Let me describe what I’m talking about: These are games where, several times throughout the day, you can go in and push a button, which rewards you with some fictional currency with which you can buy cute decorative things for your virtual gamespace.

If you want to push the buttons more often, or if you want the cutest decorative things possible, you’re going to have to use a much rarer fictional currency, which is available to purchase for real, nonfictional currency.

In other words, they’re an adorable interactive extortion scheme.

The thing I find fascinating about these games is that they have to thread an entertainment needle, which is one of the strangest metaphors I’ve come up with this week. If you make them too boring, nobody’s going to play them long enough to pay real cash for doubloons or Smurfberries or whatever the premium currency is. On the other hand, if you make them too fun, so fun that you don’t need the upgrade to enjoy it, then nobody’s going to shell out the cash to decorate their farm or restaurant or asteroid.

For example, my personal gateway drug was Pocket Frogs (iTunes link), which is much more entertaining than the description “frog breeding sim” would have you believe. It’s so diverting, as it turns out, that I don’t have the slightest urge to pay money to artificially accelerate my frogs’ growth in defiance of God’s will. So the Pocket Frogs people are not making money off me. Except now I’ve mentioned their name in a column, which will probably lead to some revenue. Curse you, Pocket Frogs!

At the other extreme, I deleted some game about building a casino after barely starting it, because it grated on me. It’s strange — I normally enjoy building dens full of vice and human tragedy. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.

So the ideal freemium game would be fun, but make you wish it were more fun, which is a pretty adequate description of most of the games I’m playing, ostensibly for the purpose of research. I currently spend about 10 minutes out of every hour directing my villagers, pirates, park rangers and agrarian zombie stewards to labor for me, which is pretty sad if you think about it.

So why do I keep at it? Why, even though this is ideally the only column I’m going to write on the subject, do I keep pausing to cook imaginary digital tacos? A few reasons.

1. I don’t smoke. I’ve been watching a lot of Mad Men, and it seems like the best part of smoking is having something to break up the day, and something to do with your hands. You can’t genteelly lean over to light someone’s iPhone, but at least you don’t have to go outside in the rain to harvest the undead in Zombie Farm.

2. I have a leveling-up problem. Anything that allows me to level up is instantly compelling. I can’t be the only one with this affliction, and some day the world of marketing is going to catch on and start to suggest that I level up my value meal or airline ticket instead of upgrading it, and I will be their thrall.

3. The meta-game. Much like an all-you-can-eat buffet, a freemium game is a challenge to get as much as you can while paying as little as possible. Every time I send off my Lil’ Pirates (iTunes link) on some dangerous, criminal task like “Take Parrot for a Trip,” and I don’t pay real money for it, I feel like I’ve earned a Sales Resistance Point.

And as far as I’m concerned, every thousand Sales Resistance Points, I level up.

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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a drudge, a grind and a factotum.

See Also:

• Alt Text: 5 Flash Games That Hate You
• Alt Text: Videogame Villains Mull Strike for Higher Pay
• Alt Text: Giving Valve Games That Special Apple Touch

Authors: Lore Sjöberg

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