Economy & Business Model

Space Invaders establishes the founding fact with its Coin-Op Difficulty Economy: difficulty tuned to extract another coin, the first time monetization directly authored the difficulty curve. Free-to-play is that arcade model with an unlimited coin slot, which is precisely how the data links MapleStory back to 1978. Everything in this family is a variation on where the payment sits relative to the play.

Wing Commander: The Secret Missions establishes the other trunk in 1990 by selling more of a game you already own, which reframes a game as an ongoing product rather than a finished object. Oblivion's Downloadable Content untethers that from retail and, with horse armour, teaches the industry exactly how small a sellable unit can be. L.A. Noire's Season Pass Bundle then moves revenue ahead of the content's existence, and Destiny's Live-Service Seasonal Content makes the game a schedule, with narrative and economy arriving and expiring on a calendar.

One question runs through all eleven entries: whether the money is permitted to touch the difficulty curve. League of Legends answers no with Cosmetic-Only Monetization, selling identity instead of power, which is the compromise that made free-to-play tolerable to competitive players. Candy Crush Saga answers yes with energy timers and session-length design, and by revenue it represents the dominant form of the medium. Team Fortress 2's Randomized Loot Box is the most profitable and most regulated idea in the industry's commercial history; Dota 2's Seasonal Battle Pass displaced it by trading randomness for obligation. Minecraft's Paid Early Access Development sidesteps the question altogether by merging financing with playtesting.