Time is Money

The marketplace is literally flooding with games that are now ‘free’ and each uses a different model through which to make money. At the end of the day videogames are all about making money and through that success is generally measured. Farmville is a great example of a ‘successful’ game, it does not break the boundaries of technical limitations, it does not introduce a brand new genre of game, it does not by any means do anything impressive except one thing: make money (a bucketload at that).

So how does it do it? Addiction, the need to keep coming back to something and being consistently rewarded for doing so. In addition to this is limits the play through currency and the acquisition of it. Now this is a fantastic model for making money and i’ve seen it applied in many areas of games.

Most recently I have been partaking in an MMO game Spiral Knights. Its a ‘free’ to play game and if you wish it to be, it will remain free. However if you want more then it will cost you. Now currency is a difficult concept to apply to an MMO for a ‘free’ to play model however it achieves it with ease. Currency is split distinctly between Crowns and Energy: Crowns are by all means the coinage of the world, Energy is a Pseudo-Real currency that makes the money for the game.

Energy is further divided into ‘Mist’ energy and ‘Crystal’ energy. Mist energy is gained up to 100 over a 24 hour period, that is it refills constantly. Crystal energy is paid-for energy that has no limit and does not regenerate. Both forms of energy are spent on the same things: Dungeon entry and Crafting. Every dungeon (which is the main element of fun) requires a small entry fee of 10 energy and a further 10 energy to delve deeper through each level of it. So on a free to play model a player could explore 10 levels in total per day. Crafting items (another key mechanic) requires an energy fee aswell this time it is somewhat higher, for a 2-star (out of 5) item to be crafted requires 50 energy, that’s half a days ration!

Now, notice what I did in that last sentence? I associated the in-game currency with a time value and it’s this which fascinates me the most about this particular games paid model: time IS money. 100 energy becomes associated with 24 hours. The second day I played this game (it really didn’t take long) I began to wonder, how much does energy cost? It turns out it is seductively cheap: 750 energy costs a mere $3. Equating that with time, $3 for over 7 days worth of energy, to be spent whenever I like. It only gets better from there, for $5 you can get over double. The payment model works. Oh and you still get the up to 100 mist energy everyday on top of the crystal energy purchased.

Needless to say, I bought £5 worth of energy. I enjoy this game and have spent a good few hours already playing it they deserve my money for that. So the old saying, Time is Money: really works as a payment model! 

Time it takes to read this whole post: ~0.14 Energy.