to entertain them. Give them more ways to play your game such as arcade mode, time mode, high scores mode, or anything else depending on your type of game.
6. Let the player have the option of buying currency in your game. This way you can capitalize on those lazy gamers out there.
7. Allow the player to buy cheats. Give them the option of buying cheats such as invincibility, unlimited money, unlock all levels, etc. You could combine all the cheats into one package for purchasing. Again, don’t include this one in a multiplayer game: it would be ridiculously unfair.
8. Offer new areas to play in. This could mean new race tracks, platformer levels, shooting game maps, or regions to conquer.
9. Offer new enemies to face. Give them unique traits and attributes to set them apart from other enemies.
10. Try a combination of these factors to give the player more options. Give a good description of each unlockable, so the players know what they will be buying.
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February 20th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Hey,
nice post, but i do not completly agree with your list. The points 4 and 7 are not very well and could easily destroy the gameplay. Especially for multiplayer games…
When you want to use Microtransaction in your games, you have to care about your game design. Taiyoung Ryu wrote a nice article “Game Design on Item-selling Based Payment Model in
Korean Online Games” ( http://interactive.usc.edu/members/tryu/085.pdf ) Here his blog: http://interactive.usc.edu/members/tryu/2007/12/my_article_in_game_developer_m.html
February 20th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I was trying to include a wide range of games that could fit each point. I agree with you, cheats and better weapons would make a multiplayer game unfair and less fun to play.
However for a regular flash game, I feel that number 4 and 7 would increase the playability of the game as it would give the player new ways to play through the game.
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