These five tools will improve your work in no time. Game Designers and Product managers should check them out.
Read MorePirate Kings is a great example for the way F2P games bring in new players
On the virtues of Free to Play
F2P, or Free2Play, or Freemium if you wish, has a bad reputation. You can find many articles, blog posts and forum threads bashing this model.
However, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the model itself. In fact, few can argue that this model is what made games part of the mainstream world. It allows you to have a conversation about games with your mother, or grandfather, or whomever.
What I am going to write about is why, philosophically, F2P games are a crucial element in the game industry. And I am going to write why “casual” gamers and “hardcore” gamers should both be happy it exists.
Read MoreGames are not one thing
“Games are not one thing – they are many things. Games are not interactive stories; they are not formal systems of rules; they are not the personal expression of the designer – they are all of these things simultaneously and many more. A challenge for game designers is to appreciate that games are math, psychology, culture, aesthetics, narrative, politics, and any number of other things – all at the same time. Every frame we might put around games is useful at some moment in the design process. Designers need to learn when a particular frame of understanding can help them solve a problem and when it can be a problem.”
Two years ago I worked on the Guardians
The Guardians was a great ride, and I'm still proud of it.
This image was the first I uploaded for people to see.