Freemium

The Analysts’ Freemium Nightmare

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I'm starting to pity economists, beyond the whole "how did so many of you morons miss the economy melting down" thing.  I'm feeling bad for them because they've got to try and analyze a lot of crazy trends in the actual working parts of the world economy, and things are changing rapidly and are far more distributed.

Last column I speculated on the various facets of Freemium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium) that I feel need to be further explored and understood.  I'm quite enthused about the model and feels it holds great promise.

Now assuming Freemium is the wave of the future, as opposed to a tiny splash in the big ocean  of pricing models that lies on the shores of weird economic metaphors, there are going to be changes in more than just how we sell and buy.  There will be changes in how people analyze economic information, from understanding sales, to evaluating the performance of an industry.

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Further Freemium Thoughts

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Freemium is a term I see thrown around a lot this day.  It's sunk into the vocabulary of media producers, programmers, and marketers quickly – so quickly I don't think we've really analyzed the repercussions of it.  As I've seen the term used more and more, as I've played Freemium games, I think we've gotten so used to it we don't think about it.

This of course gets me thinking.  Not that it's not hard to do that . . .

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Free, Fremium, and More in the Great Recession

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So recently I put the game Dungeon Fighter on my Asus Netbook.  Dungeon Fighter is an interesting game – a side-scrolling beat-em-up game and an MMO at the same time.  You play one of several unique classes (that at times vary from fantasy archetypes or expand them), fight monsters in modular dungeons, and have colorful sprite-based fun.  It's easy, simple, surprisingly deep, and the Priest class whacks enemies to death with giant crosses, scythes, and rosaries, so how could I resist.

The game is of course free-to-play, but you can blow cash on getting extra equipment, respecs to re-build your character, and, of course, character clothing so you don't look like everyone else.  Very standard model.

So as I played this game, I debated if I wanted to get some credits in the game for extras.  It suddenly struck me that the freemium, free-to-play, and other free-but models differ from the usual monthly-charge MMO games in another way besides the obvious.

They allow you to timeshift your expenses.

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