So first let me describe my definition of "corporate free-to-play" game: to me, a corporate free-to-play game is a game that is free to download (obviously). It usually has tons of microtransactions to increase two types of currency: an easily-obtainable in-game currency (e.g. lux, coins) (Currency #1), and a more rare type of currency that you can barely get any of in-game and you're more or less forced to buy if you want to get it at a reasonable pace (e.g. gold, diamonds, riot points, etc.) (Currency #2).

Now, I try to stay away from these corporate free-to-play games, even though it's pretty hard to do since almost every game on any mobile app store is loaded with these types of games. It seems like most Japanese games that get localized to the US fall into this category. Kingdom Hearts Union X is one of these games, and so is Puyo Puyo Quest. These are two of my favorite franchises and I feel left out because I don't want to spend money on these games, but I feel as if I'm basically forced to in order to be even remotely competitive.

I'm saying this because I ran into one of these games today. It's called "Skyscraper". It's a real-time strategy card game with cute anime-styled art and it's actually really fun. It has potential, and it's actually pretty exciting, but sadly it falls into the category or corporate free-to-play. If you want any good cards in your deck, you need to get good cards. The developers are nice enough to give you a free card pack every time you win (though they are he basic ones), but these card packs take a few hours to open (anywhere from five to eight hours). Now, this wouldn't be a problem, but you can only hold four pending card packs in your inventory. This means that in order to not waste any cards, you would have to limit yourself to one game every five to eight hours, which really sucks. You can, of course, speed this process up, but that takes over three hundred Currency #2 for a five-hour pack and over five hundred gold for an eight-hour pack.

It sucks that I can't play this game more without feeling guilty about losing cards, because as I said before, this game has a lot of potential. I can't help but to think of Hearthstone, and how that game is also free-to-play but it's more fair than this. While some people may argue otherwise, HS' dusting system, lack of a Currency #2, and easy-to-farm Gold (Currency #1) lets you theoretically get a good deck in a week or two, and you're not really forced to buy anything. Now, I know the success or HS is in part due to the fact that Blizzard is already a Titan of a company, and that HS is much more well known, but surely the corporate free-to-play model isn't that much more lucrative, or HS would have copied it.

I don't know much about economics, but the fact that the corporate free-to-play model is so widespread must be indicative of its success for individual developers and companies. But surely there must be another way. Surely there can be a compromise between a completely fair game and a lucrative one, right? If it's out there, I haven't found it yet (I guess HS kinda falls into this category but I promised myself I wouldn't go back to that game because it was eating away at my life).

Bloons TD Battles does a great job at this. Within a week or two, you can unlock every tower. I quit that game as well, though, because it was getting repetitive, though that's on me I guess.

I don't know how to end this rant (I probably should have ended three paragraphs ago), so I'll just end it here.

I play skyscaper too but quiy right before they add friend batyle

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Ueah bloon td bstlles can be repititive but if fun if both ppl are rushing bloon and so forth( i play moab pit once which cost 10k med to enter it really fun in there cause i can see lots pf weird strat and micro alot)

And yeah 90% of free to play games suffer from some sort that force player to buy some shit to progress .

F/GO is free to play, and all the game's content is completable without paying a cent. Not only does the game give you premium currency for free just for logging in, but it also gives you premium currency for just playing the game.

A lot of Japanese/Chinese mobages do something like this. Whether a game's content can be completed (or whether you can be competitive at all, in the case of PvP) without paying at all is arguable for some games, but the gacha games give you free currency and will almost always include some kind of safety net system that will grant you a rare character once you roll enough times. Almost always (I'm looking at you, F/GO).

This system has worked fantastically for the developers, and F/GO is one of the highest grossing apps of all time currently in both JP and NA markets.

I think that one of the most important things you need to keep people from getting bored is fresh, interesting content. Doesn't exactly sound too revolutionary, but many games suffer from the inability to have new, interesting content. Gacha games do this pretty easily, and the developers just keep rolling out event after event after event, featuring new story content, new characters, etc.

I spent a lot of time rewriting this and I could go on a lot about mobile games, but I feel like if I do that all in one post, it'll get confusing and be hard to follow. That said, there are definitely games with that balance (in my opinion).

BEWARE OF THE GACHA, IT WILL STEAL ALL YOUR MONEY

Hey guys, remember shareware/demos?

Well, corporation that makes the game need to makes money, and which one gonna make more money, one time pay to buy the game (e.g paying like 30 bucks or something one time and get the full game) or microtransactions where people pay five buck for a million times?. Now i hate microtransactions just as much as you, but thats just the reality.