46. Building a Premium-First Game Model: Systems Design for Longevity, Engagement, and Sustainability
Article and discussion about using systems design for premium-first games to achieve self-operatable games without the need for pushing for F2P, hybrid monetization, and/or live service models.
In a market increasingly saturated with live service titles and battle passes, there's a rising countercurrent: studios opting to craft premium-first or premium-only games-
The challenge, however, is significant. How can you build a premium game that sustains itself for years, without the constant drip-feed of content updates or FOMO-inducing mechanics? The answer I’ve seen usually has been that studios opt-in for these approaches in order to build games that are fun to play, for the time they get played — and that’s kind of it. Some studios will do well with these, alone or through the partners they have; and it will be all good for them. But for most? I’d say they should take a more deeper approach, about which I’m discussing more on this article. Also, thinking about the challenges here — it’s quite exciting to provide a take on something where some doors and windows are closed, e.g., F2P, and live service.
As a product person and systems designer; and someone passionate about game economies, progression, and long-term player motivation, I believe one answer lies in applying the best systemic principles from F2P and live service models to premium-first games — without the baggage. Instead of pursuing frequent monetized events, we focus on building robust systems, meta loops, and emergent gameplay structures that allow the game to evolve, propagate, and thrive naturally, through player agency and systemic interactivity.
This article outlines how to approach such a premium-first business model from a systems design perspective, borrowing and blending best practices from various genres — like Extraction Shooters, Roguelites, MMORPGs, and 4X — and the monetization psychology of F2P/live service models. All with the goal of crafting a self-operating ecosystem of long-term engagement and value. As, if you do this right, you’ll still make plenty of business without the need to live service, or opt-in for F2P / Hybrid models.
Why Premium-First Is a Design Opportunity
The move toward live services has led to a reactive and frequently exploitative mindset in game development — games that are incomplete at launch, filled with short-term retention hooks, or designed to require constant intervention. This is expensive, both creatively and operationally. But a well-designed premium game can live for years without needing that.
If its systems are:
Deeply replayable, incl. emergent / systemic takes.
Socially engaging
Mechanically variable, incl. emergent / systemic takes.
Progressionally rich
Balanced with long-term player expression in mind
Then you have something that can propagate itself organically through community, gameplay discovery, and personal mastery.
Systems Design Philosophy: Blending the Best of All Worlds
Let’s break down how different genres and business models can inform premium-first systems design.
From F2P Games:
Retention Systems: Daily goals, long-term quests, multi-track progression (horizontal and vertical), habit-forming loops.
Meta-Layers: Character upgrades, cosmetics, persistent economy, crafting, home bases.
Soft and Hard Currencies (Optional), and/or Resources Driving Same: Used not for monetization, but for strategic pacing as well as progression on certain progression vectors.
Limited-Time Content Philosophy (Optional): Use as a design tool (seasonal content) rather than pressure hook.
From Live Service Games:
Live-Lite Model: Build modularity into content and systems (e.g., weekly challenge structures, player-driven quests, randomized seeds).
Community Tools: Embed sharing, social meta, and inter-player gameplay (asynchronous options included).
System-Based Extensibility: Make sure new features can slot into existing loops without rebalancing the whole game.
From Extraction Shooters:
Risk-Reward Loops: Add friction and excitement to resource accumulation.
Loadout Investment: Making every mission matter.
Evolving World States: Player actions impacting global conditions or meta-economy.
From Roguelites:
Procedural Variety: No two runs the same; use this for encounter, reward, or narrative variation.
Run-Based Economies: Session-driven design that feeds a persistent meta loop.
From MMORPGs:
Social Systems: Asynchronous or synchronous grouping, guilds, economy.
Specialization and Roles: Identity-driven long-term playstyles.
Dynamic World Evolution: Factions, resource control, event triggers.
Living World: Just a living world with presence (actual / simulated / asynchronous) of other players could be enough for some takes.
From Action RPGs and RPGs:
Deep Buildcrafting: Let players express creativity through synergies.
Narrative-Laced Systems: Build story into your upgrades, economy, and exploration.
From 4X:
Tactical Depth Meets Strategic Long-Term Goals: Plan, manage, iterate.
Turn/Time Pressure: Incorporate meaningful pacing.
Ecosystem Interplay: Build systems where emergent behavior arises from player actions.
Genre and Systems Blending: The Power of Cross-Pollination
As explored in my recent blog post 45. Blending Vectors: Designing Games at the Intersection of Campaign, Mixed, and Multiplayer Modes, genre boundaries are dissolving, and with them come rich opportunities for vector blending.
45. Blending Vectors: Designing Games at the Intersection of Campaign, Mixed, and Multiplayer Modes
Cross-Vector Examples:
Roguelite + Extraction Shooter: Risk-reward structure from extractions, variability from roguelites.
MMORPG + 4X: Factional politics mixed with world conquest systems.
ARPG + Social Co-op: Deep buildcrafting enhanced by social asynchronous systems (e.g., echoes, ghosts, PvPvE layers).
Two-Vector Mode Blending:
Campaign + Multiplayer:
Asynchronous: Player-created challenges, echoes, resource battles.
Synchronous: Tactical raids, PvEvP.
Hybrid: Shared world state where your solo actions contribute to factional progression.
These blends allow premium games to feel infinitely more alive, interconnected, and dynamic.
Self-Operatable Ecosystems: The Holy Grail
To build a self-sustaining premium game, your systems need to:
Encourage Player-Led Content: Build in social, emergent, and creation loops.
Provide Systemic Variety: Make sure systems remix themselves over time (randomization, AI seeds, rotations).
Create Open-Ended Goals: Think evergreen mastery, not fixed end states.
Use Systems for Balance: Instead of patching, make counterplay and ecosystem balancing part of the design.
When done right, your game doesn’t need live ops to remain engaging.
It evolves because:
Players find new builds, strategies, or paths.
Systems interact in unexpected ways.
Community shares and innovates.
Multiplayer or async interactions create a meta.
Cost-Efficient, System-Rich, Premium-Only Games
Designing these experiences doesn’t have to mean exorbitant costs.
With clever systems design:
A map can be reused with procedural seeds.
A set of skills can create thousands of builds.
One system can power both campaign and multiplayer.
It’s about making systems that scale with player creativity, not just with developer effort.
Examples:
A PvEvP mode with build persistence and role-based utility, encouraging repeat sessions and emergent group tactics.
Narrative unlock systems based on world state rather than linear plot, allowing discovery to pace itself.
Economy systems that allow trade, scarcity, factional control, crafting loops—all without requiring new content every quarter.
References You Can Use on This Type of Quest (With Premium-First Point of View)
And many others from my blog: https://gamesalchemy.substack.com/.
Designing for the Long Game
The future isn’t just (even I discuss mostly about them!) about live services or battle passes. It is also about creating games that operate like ecosystems: dynamic, player-driven, and evergreen. And, as stated first when starting this article, it’s also about just fun premium games for the time they get played — there will be space for them as well.
Through thoughtful application of systems design — pulling from F2P, live service, and diverse genres — you can craft premium-first titles that offer years of value. This will lead to proper business case, especially as any level of self-propagation would be reached — which could be driven through, well, purely from systems design side.
Approaching game development this way isn’t just sustainable; it’s creatively fulfilling. You build not just a game, but a world that players want to live in, explore, and grow with. That’s the real magic of systems thinking.
Premium doesn’t mean static. And live service doesn’t have to mean things they’re now based on. One solution is just proper take on systems design. That’s where one promising future lives. These types of games would be something I’d love to build.
Some time in the next week I intend to publish rules for improving large online strategy games, and there I will talk a lot about how the F2P model is incompatible with that genre because it leads to people multi accounting on a map. Making players pay up front to be on a map discourages multi accounting and also discourages people from joining then dropping out due to sunk cost fallacy. These games can run for days, weeks, or even months so the value can be very high for the player, justifying the fee while protecting them from exploits.