I am one of those people who didn't really get f2p games early on. I wasn't raising a pitchfork, but I just didn't get why anyone would do it. But a game finally did come along that changed my view on it (Puzzles and Dragons) and I looked at it similarly to a subscription that I could cancel. As I've looked more into f2p games, I've definitely found some that are more blatantly trying to reach their hand into my wallet than others. The worrisome trend I'm seeing is when i hear comments like 'it isn't that bad' or 'all games are like this' and I'm wondering as the next generation of gamers come up, whose first experience is a f2p game, that the bar is really low for standards. People who never played a game without a paywall or the opportunity to spend your way through a challenge. I feel like this trend is only going to get worse as time goes on, with less and less people who had console experience on xbox/ps2/(that era of )pc and earlier.
Although mobile devices are becoming more common I think dedicated mobile gaming is still a minority so it seems like most the the mobile developers are making 'gateway drugs' to entice casual gamers into play by offering low up front costs. However, there is still a thriving PC/Mac and console economy that will likely remain premium so it's hard to generalize to an entire gaming industry. Ultimately my personal opinion is that f2p games (and mobile gaming itself) will be a trend we will one day look back on and laugh. F2p makes sense in enticing new players, but I don't think it'll end up being a sustainable system for long term profit. Part of the "problem" is that Apple has such a closed system not allowing reasonable competition that once that bursts we may see more options like we do with Android (in which cases there are several dedicated third party sites offering strictly premium titles, such as Humble Bundle). Now off to play Marvel Future Fight...
So you presume that in the future we will come back to premium?Are you sure about this?Is not f2p making more money than premium games? This fact is just awful and horrible but I think that it is true,a minority of premium games are being sold pretty well and even that is not enough to compete with the other f2p games. I hate f2p,I really do but only if it is done the wrong way,I won't mind some energy bars or skill upgrade time or something like that if it is done well and not in a brutal way.
I'm not trying to say that f2p is going to replace a premium experience, more just that the bar is being lowered for expectations in games, period.
I'm not sure about anything, I'm just guess-timating. I'm sure some games are more profitable than others in either premium or f2p models so it's certainly no guarantee for success. However, I sometimes wonder how much of a model like f2p consumers will ultimately tolerate. For example, you have have heard that Steam added microtransactions for user created game modifications and outcry was so severe against the move within a month they reversed course.
F2P is here to stay. I'm not really worried about the payment model (as long as it doesn't change the game designer's original vision for the game for the worst), I'm worried about the games themselves, as people and as a result games rely on brainless instant gratification and we get more and more minigames. I really wish minigames weren't a thing, but they are pretty much perfect for todays market, especially on the mobile platform.
