Free-To-Play

The Video Games industry is in a state of transition and nobody knows what to expect next.  The next wave of hardware will have an untold effect on the industry. Free-to-play games are carving unique opportunities for both publishers and developers.

Sales of games in the shops have fallen a lot recently and the market has shifted towards Facebook, iOS games and free-to-play. Are the days of the fifty euro video games numbered?

All ready free to play is a big success. Companies like EA, Valve and Activision have started to work on games. It is easy to see how it has become such a worldwide success. It enables players to jump straight into a game without any upfront cost. It uses more subtle ways to generate revenue like in game advertising and microtransactions luring players with game changing enhancements like in game cash and different clothing and so on. The range of free to play experiences varies from the casual mobile gamers to vast MMO{Massively multiplayer online role playing game} worlds.

There are a few different free-to-play models.

Totally free means exactly what it says. Many of these are independent projects rather than big budget titles used by developers to test the ground for new games. 

Free with adds is when adds pop up during game play and can be found all over the game. 

Free with microtransactions. This is the most popular model in the industry. Microtransactions keep a constant stream of revenue for the publisher and developer. Some games lean unfairly towards purchases to give players an advantage hence play-to-win while others sell accessories and vanity items which I have noticed that there is allot of money in {pimping out your online character}. 

One-off payment without subscription{MMO}. It’s not completely free-to-play. It sells the game at retail price without subscription offering in game items to drive profits. It falls in between both worlds. 

Free up until a cap. Several games on Google Play and the Apple App store are free to download but require payment if you want to progress past a certain point in the game. It enables players to roam their realms without paying up until they reach a level cap. You have to pay if you want to reach the more advance endgame content. 

The basic idea behind play-to-win is that players must invest a cretin amount of real world money if they want to progress in the game. This gives them the advantage over the other players in the game. A lot of social games exploit their users this way and it has made publishers and developers wary of the free-to-play infrastructure. 

It just allows games to reach a lager user base quite quickly to help get ahead of their opponents.

Whenever something is new and sexy there is always a mad rush for it at least for a while. Some of the methods the developers use to make money through these social and free-to-play games I think are just exploiting people in a way like if you look at the games that offer you a taste of an experience but withhold content and obstruct progress just to tempt even more money from your pocket if you want to continue enjoying the game.

I kind of see it as a way for the publishers using the in game purchases as a quick way to turn a profit on games that are relatively cheap to make so as soon as they release their game their looking at a high rate come back.

I’m not too sure where I see this going because now it seems like all the attention is just on trying to squeeze money out of people and less about the games themselves. I think they just want to be able to stick the label on them free-to-play and keep all their focus on the in game transactions than the actual creative side of the games and bringing new experiences to gamers.

I think the developers are feeling the strain creatively but the publishers are also taking a big risk as they try to adapt this format to the existing market to see if whether or not it holds.

I would say it could be very hard for a smaller companies and publishers to enter this new market unlike the bigger publishers who have brand familiarity on their side. 

What I don’t understand is how big successful companies can say they’re going to make a game free but at the same time take money off gamers just in a sly way. I just don’t see the point if the games are cheap to make and you have the weight of a big company and the money to go out and promote why they don’t just make it free like the genre says instead of saying one thing and meaning something else. I think that would really send the industry forward and open us up to new experiences and even more creative ways in which we can develop and share games.

The amount of times I paid fifty to sixty euro for a game and only played it like once because I didn’t enjoy it. Having the ability to really play a game all the way through for free and being able to become completely engrossed in the game before you have to pay anything is great I think all of the free-to-play games should be like this not only a small part of them. 

I think 2012 will be considered a major year for the games industry.

With all the Facebook, iOS, console and browser based free-to-play experiences out there here are a few games to check out.

Team Fortress 2

This game sort of adapted its self to the free-to-play market in an effort to try and renew interest in the product. There are loads of game modes to enjoy but the key here is how Valve refuses to allow microtransactions to impede the gameplay.

The Lord Of The Rings Online.

 A crafted MMO fantasy world based on a familiar series of books.

Minecraft Classic.

Minecraft can still be played online it lacks all the features and is a little rougher around the edges but the pure experience remains intact and it is always good fun to roam around building stuff and killing zomibes.

Draw Something.

This had millions of players interacting over a simple spin off of Pictionary and helped in feeding the imagination of half the world.