Monetization affects overall Game Design

Dragon Finga by Another Place Productions Ltd


I participated few years ago in the Web Game Conference 2013 that was held in June in Paris. One of the things I kept as a feedback was something mentioned regarding the approach to level design in games. It was said that monetization affects the overall game design.

I have played a couple of days ago a new game for iOS in an iPad named “Dragon Finga”. Very cool as a concept, very smart non-realistic physics but very playful, nice and simple interaction, a clearly and purely mobile oriented game. It is actually a fighting game, but do not bring in your mind Tekken or Street Fighter! I would rather say that the game is totally awesome, but there is one thing that makes the game suck, and that is its monetization!

The game is basically free, but there is a range of fancy points, numbers, stars, diamonds, rings or I do not even recall all these types of information on menu screens that make you want to leave just because you do not know where to click to simply play the next level! All those fancy things are reasons to buy more stuff in the game. Even worse, all this pointification was added as a tool to measure the quantitative aspects of the game so that they can be then sold. The pointification is not part of the game, it is not even real leveling that would suggest competition in terms of “playing”.

“Dragon Finga” is of course not the only monetized game, but it is an excellent example of a very good video game that has been badly intruded.

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