{"id":76467,"date":"2014-11-07T12:23:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T10:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=76467"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:22:11","slug":"what-does-south-park-think-about-freemium-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/what-does-south-park-think-about-freemium-games\/","title":{"rendered":"What does South Park think about freemium games?"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Free to play’ or ‘Freemium’ games are ubiquitous today, from Candy Crush Saga<\/a> to The Simpsons: Tapped Out<\/a>. Massively popular and profitable, they were this week’s target on the satirical cartoon series South Park<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the episode ‘Freemium isn’t free<\/strong>‘, a game is made by the Canadian government about Terrence and Philip<\/strong>. Obviously referencing Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff<\/a> (the game shown in the episode looks almost identical), the show offers an ‘honest’ explanation of how freemium games work.<\/p>\n

Freemium – ‘mium’ is Latin for ‘not really’ according to South Park, and such games are based on five principles:<\/p>\n

1: Entice the player with a simple game loop<\/p>\n

2: Use lots of flashing compliments to make the player feel good about themselves<\/p>\n

3: Train players to spend fake currency<\/p>\n

4: Offer players a way to spend real money on the fake currency<\/p>\n

5: Make the game about waiting – but you can spend to skip the waiting<\/p>\n

When Terrence and Philip complain that if this is the case, can’t the game at least be fun, the Canadian Minister for Mobile gaming explains that it has to be ‘just barely fun’ – if the game was too fun, players would have no reason to make micropayments to make it more fun.<\/p>\n

While South Park is a comedy, it’s hard not to agree that it has accurately explained how such games work, and the cynicism in their design. Testament to this is our surprise when a freemium game is actually quite fun – Rovio’s Angry Birds Transformers<\/a> is unusual in that the gameplay is enjoyable, almost like a ‘real’ game. It’s also true that some freemium games are actually good, and have in-game micropayments that actually feel optional (Hearthstone<\/a> and Team Fortress 2<\/a> are great examples).<\/p>\n

Later in the show, freemium games are compared to various addictions like gambling<\/strong> and alcohol abuse<\/strong>. You can watch it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/h3>\n

Angry Birds Transformers arrives on Android<\/a><\/p>\n

Blizzard’s massive Hearthstone coming to Android late 2014<\/a><\/p>\n

Assassin’s Creed: Identity coming to iOS and Android next year<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @jonathanriggall<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Free to play’ or ‘Freemium’ games are ubiquitous today, from Candy Crush Saga to The Simpsons: Tapped Out. Massively popular and profitable, they were this week’s target on the satirical cartoon series South Park. In the episode ‘Freemium isn’t free‘, a game is made by the Canadian government about Terrence and Philip. Obviously referencing Family … Continue reading “What does South Park think about freemium games?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-76467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329868,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76467\/revisions\/329868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76467"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=76467"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=76467"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=76467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}