Multiplayer breakdown

News & General Discussion
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Hi there! Just a 2 cents. TL DR: Multiplayer breakdown…

This is Unity’s survey on Multiplayer games…it’s quite revelatory (1400 gamers in several major markets).

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Obviously, this one is a no brainer…genre liking is prime. And, of course, friends to play with.
I’m a bit worried that ‘it’s free to play’ is substantially important (for customer/gamer side, yes; no brainer).
But, it’s showing that F2P games (Free 2 Play) is the rage (and has been since), in multiplayer games…
It’s almost wrong? now (weird?) to charge an upfront price for a multiplayer game; like…

‘‘How dare you ask …for money…for a multiplayer game?..donchuknow…F2P, means free…to play’’.

people (seem they) expect it’s free from the start — for being multiplayer. This is clearly due to AAA companies with their GAAS multiplayer games filled with microtransactions (DLC, skins, lootbox, upgrade…) to recoup the prod budget for the game. I had written a post a while ago about ‘in game microtransaction’ vs ‘upfront 1-time price’ (a survey done in Europe about game microtransactions)…and it was telling that some 1-10% of people playing games (like multiplayer) are willing to pay up to 1000$ in DLC/microtransactions…so about 90-99% of people will not pay moer than 20$ in microtransactions (and roughly 50-70% will pay, nothing, just get the base F2P game that’s all)…but there is the last 10% or less… who will. It sure feels wrong to ‘nickle and diming’ them with these microtransactions…and it’s why people don’t want AAA companies to nickel&dime with these in game transactions (yet…AAAs are forced to, because most recoup;; F2P → free game/no 1-time upfront price → no money return).

This F2P, I believe, is also a ‘game community/size’ enlargement purpose…in the sense, that by being F2P…you get millions of people downloading/playing…joining the game/enlarging the community/multiplayer presence…of the game. Because, otherwise, multiplayer games…die (when no one is online anymore…playing them, with others). Like ex: the recent Capcom Fighting Collection…on console…apparently, there were only 300-400 people ‘online at all times’…to play the games in it (like Street Fighter 2)…this is from the moment it was 1st released; so people were like (on Steam reviews):
‘‘game/online is dead…multiplayer?..what multiplay…no one to play with’’.

I think this is the major difficulty iwth multiplayer games is…‘keeping a base’ alive ‘online’…a - Growing - base… to play with/the game, otherwise it’s Bots offline (if even, they are a thing/available…)…or you abandon the game (''game is dead — online player count : 1 (you) ‘’). This is Hard…when you see your player base dwindle…over time.

It’s a friggin job to keep this ‘social aspect’ alive for multiplay games…because online multiplaying…is all about ‘social’…virtual ‘social gathering’…to play whatever.

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It’S interesting this genre divide along the (genre line)…betwween core and casual players.
I think ti’s explainable, FPS games, sports games and fighting games…are much more Competitive and Stressful…and that’s more the thing for guys/dude (dudebro games)…I’m not saying there are no women/gals playing these competitive multiplayer games…there are; it’s just, it seems to go a bit with the gender proprotion (a lot more men play games in general); women seem more happy in these casual games (with no extreme competition)…it fits with the gender. I heard some gals who were like : ‘these are dude games…’…action, hardcore, competitive, oftenly more adult/violent/traumatic…so I guess, the casual players (of which there are also plenty of guys too…); prefer the less stressful ‘non-action’ games…like puzzles or rpg, platformer games…which can have a strong competitive/action in them; just not to the Level of the FPS, Sports and Fightin games do. These games almost scream ‘male’. (generalizing here a bit) In my case, am mkaing a FPS game…I know some women/or casual players (male/female…whateveR) may not like that…but, you can’t pleas all players; you cater to/target (to) an audience, your game. It’s even self-defeating ‘to please all gamers’…most games…are not made ‘to please everyone’…but a specific audience. The old saying is: ‘‘When you try to please everybody…you end up pleasing no one (neither)’’. It’s what AAA games are trying to do, with ‘mass appeal’ and ‘mass market’ to reach as many people with a ‘safe-enough’ product that is less innovative but sells well.

In my case, I was not sure about including multiplayer…I was supper into it/for it…until I learned a damning truth.

There is like a ‘messages/second’ text limit with multiplayer and like if too many players in your game; it can explode the costs of your monthly multiplayer server…service/maintenance. There is Photon and Rollback netcode and another one…but, they are all bound by these ‘traffic limits’ of how much/how many people can play simultaneously on your game’s server. Because, this traffic (data sent/received) is the cost…
I read from others who said: ‘‘players ‘chat too much/send too much messages’…it makes price go up…traffic’’.

That’s the real barrier to multiplay ‘at larger scale’…it’s the cost of it (for small indie devs). If your game made hundreds of thousands of dollars…already; affording multiplayer now becomes a possibility…not before; and it’s why solo/indie game devs making bigger online games…can’t afford this part; or make a much smaller multiplayer aspect;;; which can be ‘not even worth it/the trouble’…

Just a 2 cents.

PS: I think that devs should let other companies (later) take over this multiplayer aspect; let them…build it, they are pros…and can do that; while you work on your game/next project. We can’T do everything…multiplayer is a gamble; F2P is a gamble too; indies don’t want to do ‘nickle&diming’ with ingame microtransactions (and look bad/greedy); in fact, many people go away from these AAA games…to indie games in order to Not have to pay ingame microtransactions; so they expect (more and more) an upfront price (Excluding Mobile games on android…though; I’m just talking about PC games…mostly). What I fear is that indie games forced to go the F2P one day…hey…if you had 10% of your base who paid 1000$ in microtransactions…obviously, indie would do it; but, I think, many would refuse because of ‘on their conscience’…‘nickle&diming’…but, what else could they do, if you can’T even put an upfront price anymore. The game must recoup…,.somehow…indie, or, AAA game…

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TL;DR;
Free to play is the rage.
Multiplayer costs suck.

Is that it?

I think you put too much emphasis on the 27% who (in addition to other things) also checked the “it’s free to play” checkbox. I mean, everyone loves free, right? There was no “but only if it doesn’t nag me constantly about making purchases” disclaimer in the survey. I’d say a lot of participants had exactly this in mind when they decided NOT to tick that checkbox, because F2P can also be annoying or a crippled experience, otherwise if everyone had answered honestly this would have been at the top right next to genre.

Adding multiplayer later on isn’t something indies can handle. NEVER! If the game hasn’t been designed and developed from the ground up with multiplayer in mind, it’s not going to get tacked on later. This is near impossible. More commonly, for successful games devs will simply make #2 and use that opportunity to apply the proven formula to a game that’s been designed from the ground up to support multiplayer.

As to the costs: have you even spent some time in calculating how much these costs COULD be and how much money you’d be making given the number of customers your game had in that case?

I’ve heard of only very few cases where the online part of a game was shut down due to network cost vs profit turning (close to) negative. Usually it was a game that was all the rage for a while, and now it isn’t selling anymore but core fans still play it excessively. That can be a problem. But if you know that from the start, you can steer development in the right direction and/or pull the plug at the right time.

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That kept going around in my head. I just had to do a quick sanity check. Assumptions:

  • in an intense chat, a player sends out short chat message of maybe 24 bytes per send every 10s
  • while playing, the player sends out his updated position and view angle every frame, let’s say that’s all and would amount to 12 bytes position + 16 bytes quaternion = 24 bytes per frame

At 60 fps (ticks, actually) the player would generate:

  • 1440 Bytes/s of game data
  • 144 Bytes/s of chat data

Summary: Text chat definitely isn’t going to be a major cost driver in multiplayer games! In fact, you’d rather want them chatting than playing to lower cost.

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Here’s my two cents: there are different solutions with differing levels of difficulty and cost. Some charge per user, some per byte, etc. Some require you to have an understanding of how networking works and some only require a variable or method be tagged with an attribute.

While I recommend that someone who has never made a game before not touch multiplayer the truth is it’s within the reach of just about everyone today. Worst case you can just pick a solution that does everything for you.

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Dear CodeSmile, Thank you very much for that. Just a 2 cents.

Yes, I might have lathered a bit too much on the free to play issue…it’s just I feel it is a very important thing for many devs; because we often hear ‘monetization’ of the games we make…but how?..if you can’t even put a price tag anymore (on F2P games); the expectations changed…and now, it is about ‘building a huge multiplayer presence/group/community’…like in MMO games… the major (and oldest/simplest) monetization is simply…put a 1-time price, that’s it that’s all. Not nickel&diming. But, we’re there now. I emphasized on that survery stat because game dev is all about ‘monetization/recouping your budget’…otherwise, game dev would never continue/studios die and can’t recoup prod budget costs. We all seek to make more than - 1 - game, and it ends there.

You are right/I share your view/agree with you… that…probably, the people sort of more lenient on that ‘it’s free to play’…and that, as you said,…'as long as it does not nag me for buying ‘somethin…while playing’…because, as you also said; the ‘it’s free to play’ would be at Very Top of this list; since, all seek …free (lunch). Free Game. What’s not to like…
As my father used to say (in an another language/translated): ‘‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch in life.’’ So, if it -is, if it’s (really) free, well, power to you and go for it/go get it… (while, it’s still free…because it could not be, later).

It makes me think a bit of the Ennemy Unity 3D HDRP CGI Demo they made recently where the woman in it says :
‘‘Power is only given to those who are brave enough to lower themselves…to pick it up’’. If a free lunch or 5buck, you stumble on it, you can’t hesitate too much; somebody else will (also stumble on it &) pick it (up). Sorry for rambling.

Yes…it’s true that (multiplayer-intended) games need to be ‘designed around multiplayer’ (design/constraints)…so that multiplayer works for them…with it, in mind, while making the game/designing it/prototyping it…
In my case, it was…and it sort of fits (for certain things of it); if I can’t have online presence…I’ll sticj with A.I. bots.

Ah…I did not know that/think that…I thought it was more prevalent that multiplayer costs were quite damning and thus, could simply make multiplayer game an impossibility (not so much the design…but the actual server costs).

Thank you for the bytes/sec breakdown…you’re right/I agree that it shouldn’t?? be expensive altogether; albeit, if you have 64 players…it starts to add up (multiply by 64…for a larger multiplayer game – to have more players online); I saw the limits that they impose and it seems you do reach it at some point and then, the price is not good. I could be wrong…and need to recalculate a plausible scenario and you give a solid possibility; it’s just bytes…it’s nothing for text and transforms…but as you said, it’s the ‘per second’ the hic; how much…I guess you reassured me it might be feasible; I would have to talk with the server provider to get their view. I saw these discussions…

https://forum.photonengine.com/discussion/9431/optimize-messages-per-second
https://forum.photonengine.com/discussion/10147/calculate-msg-s-per-room

‘’ At 2-6 players each sending 10 messages per second this should be between 40 to 360 messages per room per second. Photon advertises a 500 message limit’'…

Just a 2 cents.

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For the record the messages limit is a soft cap not a hard one.

https://forum.photonengine.com/discussion/12597/message-limits-per-room-enforced

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Hi Ryiah, thank you for that.

You’re right it’s a soft limit…photon said this:

‘‘Yes you pay for bandwidth exceeding 3GB/CCU/month.’’.

Thus, there is a possilbity you will go over this limit and then you are charged extra.

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Which is harder to hit than you think. In fact, if you’re hitting that point, there are monetization options you can and should take just to maintain functionality.

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Good luck with that. Eight hours is 28,800 seconds. A month of that is 892,800 seconds. A 3GB limit would give you about 3.360KB/sec per user. Of course that assumes it’s a strict 3GB per CCU per month limit which it isn’t.

https://forum.photonengine.com/discussion/18464/exceeding-bandwidth-limits-by-a-lot

If you look at the actual pricing information what you receive with a 100 CCU plan is 300GB. You can connect up to 100 people at any one time but you can also connect fewer and have more bandwidth for each of them. If you need 6GB per user you can treat it as a 50 CCU plan. If you need 12GB it’s a 25 CCU plan.

https://www.photonengine.com/en-US/Fusion/Pricing

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In fact, I’m surprised that it was only 27%. That doesn’t seem to match behaviour I observe in the wild at all. From the small, anecdotal sample I observe, people tend to try out multiple free games just because they can, the friction is super low.

Personally, of the last 6 multiplayer games I’ve tried out, 5 were F2P and would not have been chosen otherwise, despite the fact that I have a strong preference for paid games. That would be 83% of choices, not 27%. And I don’t get the impression that’s unusual.

The catch is that of those 6 games, I only still play 2, and only one of those regularly - and that’s the one I paid for.

So, for the OP, do keep in mind that the survey question is only about what gets people to “choose a new game”. I suggest that 27% is actually massively under-reported, but also that it doesn’t matter. If you want to make a game then general statistics aren’t useful, you need statistics specific to your target audience.

But also, you need to go past getting me to “choose” your game if it’s F2P, you need to get me to keep coming back, and to convince me to buy stuff. Trying out a a bunch of F2P games didn’t get any money out of me.

Yeah, I did wonder if that came from misreading “messages” between client/server as player chat messages? Server bandwidth definitely can be a cost, but I’d expect text chat to only be a tiny portion of that.

But this is only a concern if your game isn’t making money.

If your game is making money then a part of that goes towards operating costs, as it would with any other business.

If your game isn’t making money, but has a large number of players, then you’ve got a great opportunity to learn how to make money from them, or partner up with someone who can. I’d set myself a budget and/or timeframe to turn things positive, and start working to turn that opportunity into an asset.

If your game isn’t making money and has no players, then your costs should be low. If not, see if you can find a provider with a better offer for your circumstances. You can carry on as a hobby, or move on to do something else.

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