Author’s Note: This is Part I of a III part series in a look
at the rise of F2P in the West. I will take a hard look at the path to a F2P
MMO market and what it means for gamers and developers alike.
Part I: Money
There is a fundamental dichotomy in the way developers and
gamers view F2P. From a business standpoint the only real reason for a
developer to take a game F2P is to make
more money than they are currently making. Certainly offering choice is a
nice aside, but the point of the switch from subscription to F2P in whatever
form, is to make more money than they
are currently making. Gamers on the other hand view the F2P switch as a way
to play a game without spending money, or more accurately they wish to control
the way and the when of the money being spent. Here in then lies the Dichotomy,
while gamers might have a thought in the back of their minds about the idea of
business driving decision-making for developers, they aren’t inherently moved
by the argument. So too developers might also acknowledge that gamers want
everything for free, while putting that aside to make money. The games that
make the best compromise between those two schools of thought are the ones that
are likely to be the most successful.