I’ven pouring a lot of effort into a game I’m making, however, I’ven shoving its monetization aside during the dev process, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the form of anxiety.
For context, the game in question is a PvP movement shooter.
I’ve tried to delve into the concept of “alternate skins” for the weapons, but the current weapon framework I have in place makes it a pain to add these “alternate skins” (besides I hate 3D modelling) and P2W is out of the question.
Character skins perhaps? Ways to change the style/color of bullets you shoot to have multicolored/neon tracers? I mean if P2W is completely off of the table no matter what, skins and other cosmetics are really your only option. You could sell access to the game but most of your target audience probably won’t want to chance it (there are tonnes of free access shooters on the platform) and you’ll end up losing more potential customers.
The downside of not going into any P2W is it’s extremely difficult to make enough to be self sustainable through cosmetic purchases exclusively when your game is small. Going the non P2W route for smaller games created by individuals with little funding I guess could be likened somewhat to chancing that your game will be part of the few % that just about manage to sustain themselves off of cosmetic sales only these days… Cosmetics really only mean anything to players when the game is quite popular (a lot of the point is to flex).
I always suggest that developers think of and deeply consider monetization strategies as well as do the market research before investing so much time into creating the product, and I think I would recommend that absolutely if a developer intends to forever abstain from any level of P2W. This really should have been something thought through during the early planning stages.
I guess you’ll have to modify the weapon framework for the weapon skins. It’s something that people love and even if they don’t spend robux on it, it’s still something that can help retain players
It would be like a Sims game where you cannot change your wall colors/texture
If you want, check out other shooting games to see how they implemented their monetization