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YKYMF. Price of Play

Price of Play · an independent game guide

What does this game really cost?

Reviews and age ratings tell you what's in a game. We also tell you how it makes its money — whether you pay once and you're done, or it's built to keep you paying. Look up a game before it moves into your house.

Pay once, no extrasNo loot boxes or gachaNo pay-to-winFree, and nothing nastyRated G or PGLow addictive designMost extractive first

Money health

Every game gets one of four ratings

Fair

Pay clearly, know the ceiling

You know what you are paying for before you pay, and there is a limit to what the game can take.

15 games →

 Watch

Fine if you understand it

Reasonable on its own, but it can tip into overspending or overplaying if nobody is paying attention.

5 games →

 Caution

Built to push spending

Commonly designed to make you spend or play more than you would choose: pressure, friction you can pay to remove, or prices you can't easily see.

17 games →

 Harmful

Chance, compulsion or exploitation

Built around chance, compulsion or exploiting players: paid randomness, gambling-like loops, or money that can leave the game.

19 games →

In the guide

All 56 games

The badges

Two kinds of badge

Pay once

Price tags show how you pay — the business model, from pay-once to gacha.

Daily pressure

Hooks show the techniques used to keep you paying or playing — timers, streaks, limited-time pressure.

How you pay

Pay onceTry then buyExpansionPaid DLCEditionsEarly accessSubscriptionOnline subGame libraryCloud streamLicence onlyPay per playCosmeticsBy the hourFree-to-playBattle passAd-fundedCreator coinsCash tradingLoot boxesGachaPlay-to-earn

Techniques

Daily pressureStarter packRewarded adsCollect allHeld backGame currencyWait or payFOMO timersMade scarceTuned to spendPay to winPity timerWhale designSocial nudgesOne-tap buysKids' spendingForced adsNever-endingAlways onlineData harvestCreator labourSlot-machineSkin betting

What every badge means

Why this exists

A game's price tag tells you how it treats you

For most of their history, games charged you the way most things do: you paid, and you got the game. Coin-op machines charged per go, cartridges and discs charged once, and later expansions and subscriptions were priced up front. You could see the deal.

Then, around 2009, mobile app stores let free games sell things inside themselves. A new model took over: give the game away, then manufacture a problem — waiting, weakness, scarcity, a lucky draw — and sell the cure. Those games are tuned around the small share of players who spend the most, and the design choices that get them to spend are rarely mentioned in a review.

A full-price game that ships complete isn't expensive for no reason: it's the whole deal, priced up front. A free game isn't free for no reason either. Price of Play puts the business model next to the reviews so you can see both.

Watch the Video Games & Money series for the full history, from 1950s mainframes to play-to-earn.