How progression and economy is built in F2P games and War Thunder in particular

Published by 20 May, 2023 0 likes

Dear players! We see that you have many questions and observations about how the economy and progression work in War Thunder.

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Kirill Yudintsev, creative director of Gaiijn, is best suited to explain all of thisPlayer progression is essential.

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You can't give a player everything at once, because it will overwhelm and make the game very difficult for them and they will just leave it either immediately or almost immediately.

This has been tested by us many times in different ways.

When applied to our game, later vehicles are almost always more difficult to learn and play tactically, in the controls and with its capabilities.

Progression provides opportunities for gradual learning and engaging the players. Without it, the game will lose players right from the start.

In addition, progression serves as one of the basics of how a game makes money (basically players pay for acceleration of progression).

The fundamental difference between paid games and fair play free-2-play games is that you don't have to pay to play free games, and most players don't actually pay.

Most War Thunder players - about 80% - have never paid a dime into a game, whilst playing for months or years.

Many of those players who have paid for something in the game don't pay every month (and sometimes not every year) either.

Nevertheless, all of the maintenance to the game, all of its development, servers, and support, is provided by those players who pay. In any game players play only when they have fun.

But in a f2p game, players only pay if the game really entertains them.

The player is already playing, already having fun, and pays if they want to support the game, or try something new, which is, at the same time, not necessary to enjoy the game (otherwise they would just quit playing and not pay at all).

Hence the unobvious conclusion: the less you have to pay to play the game, the more differently priced paid options it should have, so that those who can afford it can spend more, and those who can't or don't want to can play for free and have fun.

There are many progression and economy options in F2P games.

Not all of them are suitable for our game, because War Thunder is about real combat vehicles, which are not equal, differing in power and capabilities.

To quickly and roughly summarize, the general principles of economy and progression in our game: vehicles should be unlocked gradually, from simpler and older to more complex and later the total time to get the first "top" vehicle should be a balanced (not too long not too short) number of game hours the player should at the beginning of the game route (while mastering the game) get new in-game equipment often enough

The game has to earn money, otherwise it will be closed.

And it must make money without a pay wall, so you can play indefinitely without paying anything (so there is no deception that the game is "free" when in fact it is not).

Income should provide everyone the opportunity to play a multiplayer game with multiple modes and features Progression and economy should, as far as possible, provide a variety of vehicles encountered in battle, otherwise it's just boring.