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Game Design w Product Mindset: Introduction to F2P and GAAS
Rating: 5.0 out of 5(5 ratings)
38 students

Game Design w Product Mindset: Introduction to F2P and GAAS

Design engaging free-to-play games with proven frameworks for economies, progression, monetisation, and live ops.
Created byNik Denissov
Last updated 6/2026
English
BanglaGerman

What you'll learn

  • Understand the business models behind modern games, from premium titles to free-to-play live services.
  • Master the core systems of successful F2P games, including progression, economies, monetisation, and live ops.
  • Design a complete set of non-gameplay systems for your own free-to-play live-service game.
  • Present game design ideas professionally using industry-standard documents, diagrams, and spreadsheets.
  • Apply practical frameworks used by game studios to design engaging and commercially sustainable games.
  • Make informed design decisions by balancing player experience with commercial sustainability.

Explore related topics

Course content

6 sections • 59 lectures • 2h 44m total length

  • Welcome1:42

    Explore free-to-play monetization and live game operations through practical tools, including an economy calculator, progression design templates, and a content delivery planner, for junior game designers and product managers.

  • Structure of the course1:21
  • Game design diary4:50

    Learn to use a game design diary to study monetization and live operations through reverse engineering, keep organized notes, and apply insights to your own games.

  • Origins1:40
  • Free-to-play3:37

    Compare premium versus free-to-play models, explain how free-to-play leverages platform access and microtransactions, and discuss hybrid monetization shaping mobile and global hits.

  • Materials1:32
  • GAAS4:22

    GAAS reframes free-to-play games as live-operated services, using time-limited events and personalized experiences to maximize value and sustain player engagement.

  • Materials0:47
  • Cryptocurrencies4:46

    Explore how blockchain and cryptocurrencies enable transparent, irreversible transactions, digital wallets, and token economies in games, examining Axie Infinity, SLP, and AXS, and the rise and risks of blockchain games.

  • Materials0:33
  • The basics

Requirements

  • No prior experience in game design, product management, or free-to-play games is required.
  • An interest in how successful games are designed, monetised, and operated as live services.
  • A willingness to think critically about games and analyse the design decisions behind them.

Description

Free-to-play games generate billions of dollars every year and dominate today's mobile games market. Yet many aspiring game designers, indie developers, and even experienced professionals struggle to understand what makes these games engaging, commercially sustainable, and capable of retaining players for years.

This course is a practical introduction to free-to-play game design and games-as-a-service. Instead of focusing on gameplay mechanics or programming, we'll explore the systems that keep players engaged beyond the first session: progression, virtual economies, currencies, monetisation, retention, live ops, events, and the metrics used to measure success.

Throughout the course, you'll learn not only what these systems are, but why they work, the trade-offs behind different design decisions, and how experienced game teams balance player experience with business objectives.

The course combines game design and product thinking, giving you the vocabulary, frameworks, and mental models used by modern game studios to design and operate successful live-service games.

Whether you're an aspiring game designer, an indie developer considering a free-to-play business model, a product manager, an analyst, or an experienced premium-game designer looking to transition into free-to-play, this course will provide you with a solid foundation in one of the industry's most valuable disciplines.

By the end of the course, you'll be able to analyse successful free-to-play games through a designer's lens, communicate your ideas using industry-standard approaches, and design the core non-gameplay systems that power modern games-as-a-service.

This is an introductory course. No prior experience with free-to-play design is required—only an interest in understanding how successful games are built, operated, and grown.


Languages and subtitles: the course's audio is in English, but subtitles are available in multiple languages. English and Russian subtitles have been manually reviewed, but other languages for subtitles have been auto-translated from English. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than no subtitles at all. If you see any errors, please let me know, and I'll fix them.

Who this course is for:

  • Aspiring game designers looking to build a strong foundation in free-to-play and games-as-a-service design.
  • Game designers transitioning from premium or gameplay design into economies, monetisation, progression, or live ops.
  • Product managers, analysts, and other game development professionals who want to better understand F2P design.
  • Indie developers considering a free-to-play business model for their current or future games.
  • Anyone curious about how successful free-to-play games engage, retain, and monetise players.

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