Image Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Naughty Dog   Have you ever played a game where you instinctively know what to do as soon as you pick up the controller? All the elements of the games are easy to understand and players can relatively quickly pick up on elements of functionality without them needing to …

Image via Nintendo/YouTube Have you ever been monstering a race in Mario Kart and then, blam, the blue shell hits and you’ve got a few seconds of teeth-grinding frustration while you wallow about and the other players catch up with you? If you have, congratulations, you’ve been caught in a feedback loop. What are feedback loops? …

Battle Passes are looking like an established trend in free-to-play games, especially PVP, slowly substituting the older aspirations of subscription models that have only been successful for a handful of titles. What exactly is a battle pass, how can it influence your game’s economy, and how do you balance one? Battle pass mechanics As stated …

As more and more games transition to, or are created in, the free-to-play model, certain free-to-play mechanics have come under greater scrutiny. One of the more contentious forms of free-to-play game design is loot boxes and gacha boxes. Like them or not, these mechanics form one of the most consistently profitable underpinnings of the free-to-play …