What if Pokémon had not been designed for handheld game consoles, but for the iPhone or Facebook? How might current, free-to-play game design standards be applied?
Reddit user ktrcoyote answered that question, with a series of images of the roadblocks you might face when you shoehorn in microtransactions into the classic title.
These gifs encapsulate the game design problems we see in many free mobile and Facebook games: if people don't want to pay upfront, they'll pay with their money and time down the line. For some games, this is fine, but for other games, it just doesn't work. It frustrates the players and they'll quit long before investing either.
The unfortunate problem is because people are unwilling to spend even $2.99 on a game in the App Store or Google Play, we see very few premium games succeed, with exceptions to titles like Monument Valley.
Don't want to imagine this future for all your games? Think about paying a couple bucks next time up front, instead of spending nearly $500 in Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.
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