News EA: Free-to-play as profitable as console games

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/06/28/ea-free-to-play-as-profitable-as-console-ga/1

 

http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win

 

TF2 is free and survives selling... hats... So, they know that this is a good business model

 

I play around with a couple of the free to play games on Facebook and there are plenty of optional items that you can buy for cash rather than in game coins and there are always plenty of my friends with those new items.
They are pretty sneaky when it comes to the process of buying them as well, the prices are not in real world £, $ or € but rather in [insert game name] cash so when you see an item for, say 50 cash, most people are not going to realise that it is really costing them £XX or whatever, it's not 'real' money.

Just started playing Black Prophecy too and that works on the same idea, the paid for bits are optional and give you a bit of a boost but you don't have to buy them to get on with things although I am sure plenty do.

 

You silly EA, you silly

 

Played...what's that cartoonish battlefied again?..for a while.
Thoroughly Meh, very unbalanced.

 

This does what for single player now?

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Hopefully it can breathe some life back into the PC platform, even if the free to play games are quite "casual", and stop developers marginalising gameplay for money making schemes.
I think that we will see a further decline in the emergence of "hardcore" PC titles in favour of free to play titles, as they are relatively cheaper or easier to make and can see a higher profit margin. It would be nice to see more developers and publishers being passionate about the games we love and not spoonfeed us second rate games.

 

I'm not a huge fan of free to play games. first it's generally an excuse to have limited functionality or standard game play features cost money. Also a lot of them turn up the grind fest, or show you the shortcut if you'll only dish out the hard cash. In the long run I would rather pay my $60 upfront and get all the feature forever as opposed to 0 upfront then anywhere from 1$ to 10$/ week to play the game. I hate being nickle and dimed.

I did buy $45 worth of gold for world of tanks, but I've used it judiciously and it's been lasting me since release.

 

browser based f2p are rubbish. bfheroes got about 2 hours use. same with the others i have played. valve have mixed up the f2p system by releasing a whole fully polished game, where there revenue comes from buying items, nearly all of which you can get for free if you play the game long enough (drop, trade or craft). this is as opposed to other games, where some game changing items can only be purchased. and thats where the confusion is f2p used to be one model, now it is many, so talking about f2p as one thing has become ridiculous.

 

Been schooling the silly consolers for a while that PC Gaming is very profitable and they need to face reality that consoles are dying. As consoles become more PC like Pirating becomes more easier (Gears3 is already out) along with Rentals and Used Game sales taking away huge profits. So all you consolers out there I suggest you go buy yourselves a nice KB/M.