Why Some Free Online Games Fail and Others Succeed

The recipe for success in free to play online games may seem obvious to some and like a secret formula to others. We see games like Maple Story, Fortnite Battle Royale, DOTA, and others do amazingly well, while many free to play games appear and disappear like a whiff of smoke in the larger industry. What's the difference? Is there really only room for a certain number of free to play online games?

We are going to look at a few factors that help a free to play online game succeed as well as those factors that can cause their downfall. As you will see, these are often the same things, but doing them well or poorly determines success. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, but it may help you get a better idea of why some do well and others fall by the wayside.

Word of Mouth

These days, it's what people say about an online game that will really push it in one direction or another. Even if a game has very little publicity and advertising, positive word of mouth can give it really long legs. That's what a free to play game needs. It needs to last for a while to make its money back and continue making money so that the studio behind it can be funded to do more with the game or to create more games. In order for a game to receive positive word of mouth, it has to have some sort of user base that really enjoys it. 

We have seen this happen over and over again with indie games. These smaller games have a very small advertising budget and rely on word of mouth to build their user base. Games like Rocket League and Among Us may not necessarily fit a free to play model, but positive word of mouth has helped them have really long legs, financially speaking. 

The same thing is true of สล็อตเว็บใหญ่ที่สุด, and these games can have a much longer lifespan and enjoy a larger user base once people start spreading the good word about them. Even the biggest games can fail if the word of mouth is poor. If people start telling one another that the game is no good, the mechanics stink, and everything feels like a copycat of something better, people will move on from it.

Grab the Zeitgeist

Nowadays, it's more important than ever for online games to become part of the social culture. If a video game isn't grabbing the pop culture attention, it's probably going to fade into obscurity very quickly. If people are creating a lot of memes of a particular game and sharing it on social media, it can do very well, even if the critics don't agree that it's a good game. What's amazing about the social structure of online games and their reach beyond the game world is that even if the game isn't very good, if it's interesting or unique enough, people will be talking about it a lot.

Fair Practice

Some major online games have really suffered with their specific models of income. While not a free play game, Star Wars Battlefront 2 had to deal with a lot of negative press because of how it charged players a lot of money to access basic features and characters. Street Fighter 5 encountered the same problem, as it locked off much of the roster behind paid purchases. This is probably why we still don't have a Street Fighter 6 or Star Wars Battlefront 3.

Completely free to play games run into the same problem, where they charge a lot of money for something people need or lock the most promising and exciting features behind paywalls. Players want to be able to experience most of the game without having to pay a lot of money, and some of the best free to play games manage to do that, like Happy Wars, which could be played completely without paying any money and still be very enjoyable.

When free play online games get these few factors right, they can tend to do very well. When they mess up on these points, however, they are often bound for failure.