Joshua Bycer is a Game Design Analyst with over a decade of experience writing for major sites, doing YouTube, and the author of the Game Design Deep Dive series. In that time through [...], he has interviewed hundreds of game developers and members of the industry about what it means to design video games.

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Social Media Contacts

Additional Books

[...] Goal of Game Design Deep Dive: Free-to-Play

1. Introduction
2. Consumer and Developer Benefits

[...] Birth of Live Service

1. A Brief Look at MMOGs
2. Team Fortress 2
3. League of Legends
4. Live Service's Impact

3. The Beginning of the Free-to-Play Era

1. The MMOG Boom and Crash
2. The Rise of the Browser and Casual Game Market
3. The Era of Browser Game Design

4. The Basics of Free-to-Play Design

1. The Difficulty of Defining the Market
2. The Basic Structure
3. Popular Genres
4. Can Any Genre Become F2P?
5. The Introduction of "Fun Pain"
6. Creating a Live Service Game
7. The Risks and Rewards of Live Service Design

5. The First Generation of Free-to-Play/Mobile Games

1. The First Successes
2. Cultivating the Casual Gamer Market
3. The Limits of the Casual Market
4. The Mobile Methodology
5. The Three Phases of Gameplay

6. The Matters of Monetization

1. Ad Revenue
2. Monetization Design
3. Creating Currency
4. Popular Monetization Options
5. The Value of Time and Money

7. The Second Generation of Free-to-Play/Mobile Games

1. Of Brands and Battles
2. Pushing PvP Play
3. Defining Gameplay Systems
4. Crafting the Long-Term Experience

8. Studying Surprise Mechanics

1. Defining Surprise Mechanics
2. Loot Box
3. Gacha Design
4. Random Progression
5. Hero Collector Design

9. The Ethics of F2P

1. Anti-Consumer Practices
2. The Psychology of Microtransactions
3. Ethics in Game Design
4. Defining Ethical Game Design
5. Why This Matters

10. The Third Generation of Free-to-Play/Mobile Games

1. Carving Out Genres
2. Major Mobile (and F2P) Names
3. The Successes of Warframe and Path of Exile
4. Battle Passes/Seasonal Play

11. Long-Tail Live Service

1. The Challenge of Retention
2. The Two Kinds of Content
3. Balancing Live Service Gameplay
4. Pop Culture Promotion
5. Long-Term Support
6. When a Live Service Game Ends

12. Looking Forward with Free-to-Play Design

1. The Future of the Market
2. Play-to-Earn Design and NFTs
3. Conclusion

Glossary