Free-to-play games continue to thrive despite falling victim to Zynga’s greed in during infancy
The free-to-play business model has become pretty popular over the years, with publishers and developers showing more interest than ever in creating games that players can play for free, while spending additional money helps in adding to the experience.
There is hardly any argument over League of Legends being one of the most popular online games today, be it an AAA title or a free-to-play offering. The game has become more prominent than ever, getting featured in competitions that offer millions of dollars
in prizes, while their matches are being viewed by millions of people around the globe.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has also tried out its luck in the massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS) genre with its free-to-play PlanetSide franchise, with the second title in the series arriving for PC last month.
The company’s CEO John Smedley was all praises for the free-to-play in a recent interview with PC Games, stating that while free-to-play games have been there for four-to-five years now, such games are getting more recognition and attracting a more positive
response than ever.
He noted that such games have been prevalent particularly in Asia for years, but now the likes of League of Legends, PlanetSide 2 and Defence of the Ancients (DOTA) 2 have served to show that gamers around the world have embraced free-to-play games with
open arms and loving the experience.
The number of registered users for these games is growing on daily basis and is expected to continue growing as broadband internet becomes even more common.
Even though the free-to-play model has established itself as very promising, Smedley acknowledged the fact that it had not gotten off to a very great start.
Gamers were somewhat sceptical about spending their time on such games as their expectations off such games were quite low in terms of quality and satisfaction.
The SOE president put the blame for this tarnished reputation of free-to-play games on Zynga, blaming the studio for not doing justice to the model.
Smedley said that the social games maker was behind some of the most prominent free-to-play games, such as FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars. These games had a massive following on the social networking website Facebook.
Instead of using this massive fan base in promoting such games, the company lost its direction and began to focus on making money by offering premium products.
Which the strategy served them well, with the casual gamers more than content to part with their precious cash for some fancy item, gamers looking for a quality and fulfilling experience turned away from such games.
Fortunately, Riot, SOE and Valve stepped into the picture to save the reputation of free-to-play games and so far have been doing a pretty good job.
Some gamers are concerned that the growing popularity of free-to-play games poses a serious threat to AAA titles.
Smedley, however, disagrees with this fear and believe that the free-to-play games have certain limitations that prevent it from working in certain avenues.
"One of those is anything that requires a huge download. If you look at some of the awesome Blu-ray games on PS3, like Uncharted - that game fills an entire Blu-ray. Realistically, that's not something you can make free-to-play because it takes so long and
costs so much to download. So I think that barrier will be there for the foreseeable future, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. We have loads of great free-to-play games out there at the moment, they're getting very high in quality with titles
like League of Legends, Planetside 2 and DOTA 2,” he stated.
Gamers would be hoping for free-to-play and traditional models to keep existing as each has its own unique experience to offer.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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