While a lot of developers these days are taking the free-to-play route with their games, namely with efforts like King’s Candy Crush Saga, there are those who believe that it’s not quite the market that gamers are looking for.
Among these folks are MMO creator Richard Bartle, who believes that the business model for free-to-play is actually on a “half-life,” meaning that it will eventually lose popularity.
During a Develop conference in Brighton earlier this week, Bartle took part in a debate alongside free-to-play advocate Nicolas Lovell, discussing how free-to-play may look like a “great revenue model” at the moment, but it’s not likely to last.
“It will start to tail off because the people who play the games will recognize when they’re about to be nickled and dimed, and stop playing them,” said Bartle. “It will tail off because there is a fixed amount of people willing to spend enormous amounts of money, and there’s too much competition for those people.
“It will also tail off because the type of games people want to play will change. The more games you play, the more sophisticated the content of the games you will want. And when you want a more sophisticated game, then the overlay of free-to-play will be more of a problem for you. You will get a more moral sense of fair play.”
Sometimes, the implementations from the free-to-play model can be difficult to predict, according to Bartle. “Until we normalize, which could take a few years, and we know what’s being charged for, then it’ll be the Wild West,” he continued.
Lovell felt that creativity in the games industry could continue to fuel the market and overcome the problems Bartle suggested. “My sense is that the market will keep evolving,” Lovell said. “Things that initially work against players will stop working; players will love, with their attention and with their wallets, for games that treat them more respectfully.
“To my mind what free-to-play does is broaden the market by being free up front. It enables creators to keep creating. And I don’t think that has a half-life because I think the games industry is endlessly innovative, and the reason why we’re at the forefront of making money from digital content when every other medium is dying is because we love tech, we love change, and we love experimenting and tinkering. I’m incredibly positive.”
Bartle, however, stood his ground. “I think that new game designers will be less keen on free-to-play as a regular model because they’ve seen its disadvantages,” he concluded. “Most people working in the games industry are there because they like making games. They want you to play them because they’re fun, not because they subject you to cheap psychological tricks. They want to say things through their games. They want to make money, of course, but money is a side issue.”
Source: GamesIndustry International
