Modern Gaming Financials

[Raptor29aa]

A little backstory; I told told a friend of mine, I tested games for fun as a hobby. He told me he knew a guy involved in accounting for a game developer. It sounded cool, and I inquired to get a small meet up. I had a few questions, and spoiler I left feeling depressed.

I started off with how I gave feedback into how the experience could be enjoyable, and often checked for bugs or glitches things like that. He told me that the big money maker in games were open world games because they generated live services. I asked what are live services he said you know RCS? I shrugged, he said you know PRI? I asked what PRI was. PRI stand for Player Recurring Investment. I said micro-transactions? He laughed. He told me games are measured in Sell-through, Engagement Time, and Yes in-game store transactions. I asked why open world was so lucrative? He painted a picture...

A game is a virtual world, a box, and a while ago was asked the question, "what if the box was a disguised store?" Like what if world of warcraft allowed purchases at any time? You'd never have to go to the store, you'd be in it all the time. Like Disneyland where every 200m is a shop. The more customers in the door aka game sales and the longer browsing time aka Engagement through quests, maximizes the potential for in-game purchases. 

I was stunned. So the quests are there for Engagement time? He said yes. The quests keep you playing and logged-in, that why we measure potential play-time in hours. We are measuring a metric of potential store transactions. You know cosmetics, DLCs, currency packs, exclusive perks, etc. Exclusive perks? He said, well the enemy of play-time is when the player feel discouraged, so we offer perks to maker their shopping or playing experience better. Is that what people call play to win I asked. He told me no it makes accomplishing time fillers are tasks easier. (I call it grinding but whatever.) He told me difficult and repetitive tasks often drive the sales for these perks. It's a feature, like icons on a map. I asked what he meant by map icons. He told me game metrics requires a certain amount of icon density to give players time consuming tasks to keep him busy. Like Disneyland's rides. So success is measured by square km, icon density, and potential hours of engagement. He told me optimizing these three lead to potential additional transactions.

Then he got real excited. AI is making it so we can generate thousands of km, icons/quests, and thousands of hours of potential live service sales. He told me players want more to do, more see, and more hours of game-play. He couldn't share any of his company's formulas (for obvious reasons). I said, that's a lot of AI work how do you quality test it? He said, the elements individually tested, then simply randomized. Like testing the cookie shapes, not the cookies. He told me not all assets need interaction, some are just ascetic. It's expensive to detail buildings and interiors, while it's easier to generate square exteriors, but change color or positioning. He let me know they are saving money by limiting total designers and focusing on modulating unit for projects. The idea is reusable assets with minimal bugs or errors. I asked about how that might effect aesthetic. And he told me that's what the graphic design departement solves. You know lighting, shading, and etc.

So game design is making stores with the interior as theme parks with facade castles and quest distractions all for the purpose of the gift shop? He said, games are expensive and don't pop out of thin air. There are shareholders to please and quarterly earnings to account for. He told me if the model wasn't profitable it's wouldn't be used. After about an hour or two I thanked him for his time, and did my best not to feel depressed. So I did what any angry millennial does and write an angry blog.

Thank you for your time.