Taking a swing at the recent influx of free-to-play games, Namco Bandai’s Vice President for Europe claimed that such titles would never reach the quality of AAA titles.
Electronic Arts and other publishers have been pushing a number of titles that are available to users to play for free, provided they have an internet connection. Games such as Battlefield Heroes and World of Tanks are just two examples of how popular such titles can be.
Apart from giving gamers a cost free alternative to more mainstream commercial titles, the games also allow a number of people, who found investing in games consoles daunting, with an opportunity to try them out with little to no risk involved.
However, not everyone in the industry is taking warmly to the idea of providing free titles and Oliver Comte, Namco Bandai’s Vice President for the European region has spoken out against them.
“Free-to-play games can’t be high quality.” He put very bluntly, as he was of the opinion that the fact that they are free means that a lot less effort is and will be put in them as compared to the full blown triple-A titles.
“When you’re a big company...you can’t take risks too quickly, you can’t make a change just because there’s a fashion for a couple of years; you want to be there in 20 or 30 years.” He explained and free-to-play games do not fit into that model.
He also explained that company’s needed to understand how much their projects are worth not only for the benefit of the company itself, but for the players who would eventually play those games. “We need to put certain value on certain work.”
While the statement has everyone braced for the eminent can of worms opening, the main dividing point is the fact that free games are not of consistent in terms of quality. So while some games may damage the development process of the larger titles, the number of free titles may not be at the figure yet in order for that to happen.
What does the reader think? Are free-to-play games a threat to AAA titles or this all a bunch of hot air? Let us know in the comments below.
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