Monetization Master Class

What the talk is about

Olena Buhakova's monetization master class looks at free-to-play through players' emotions: what we really sell is feelings, not individual items. She compares the market to evolution, where good techniques are quickly copied across games and weak projects die out, so designers must follow trends. She walks through emotional triggers for payment: unwillingness to wait, excitement and gacha (which needs a large pool of useful content, no worthless loot, and ties to progression), the wish to win in PvP, curiosity about content other players can see, fear of loss, and the urge to give gifts. She illustrates fear of loss with an auction run in the audience, where participants end up overpaying. Useful for beginner free-to-play game designers.