We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T pay for mobile games or apps. With so many offered for free instead, we’re more likely to download them even when there are games that cost less than a euro.
But apps need to make money somehow and they do this either through ads or in-app purchases. The latter is more lucrative provided you have an addictive game on your hands.
The principles mentioned here can be applied to the majority of free-to-play smartphone games, but for this example, we’re going to refer to Clash Royale, the latest game from Clash of Clans maker, Supercell, and one of the top grossing apps in the App Store.
Some context
Clash Royale is a two-player game which combines elements of tower defence, card collecting and strategy games.
In each match, your goal is to destroy your opponent’s towers in three minutes and make sure your own aren’t destroyed. The eight cards you select comprise of different troops or items for you to complete your goal, all of them can be upgraded by collecting cards or unlocking chests.
The game is easy to dip into and is very addictive once you grow accustomed to it.
So how does it make money? Such games use a few methods but it’s can be summed up in three steps: developing a motive, creating a habit and then making you choose between time or money.
Time after time
To begin, this is the home screen:
There’s quite a bit happening here but the important parts to note are the chests, both at the top and bottom. All of them – with the exception of the Crown Chest – have a timer of some sort. The common chests at the very start are unlocked pretty quickly, but better ones can take as long as 24 hours to unlock.
Only including four slots for chests isn’t an accident either. If you win a fight and already have all four slots filled, you don’t get anything except crowns (one for each tower you destroy) and getting one is tough enough as it is.
Like most free-to-play games, currency is broken up into two collectables: coins and gems. Coins are used to upgrade cards while gems are used to speed up different processes like opening up chests, something collected after every battle you win.
At the start, progress is pretty rapid and it’s pretty easy to make your way to the second arena without much trouble. The rewards for each battle flow in quickly as well but both slow down once you get settled into the game.
Convincing you to visit regularly
For free games, if you’re not paying with money, you’re paying with time. You could wait it out, but games like this want you to play regularly, which is why they alert you when there’s a development of some kind.
Such games offer alerts for chests being unlocked, new challenges starting or just telling you that you haven’t visited in a while so you open it multiple times a day.
Once that becomes habit, it leads to…
Time vs money
It’s entirely possible for you to play the game without paying a cent, but you’ll be sinking a lot of time into it as a result.
This is why many players eventually spend gems unlocking chests or buying cards to gain an advantage. If you’re playing it regularly, you’ll hit a stop-start flow which can be frustrating if you prefer longer playthroughs.
Sooner or later, you’ll run out of gems so you can either fight more battles to pass the time or wait around for those chests to unlock. Alternatively, you could just pay real money for them which brings you here.
In marketing, there’s a term called ‘anchoring’ which refers to how people rely on the first piece of information they see (the anchor) when making a decision.
To give an example, if you go into a shop and see a small bottle of water on sale for €2, and see a medium bottle for €2.50, the latter deal will look like the better one.
However, you’ve no idea what the small or medium bottles really costs or if you could get it cheaper elsewhere. Because your reference was the €2 bottle you saw first, the other deal appears to be better by comparison.
Nobody is going to spend €100 (or even €50) on in-game currency unless they’re really addicted and 80 gems for €1 isn’t great value, but it’s very likely they are the first ones you’ll see.
The real ones that are targeting you are the €5 and €10 offers since they are the better deals by comparison. The currency is only relative to this particular game – you can’t really compare it to another app or service, even the maker’s previous games – so you make a judgement based on that.
With all of this said, you can get through Clash Royale and similar games without spending a cent, but you’ll have to change the way you play strategy games. Just make sure you either have a lot of time or money if you want to reach the top.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
It’s unfortunate that “free” is now a word to be feared when it comes to downloadable games. I’d always prefer to know the total cost of a game up front.
Think thise days are well and truly gone.
And it’s become reflected on console gaming over the last 7 years with the rise of DLC. God be with the days when developers gave to provide you with a complete self contained game for the asking price. Not its skeletons that need you to bolt on another €40 worth on to make it somewhat complete. Not to mention the craze for releasing glad finished games which require GB sized Day 1 patches. I’m looking at you Ubisoft!
Those games still exist though people need to be smarter with their money and expectations. EA, WB, Ubisoft and Activision are particularly notorious for selling cut content as DLC, you definitely have to expect the worst if you’re buying games from them.
Great credit has to be given to Rockstar in this area. Afaik they have never charged for DLCs for their games. For example GTA V is still coming out with more and more updates and new content for its online mode, which really is a second game in itself (GTA Online). This was also free to play once you bought GTA V. Because of this I’ll always be massive fan of their games.
DLC for Red Dead Redemption cost money. Undead Nightmare.
Rockstar do at least provide good value DLC and haven’t annualised their games. If GTA was owned by one of the previously mentioned companies you could expect one released every November at a fraction of the production value.
That was great craic, it was a seperate disk or you could D/L for €25. But yes your point is valid, it was an add on to the original game. Loved it regardless. Also i think its insane, but some players i have met online in games like “Clash of kings” or “Kingdoms of camelot” had spent THOUSANDS over the space of a couple of years on the one crappy mobile game!
Boom beach is where it is at.
Progress is not as desperately slow & futile as its sister game ‘clash of clans’.
Clash Royale is seriously addictive. Have it since it came out a few weeks ago, and spent €20 already. But that’s all I’m gonna spend. Supercell are raking in millions a day with their purchases, and less not forget, Google are getting a percentage of that also.
Can’t beat a game of hurling down in local park with your two brothers. Hey!!! And it’s free too.
If you play the game a lot and enjoy it whats wrong with paying some money for it? These games don’t force you to pay for them and I’ve been playing Clash of Clans for a couple of years now, far longer than any console game that cost me €70 (and then the DLC).
There is no one saying that there is a problem with paying for a game.
The problem is in tricking you into paying for the game by offering it for free, getting you addicted and then slowing your progress unless you pay.
I for one refuse to pay for a game that uses these tactics. Conversely, if a game is enjoyable I will often pay for an ad free version to support the developers.
have your say