The round table: How does the battle pass mechanics work?

Fortnite's commercial success popularized its monetization mechanics, the battle pass. We talked to experts from Azur Games, Wargaming and Game Insight about what it is and how promising it is.

We asked the experts questions independently, so their answers may not only complement, but also contradict and duplicate each other in some ways.

How does the mechanics of battle passes work?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

Battle Pass is a cumulative system that gives the player additional content for completing gameplay tasks. As a rule, this content is purely cosmetic and does not affect the balance of the game.

Each developer company implements the battle pass in its own way, integrating additional mechanics. Sometimes companies also introduce their own names: Rocket Pass, Event Pass, Compendium.

The battle pass can be provided to users both on a paid and free basis.

The progress inside the battle pass is usually divided into shooting ranges (stages). The achievement of a particular shooting range gives a reward. To open shooting ranges, you need to gain a certain amount of local experience, which is relevant only inside the battle pass and has no value outside it.

The player gets this local experience for completing special challenges within the core gameplay. For example, for completing tasks in the spirit of "play a match with a certain weapon" or "kill 15 opponents".

In addition to unlocking stages in a similar way, the battle pass experience can also be bought with money. This speeds up the progress of shooting ranges, saves players time and effort.

Progress on battle passes is limited and limited to seasons or special events. If the player does not have time to open all the shooting ranges before the end of the battle pass, he will not receive a full set of awards. Such exclusivity of content encourages people to either play a lot or pay to accelerate progress.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

If we consider it quite primitive, then a battle pass is simply giving the player large rewards for activities that the player will already perform.

The unique battle pass is made by the transparency of the reward and two progress tracks: for those who pay and for those who do not pay.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

Battle Pass is a content distribution system in in-game events, which today are commonly referred to as seasons.

The progress inside the battle pass is divided into levels. To reach each level, the player must gain a certain amount of combat experience points inside the battle pass. During the season, points are usually given for almost any game session, as well as for event quests. The achievement of any level / stage of the battle pass is rewarded with game content that does not affect the gameplay — usually these are customization elements.

It is generally believed that the classic battle pass works like this:

• The event starts;
• the user buys access to the battle pass;
• The user plays and progresses through the battle pass.

The progress of the season is displayed in the appropriate scale. The further the player progresses along it, the more rewards he will receive.

Another important part of the mechanics is the additional purchase of levels. To get the maximum pass level, you need to play a lot, so the levels can be purchased.

How common is the battle pass?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

The mechanics of the battle pass are not new. It appeared back in 2013 in Dota 2. Then it began to be actively distributed among other major publishers. In particular, Epic Games introduced it in one of the main hits of recent years — Fortnite.

The popularity of mechanics is growing due to large competitive titles with huge online and revenue. An important factor in its popularity is its softness in terms of monetization, as opposed to the scandalous loot boxes in 2017-2018.

I believe that the prevalence of the battle pass will only grow in the foreseeable future.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

Battle pass is common mainly in Dota clones and in competitive shooters.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

Battle pass is common in many competitive games today. This mechanic is found in almost all royal battles, a number of shooters and MOBA games.

It all started with Dota 2, in which Valve introduced battle passes four years ago and has been experimenting with mechanics all this time. Other developers of free-to-play games have long been afraid to borrow a battle pass, because it is essentially a paid event in which a non-paying player cannot participate in any way, which would obviously cause resentment from the audience.

The situation was radically changed by Fortnite, where Epic Games heavily redesigned the battle pass.

First of all, they removed a lot of additional mechanics that complicated the format: an infinite number of levels, daily quests, gacha, seasonal content. But the most important change is the opening of the battle pass awards for everyone and the introduction of its free simplified version. In Fortnite, the player receives battle pass levels even if he did not pay for it. He sees the rewards he has earned in the game, but cannot receive them until he pays. The player gets the feeling that the rewards are already in his hands, you just need to buy a pass and pick them up.

Another change was a free, simplified battle pass for all players. With it, rewards are also given to those who have not paid for the pass: there is a parallel line of awards available to everyone. The rewards in this free line are much less valuable, and players receive them once every five levels, rather than for each level, as in the paid pass.

These two mechanics work perfectly for each other: the free battle pass plays the role of ugly brother and from time to time (every five levels) reminds the user that he has already earned many awards in the paid pass, which only need to be collected by buying a ticket.

What is the advantage of using a battle pass?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

• Wide availability: both paying and non—paying users have the opportunity to receive rewards - you can pay for progress or achieve success by actively playing;
• there is a direct relationship: the players clearly understand what they need to do and what the reward will be;
• loyalty from the community: cosmetic rewards usually do not cause negativity or accusations in the pay-to-win scheme, as they do not affect the balance;
• Increased engagement: The mechanics add more meaning to the central gameplay by adding goals;
• increase conversion rate: motivates the player to buy through exclusivity and limited supply;
• encourages the player by providing rewards as a pleasant bonus, even if he is not interested in purposefully farming them with an existing battle pass.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

The main advantage of the mechanics is its honesty: the player sees what he will get for his money and time.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

The battle pass has many advantages.

1) This is a good conversion payment. The difference between a free and a paid battle pass is huge, the mechanics and UI themselves perfectly emphasize this difference. The player sees how much already earned content he will receive by simply buying access.

2) The battle pass works great for retaining a paying audience. The players who bought it have a very strong sense of Fear of Missing Out. They understand that a battle pass is just an entrance ticket: to pay for it, you need to get a high pass level, which means you need to play a lot.

3) The press and players love the battle pass for its transparent reward system. It looks especially advantageous against the background of loot boxes. Players and the press are tired of loot boxes and are excited about a new way to get content. The battle pass also makes the rules for obtaining content in the game extremely clear and transparent to the player, completely excluding randomness from them. Therefore, payment for a battle pass in a number of games is already perceived as a fair thanks to the developer for a pleasant experience.

4) This is a great tool to build a metagame in competitive games with active gameplay, because the battle pass gives a visual sense of progress. For a long time, playing Dota 2 / Fortnite / Paladins / PUBG without a battle pass is boring: the games consist of only battles, a serious part of which the user loses. The rating system is not available everywhere, and it is far from ideal for demonstrating the player's progress. And the battle pass gives both a sense of growth and satisfaction from achieving additional goals, and besides rewards for failures and thereby fights the frustration that is inevitable in competitive games.

5) The battle pass is well monetized with additional standard tools. If there is a mechanic that monetizes core gameplay, then it is profitable for the player to pay as part of the pass, because this will speed up the passage of the season, which means that he will receive all the prizes faster.

6) The battle pass sets the pace of seasonality and regularity of the game. This, on the one hand, trains players, binds them to the game, and on the other hand, allows the developer to predict the volume of work and sales.

What are the disadvantages of a battle pass?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

• Frustration or a drop in player motivation is possible in the case of an incomplete open battle pass and the loss of part of the rewards due to tight deadlines, lack of skill or funds.
• The monetization mechanics work milder, which means that business metrics may be lower; if we generalize, then selling only cosmetic items usually translates into lower incomes than selling "power" — things that give an advantage in gameplay and affect the balance (it is important — there are exceptions).
• A time—consuming development process - it is necessary to produce content, calculate its opening by shooting ranges, think over the rules for accruing experience, create game tasks balanced in complexity and involvement, not to mention implementation at the code level.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

The disadvantage of the battle pass can also be called honesty: the player may not find what he needs and refuse to pay or participate in the activity at all.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

The first problem is a fixed and not very large capacity compared to loot boxes and gacha. Most of the players pay once, and only a small part of the players buy additional levels.

The second problem is that so far no one has figured out how to introduce content into the battle pass that would increase the strength of the game characters and at the same time not cause outrage from the audience. This is an urgent task for the industry.

The third problem is related to the fact that the battle pass is not a universal mechanic and is not suitable for all games. If the core gameplay is not the most interesting, then the battle pass is not suitable for such a game. The pass is not valuable in itself, it only helps to build motivation and a sense of progress around core gameplay. That is, for example, for a casual bodybuilder, in which metagame plus getting new content is the whole game, the battle pass will not be an additional mechanic on top of the core, but simply a pay-to-play part of the game.

What are the "pitfalls" in the implementation of the battle pass?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

It requires a non-trivial approach to the design of awards, assignments and accrued experience. I didn't take into account one of the elements — I messed up the whole feature.

Look: uninteresting rewards do not motivate players enough to get them. Too easy tasks or an excessive amount of accrued experience will lead to the fact that most players will farm the battle pass in a matter of days or will not farm at all, because they will not see this as a challenge. Too heavy tasks or insufficient experience will lead to frustration from the complexity and a strong decrease in accessibility for the audience.

It is enough to overlook at least one of the listed parameters, and the mechanics will not give the desired result.

It is important to properly balance the demand for rewards for the majority of players with the feasibility and complexity of tasks, as well as consider the timing that users will need to unlock the entire battle pass or part of it.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

The "pitfall" in implementing this mechanics is that any shooting range and any battle pass reward must be achievable in the visible future. If you raise the requirements for the experience grind for the battle pass, then people simply will not participate.

The challenges of the battle pass must be realizable and cunning, so that after the player finds the key to solving the challenge, he still has a pleasant aftertaste from realizing his coolness.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

In the battle pass, special attention needs to be paid to the balance and regular tuning of the entire meta. It would seem that this is not such a big problem as in games where the content affects the core gameplay, but it's still a serious job. It is necessary to answer such questions before each season as:

• how much content to give in a free battle pass, and how much in a paid one;
• how often to give out serious awards;
• where should the coolest reward be located;
• how the progression should happen.

And, of course, this is only part of the question. There are many more of them, and the results for each need to be analyzed.

The second important point is the volume of content. As soon as you enter a battle pass for one season into the game, the audience will expect the next one immediately after the end of the first event. Players will expect the same and even more content in the new season, so this is a serious commitment that will force you to produce a lot of new stuff on a regular basis.

In which game do you like the implementation of the battle pass the most and why?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

I like how in Dota 2 the battle pass is combined with the largest esports tournament for the game itself - The International (the prize fund is slightly more than $ 25 million in 2018). The crossover is expressed in everything from the timing of both events to the stylistic design of the battle pass page and in-game rewards.

In addition to the classic battle pass features, directly in and around the central gameplay, the player feels involved in a big event. This effect is achieved through the ability to bet on matches or assemble a dream team from special player cards.

In addition, the Dota 2 battle pass is paid, and 25% of the funds from the sale of the pass and its shooting ranges go to the prize fund. Again, we return to the mechanics of price pool crowdfunding and the feeling of belonging to a super-scale event.

The nominal prize fund of the tournament (Valve funds) was $1.6 million. Now calculate how much money was earned on the battle pass and accelerating its progress in the few months that the event was going on.

What is noteworthy is that the mechanics of loot boxes in this case also did not stand aside. Valve integrated it into the battle pass in a certain way — one of the possible rewards for unlocking the shooting range is the key for the loot box, released specifically for the event with exclusive items.

Having received a random item from a set of possible ones, the player can either use it in the game, or break it and convert it into the progress of the battle pass. This gives the user a choice and helps to move further along the shooting ranges if the player does not need or is not interested in cosmetics. That is, having received the wrong piece of clothing from the loot box that the player wanted, he can use it to advantage anyway.

However, since the event takes place once a year for several months, the rest of the time the game may feel a little empty against the background of these activities inside or near the game. Perhaps Valve could use a smaller-scale battle pass, but nevertheless entertaining players while they wait for the next TI. By the way, this is probably the way they are going with the development of their relatively new Dota Plus feature.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

I like the implementation of the battle pass in Paladins.

In this game, the challenges are both realizable and tricky. The awards in the battle passes of the game are mostly themed (to match the event). The latter cuts off part of the public, but gives a huge choice for those interested in the topic.

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

I'd rather say where I don't like the implementation of the battle pass. They are rather poorly implemented in PUBG. Based on Bluehole's experience, you can even write how not to do them.

• It is not worth introducing paid content into a premium game or doing it as carefully as possible - a very risky decision.
• It is not necessary to make the bulk of the rewards in the battle pass temporary - players feel cheated, because in other games the rewards are permanent.
• It is not necessary to focus the battle pass on daily quests. The player who bought the pass should be able to skip one or two days and not feel like he missed too much. Fear of Missing Out is already very strong for pass users, it is not worth strengthening it with daily quests.

About the good stuff. There are very interesting moments in the UI of the Paladins battle pass. The pass in Dota 2 is good because in four years the developers have pumped it quite a lot:

• Gacha. Loot boxes and lots of roulette have been added to the rewards for pass levels, and there are really a lot of them. A player can start the game and not engage in battle in 30 minutes, opening chests and spinning roulette wheels.
• There are a huge number of upgrades for each customization element, some items have up to 100 stages of development.
• Betting on winning a match is one of the main sources of pass experience. This works well for both player retention and motivation to win. The player returns for a new win almost every day and is very motivated to win if he has placed a bet.

Do you believe that the battle pass is the future? Or is it only suitable for a certain type of games?

Artur Mostovoy, producer of Azur Games

Firstly, I think that in the coming years we will see battle passes in games more often, if only because other developers regularly take an example from major publishers, inspired by the discussed success of the mechanics.

We live in an era when microtransactions and loot boxes are present even in single—player games - Shadow of Mordor, Need for Speed, Deus Ex. I suppose the battle pass will not be an exception in this case either.

Secondly, loot boxes are now in social resonance. It is possible that users will be more loyal to battle passes in general. Monetization is not some distant metaphysical entity detached from the game. This is also one of the factors on the basis of which a person decides whether to play this game or another.

Thirdly, do not forget about the situation with lobbying for gambling laws. It is possible that the outcome of events may well influence the choice of developers regarding monetization features.

With that said, I think that to some extent the battle pass really has a future, at least in the near future. But one thing is important to keep in mind: in the wake of the popularity of mechanics, publishers can forget about the survivor's mistake.

Their train of thought may be something like this: "The game is popular, earns well, there is a battle pass in the center of monetization mechanics, so I need it too." But successful games with battle passes were successful even before its introduction, because they themselves are quite high-quality and interesting products.

Svyatoslav Torik, an employee of the R&D department of Wargaming

Now the battle pass is not very widespread yet, but over time this story will come knocking to all designers planning seasonal events in their games. Moreover, these games do not even have to be competitive — as long as there is a variable core for challenges and interesting rewards.

I think that even in single-player games, new content can be distributed along with the attached battle pass for a separate microtransaction. How about new Angry Birds levels with tricky challenges and customization as a reward?

Alexander Shmyrov, producer of Game Insight

I am sure that many developers will try to implement the battle pass one way or another, this content distribution system is very popular. Plus, as I said, users and the press are tired of loot boxes. So we will probably see a lot of options in the next six months, including in mobile. We at Game Insight will most likely add a battle pass to Guns of Boom.

However, it seems to me that this format will not be as widespread as gacha. Gacha is suitable for almost any game, battle pass is not. In those games where there is no exciting core gameplay, it will not take root.