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PocketGamer.biz4 Feb 2016

IAP Inspector: Path of War

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
Path of War, developed by Envision Entertainment and published by Nexon M, features a restrictive monetization model that creates significant friction for both free-to-play and paying users.
02
Despite marketing claims of genre evolution through base-movement and column-based combat, the core gameplay remains derivative of existing mobile strategy standards.
03
The game utilizes a dual-resource constraint system where energy is required for both map movement and combat, while command points limit the deployment of full unit rosters.
04
Progression is bottlenecked by a building system that restricts concurrent upgrades to a single slot unless players purchase additional, expensive crane capacity.
05
Financial investment in the game fails to provide a meaningful return, as premium currency purchases do not effectively alleviate the game's aggressive pacing or forced downtime.
06
The combination of high premium currency costs and rapid resource depletion results in a poor value proposition that discourages long-term player retention.

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Transcript

hello and uh welcome to the um Pocket game we bus's in app inspector feature where we look at uh the monetization of free-to-play games from the players perspective uh so this week we're looking at a game called path of War which is from a new studio called uh Invision entertainment so they worked on um the command and Conquer series they worked on a browser browser version called command and ER tiberium alliances Fier which they're still um part of the team is still running actually they've got some quite good um sort of strategy chops if you will and um so this is their first mile game um quite interesting thematically as well I mean I'll just show you the um map area so this is sort of the gimmick of the game I suppose or the well the setup at least that you're um the players are cast as kind of rebels in sort

of um near future alternate future sort of thing version of America in which there's been like a cyber terror attack and um the the country is now like being run by sort of oppressive military regime so all of these you see here around play fellow players this I I don't know why I call my character htio but there you go uh this is my my guy um so this is so this is the camp as you can see that's what you saw a minute ago um and this will show you just how little progress I've actually made this is the distance to Washington DC obviously as you progress the game The Closer you move to Washington which is where you're trying to get basically to try and um yeah to try and overthrow the um the sort of government or regime or whatever um so that's all quite nice it's sort of a vague story that's told mainly through sort of news bulletins

and things like that um but um yeah the but the main gimmick you can see I'm out of energy here and um that is an issue I'd say I'd say that's something that happens quite a lot but we'll get on that later um but this is the main sort of thing that sets it apart from other games the ability to move your base physically move it and um so L we keep moving it further and further but we you can move it closer to enemies you want to attack or you know things like that of course now it's going to cost me fuel I'll just do it just to show you I'll pay for it with diamonds um so should we attack again I don't have enough so you'll see some I'll show you a bit of gameplay as well why not so as you can see that's another thing that sets it apart it's almost plants and plants and zombies es in that there's um columns into which

you deploy your units so that's where the strategy comes from certain enemies is are weak to certain units and you can see here I get these little um energy points which are gathered for killing certain things and then you use use them like rockets and other things that heal units I'm sure you've seen all this sort of thing before but yeah it's really the sort of um column based map system which which is um which makes it different to other games but um by no means like the world's most ground groundbreaking um you know a few weeks ago in the in inspector we featured a game called um the incorruptibles which was sort of trying to make mobile strategy like move it away from Clash of Clans and make it like you know real time movement and control over characters and things like that um which felt like you know a real um a real departure whereas this

um Envision were sort of saying similar well not similar things but they were saying they really wanted to change up the um the mobile strategy genre and it feels like they might have um overstated just how much they are changing it because um as you can see that was a little different but not massively um so I'll start to show you some of my main issues with the game because I did um reject it where we have a scoring system on the in Spector were either approved passed or rejected and rejected is for the games we feel are too restrictive in terms of monetization not generous enough and I definitely feel that with this so as you can see a lot of weight times on the go a lot of quite High weight times as well especially as I'm at such a low level that happens quite quickly the the weight times has get very long very sort of offputting and the same with energy as well as you can sort of tell by the fact I haven't got any so it ranges 95 per hour so I've got a bit back now but um moving as you saw

before requires energy and attacking requires energy and there's also as you can see down the bottom here refreshing uh these command points which they're used um to deploy units that's almost another Energy System Because unless that's full then you can't use your you won't be full strength in battle so I could go and have another battle now but I would only be able to use a few of my units until and so effectively I have to wait a few minutes or pay with gems in order pay with gems here to whatever in order to fight again um so if we just look at the gems have a sta pack here which is actually quite good value for 3,000 you to increase your cranes your number of cranes which is another thing you can pay for you start off with one and that means that you can only build or upgrade one thing at a time um I'm two at the moment because I

paid for the second one which is 50 but then if you want a third one the up the cost quite quickly goes up to 500 which is 500 diamonds which is a lot which is as you saw here that's £420 or around $6 in um in real money so that's quite a lot to be spending um accidentally clicked on the purchase thing there I don't particularly want to spend 17 sorry but yeah um so you have your soft currency which is steel which develops here no real problems with that energy we've already discussed is a bit restrictive um but yeah so the essential problem is it just feels you're not given enough here are a few sort of missions and you as you can see you are gifted small quantities occasionally but nowhere near at the rate you'd you'd want and also when you do spend money you don't feel as though there is sufficient impact I spent I

spent um I bought 500 and you can see I'm still at level six I've still got quite a quite a rubbish Camp really I haven't really got much to show for it and it's still sort of enforcing me to play in very small stints um even if I wanted to play for longer it it'd be very hard for you to because you'd quickly just run out of energy and you'd be waiting for long wait timers like this and wouldn't be able to upgrade anymore at the same time without um having to upgrade more or spend more so it's just a yeah it's just quite quite restrictive and um when given the sheer number of mobile strategy games out there I would really find it quite hard to see why you choose to play this one some nice ideas aside just um just the experience of playing it doesn't feel you know doesn't doesn't feel like

the developer wants you to play it they're almost like pushing you away every turn um so yeah that's um path of War um we'll look at another game next week uh thanks for watching

Summary

Path of War, a mobile strategy title developed by Envision Entertainment and published by Nexon M, attempts to differentiate itself within the crowded mobile strategy market through a unique base-movement mechanic and a column-based combat system. Set in an alternate, near-future America, the game tasks players with navigating a map toward Washington D.C. to overthrow an oppressive regime. While the developers marketed the game as a significant evolution of the mobile strategy genre, the core gameplay experience remains largely derivative of established industry standards, failing to provide a truly transformative departure from existing titles.

The monetization strategy is characterized as overly restrictive, leading to a formal rejection of the game’s design philosophy. The primary friction points involve aggressive energy systems and prohibitive wait times that severely limit session length. Players must expend energy for both movement and combat, and a secondary resource—command points—further restricts the ability to deploy full unit rosters during battles. These barriers are compounded by a building system that limits concurrent upgrades to a single crane unless the player invests in additional, expensive slots.

Financial investment in the game yields minimal perceived impact, as even modest spending does not significantly alleviate the restrictive pacing or accelerate progression. The combination of high costs for premium currency and the rapid depletion of resources creates a user experience that feels exclusionary rather than engaging. Ultimately, the game struggles to justify its presence in a competitive landscape, as the restrictive monetization and frequent forced downtime discourage long-term player retention and fail to offer a compelling value proposition for either free-to-play or paying users.