As a central concept to crypto gaming, tokenomics is a fast emerging field in game design. But it is also complex and oftentimes confusing. This article was written as a complete introduction and reference guide for developers, publishers and investors. We will cover crypto technologies, their applications and the underlying motivations at play. ContentsToken MechanicsCoins…
Maths is the fundamental language of games: Strip away the audio, the visuals and the story and you’re left with only numbers. This is true of every game, big or small. The numerical exchanges in Yahtzee or poker may be well surfaced, but the maths at play in a game like Fortnite is far less…
Here at Department of Play, we’re often approached by teams aspiring to improve a game’s revenue. More often than not, these games contain several monetisation features with the potential to earn a profit. However, in many cases, players are spending irregularly or not at all. This is often due to a lack of pressing reasons…
The idea that developers and publishers of contemporary games can take meaningful, monetising lessons from the heritage of arcade gaming might sound counterintuitive. Arcade gaming today is often thought of as a dwindling niche where a handful of players remain devotedly committed to punishingly difficult games that ostracise larger audiences.That model appears to have very…
What Is It? Launch Date: 16 March 2020.Status: Soft Launch (New Zealand, Australia and Finland).Genre: Puzzle / City Builder.Similar to: Gardenscapes, Toy Blast, Hay Day and Candy Crush Saga. Supercell, the studio behind Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, are revisiting their first breakout hit, Hay Day. However, where Hay Day was a farming sim…
This article first appeared as the opening column in issue 20 of Wireframe. Free-to-play has brought gaming to billions of new players across the globe: from the middle-aged Middle Americans discovering hidden object puzzles to the hundreds of millions of mobile gamers playing MOBAs in China. People who wouldn’t (or couldn’t) buy games now have…