The F2P game that's gone to war with my wallet: My month with Friendly Fire

There's a massive risk whenever the topic of free-to-play is raised that, rather than debating the issues, we all get wrapped up in the passion fuelling the argument.

For me, the controversy that continues to surround free-to-play (for some) actually boils down to just a few key issues: when a game wants you to pay, what it wants you to pay for, and how/when it asks you.

There's no escaping the fact that free-to-play games want your money – every game wants your money. Rather, people tend to take issue with what players are asked to pay out for – unlocking levels and consumables are both particular pet hates for many – and just how crucial they are to longterm play.

I'll come clean here: I have no problem with free-to-play as a monetisation model.

I'm of the (perhaps cold) view that, if we're talking about adults, they're big enough and ugly enough to make their own decisions. Unless a game is somehow found to be hypnotising people into parting with their cash – or is a blatant con – I have no problem with how developers structure it.

If I feel a free-to-play game relies too heavily on me parting with cash I'm not willing to part with, then I'll stop playing.

Ultimately, I think that's the ultimate test for any free-to-play game. If people don't want to pay out – whether the game requires you to or not – you're probably not engaging them as you should.

All that said, it begs the question: what happens if you reach a point in a free-to-play game where the developer clearly wants your cash, but rather than making in-app purchases or quitting the game altogether, you simply carry on?

Playing with no paying

Let me be clear here – I don't mean a game for those who like grinding. And, believe me, there is actually a growing number of gamers who find much security and comfort in grinding. It's become a 'thing'.

Rather, I mean a game where you decide you don't want to play any more, but likewise don't want to pay to speed things along. What happens if you carry on playing anyway? Does it get better? Does the developer stop asking for your money? Does it ever get fun again?

It's something I've recently encountered with Friendly Fire – a game in the Clash of Clans/Backyard Monsters mould that fixes a base in your real geographical location and then charges you with defending it.

I should state that, if we strip the game down to its base elements, I really like Friendly Fire. I like it a lot, in fact.

Broken down into two minute battles, play manages to be engaging without ever becoming overly complicated: you spawn your tanks on a rival's map while working out the quickest and cleanest way through their defences to take out their base before the clock ticks down.

The spend the rest of your time is spent upgrading your own base, trying to turn the streets you live on into a labyrinth of death – a process that involves watching back replays of successful attacks against your HQ in order to modify your layout for the better.

It's an unfussy but effective take on the strategy genre. It's a game you can devote some serious time to without it dominating your life. In other words, it's a pretty decent mobile game.

However, it pains me to say it – and free-to-play sceptics may well be punching the air as they read this – but what undermines Friendly Fire longterm is the way the game's monetisation fits into play.

It kind of mucks it up.

It's not a game breaking fault by any stretch, but speaking personally, had I not had this editorial in mind, I most likely would have deleted Friendly Fire from my iPod touch last weekend.

Why? Because, later on, the need to spend money in play slowly and surely erodes the structure behind the game.

Friendly Fire's trigger is revenge. Should someone attack your base – successful or not – the game immediately gives you an option to strike back.

The fact that bases are, on the whole, located on the street where you live (national flags and ranks upping your emotional investment) means that, by and large, it's very difficult not to hit that big red flashing button and attack straight away.

And here's where Friendly Fire makes its money. The tanks and weapons you take into battle are consumables. Whether or not they survive the fight, if you use them to raid an enemy base, they're gone forever. You have to restock as soon as you get back to HQ.

Later on in play, when your base is able so support a reasonable sized army, that restocking can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour 20. That is unless buy gem packs, of course, which can be traded in for instant tanks.

In this hour or so wait, your base is incredibly vulnerable. Unless you have tanks equipped at your HQ, pretty much anyone can take you're out. You're a sitting duck.

The end result is an especially nervy period while you wait for your arsenal to roll off the production line. You simply cross your fingers and hope you manage to slip under your enemies' radar for long enough to re-equip your base.

At first, that's actually not a bad thing. The tension is offset by a sense of relief and even accomplishment when you come out of said period unscathed.

Indeed, early on, such moments of success – combined with successive victories over foe just finding their feet – quickly begins to build your confidence, as well as your score. It's when you start punching above your weight, however, that things become difficult.

Rising up the rankings results in you becoming a target not just for the game's random match ups, but also from players close you in the table, eager to kill two birds with one stone by boosting their score with a victory while also knocking yours down with your defeat.

And it's when you begin to battle against more than 4 or 5 people that money becomes the only way to hold your place in the league tables. As soon as you re-quip and seek revenge against a newfound foe, your base is then open to be attacked by your other rivals.

That means that, all too often, a victory over one enemy can be utterly soured when, five minutes later, your base is destroyed by another while you're building up your arsenal again.

In a matter of hours one day last weekend, I managed to go from shooting up to one of the top one hundred players in the UK to almost seeing my score wiped out entirely, shooting straight back down again into the league's lower echelons.

Why? Because a series of attacks from multiple enemies resulted in me hitting the revenge button a few too many times before all my tanks had been manufactured.

As a result, I went into several battles without the equipment to see the job through and – predictably – lost.

Others were not so unfortunate, however. I watched on with envy as people I'd been easily trouncing a few days ago were suddenly rising past me up the rankings. What's more, when I dared to attack them back, their bases were also fully defended with masses of tanks just minutes after having taken me out.

It took me a while before I'd realised what had happened. These players had clearly got to a similar rank than me and encountered the same problem I had – they were attracting unwanted attention.

But instead of getting frustrated as I had, they'd paid out cash to instantly re-equip their defences, shooting them further up the table where, no doubt, they would encounter more fearsome foe, and in even greater number.

I should state, I have spent money in Friendly Fire, and I don't regret it. So fun are the battles that, there has been the odd time when I've wanted to pull off two or three victories in a row. Paying out for gems to build my tanks instantly is the only way to do this.

However, the fundamental problem I have with doing this the further you get into Friendly Fire is, the more money you commit to spending early on, the more money you're going to need to spend later on.

The higher you rise up the rankings, the more people there are eager to shoot you down, and while a more skilled player than I would no doubt have faired a touch better, there's an inevitability that you'll quickly slip back down the table unless you continue to invest.

For a game that relies so heavily on a hunger for instant revenge, and where any sense of progression is exclusively tied to your position in the rankings, the necessity to spend is not an attractive one.

It's also a very easy trap to fall into. In most cases, the line between victory and defeat in this 2 minute encounters is an especially thin one. This leads to some especially exciting encounters, but also leaves you feeling like you've never really been beaten – that you were just unlucky, and another quick crack of the whip would see you even up the score.

It feels a little like gambling, in this respect. Every punter down on his or her luck thinks their next spin will put things right, and resisting the temptation to pay out to set the record straight is not easy.

I'd like to think that this is a balancing issue – that, perhaps, those behind the game didn't calculate for the endless to-ing and fro-ing between players each attacking the other when they're at their most vulnerable.

The other side of me, however, fears that this may all have been intentional.

And the problem is, there's no end point. No focus. No resolution. You attack, you win. They attack, they win.

If neither player spends money, getting ahead in the tally is purely a matter of luck – either your enemy flunks their attack on you for whatever reason, or life gets in the way and they get out of sync with Friendly Fire's routine, leaving their base open, defenceless and ripe for destruction.

Even edging ahead is no form of resolution. Endlessly prompted by the game to seek retribution, it's rare to see a rival concede defeat longterm. You can pretty much guarantee that, anyone you attack will attack you back within a matter of hours.

The desire to spend to draw some kind of line under the rival is entirely under the surface, but it's there, nonetheless.

None of this sits well with me. I don't know what the answer is – I don't know how tussles with players too engaged to give up can be resolved. If anything, Friendly Fire's set up is far too successful – it's almost impossible for a player to wave the white flag, learn that they've been outclassed and move on.

But for as long as there are free-to-play games that look to milk money from players without end, people are going to feel uneasy, and they're going to sling mud.

And, in this particular case, I can't say I blame them.