How gratitude, identity, and trust *not pressure* drive the world’s most profitable free-to-play ecosystems. By Natali Panic-Cidic What if the key to monetizing free-to-play games isn't pushing players to pay, but making them want to? It might sound counterintuitive, but that’s exactly what a growing body of academic and industry research is revealing. The most … Continue reading The Heart of Free: Rethinking F2P Business Models for the Next Generation of Games →

Author’s Note: This article is written in response to a widely shared opinion piece about game design that, while unnamed here, made several claims that merit clarification and rebuttal. This is not a personal critique, but a professional response aimed at fostering a more accurate understanding of the discipline. Recently, a blog post titled "Form … Continue reading Rethinking Form and Function in Game Design: A Response →

Building User-Centered Frameworks for Internal Tools by Mihyun Ko & Natali Panic-Cidic This year my wonderful colleague Mihyun Ko and myself were delighted to find out we got accepted for the GDC 2022 Tools Summit. You can find the presentation on the GDC vault as a free content! However, we missed the deadline to upload … Continue reading Presentation Slides: GDC 2022 San Francisco →