Video: The ethics and psychology of the 'freemium' model

Courtesy of the GDC Vault is a live recording of popular mobile developer podcast Walled Garden Weekly at GDC 2013, with guests Eli Hodapp of Touch Arcade and Keith Shepherd of Temple Run debating the merits of free-to-play (F2P) mobile games. Walled Garden hosts Arash Keshmirian and Kevin Pazirandeh facilitated the live podcast with several topics, such as exploring how F2P works regionally versus worldwide, whether F2P is ruining games, and whether F2P is the only right way to design mobile games. Session Name: Walled Garden Weekly: LIVE Speaker(s): Eli Hodapp, Arash Keshmirian, Kevin Pazirandeh, Keith Shepherd Company Name(s): TouchArcade, LIMBIC, Auxbrain, Imangi Studios Track / Format: Smartphone & Tablet Games Summit Overview:Arash Keshmirian and Kevin Pazirandeh, the duo from the highly-popular iOS developer podcast, Walled Garden Weekly, come to the GDC stage bringing with them two guests: Keith Shepherd of Temple Run, and Eli Hodapp, the editor in chief of the Internet's premiere iOS gaming site: TouchArcade. Together, they have reached hundreds of millions of mobile gamers. They will explore the ethical and strategic challenges facing all games on the freemium-premium spectrum by examining benchmark titles such as Clash of Clans, CSR Racing, and even their own games. Attendees are invited to take part in what is certain to be an entertaining and thought provoking conversation.

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