Intro One of the most typical tasks in game design is balancing some sort of a progression vector. For example, you might need to come up with a set of values, a number of points that a player needs to collect to advance to the next level. Another example might…

In my previous series of texts, I have been talking extensively about the live service of free-to-play games. Limited-time events have a central position in any live game strategy. In this text, I will focus on practical examples of planning a live event calendar for a year of a typical…

In case you have missed it I have spent the last several weeks talking about the live service of free-to-play games. This text is a condensed version of the previous five longer stories. It was created entirely using ChatGPT. I still recommend reading the longer version, but if you don’t…

Advanced Monetization Features — This text is the fifth and final part of a new series of texts about metagame design and live service monetization of free-to-play games. You can read the previous parts on the following links: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV. We finally made it to the last…

The Live Events — This text is the fourth part of a new series of texts about metagame design and live service monetization of free-to-play games. You can read the previous parts on the following links: Part I, Part II, and Part III. Layer 3 — limited-time events Limited-time events are the bread and butter of live service. Coming…

The Evergreen Stuff — This text is the third part of a new series of texts about metagame design and live service monetization of free-to-play games. You can read the first and the second part here and here. Layers I mentioned already that I like to use a metaphor of a layered cake when discussing…

The foundations of a virtual economy — This article is the second part of a new series about metagame design and live service monetization of free-to-play games. You can read the first part here. Foundations Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the monetization design we need to take a look at some fundamental notions. Actually, I hate…

Introduction to Live Service Monetization — This text is the first part of a new series of texts about metagame design and live service monetization of free-to-play games. Stay tuned! Business Model Back in the day things were simple. The team makes the game. It gets stamped on CDs or whichever other medium, gets put in a box…

Intro I realized that my texts are somewhat hermetic. My initial intention was to write them with people with some sort of game development background as an intended audience. With that in mind, I have been using game industry lingo in liberal quantities. However, this terminology is not consistent even across…