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Are free to buy a game and then own it outright- all of it, the full versions of it to play as you choose?
Some said that Electronic Arts, freemium is where it’s at.
Gamespot tells us:
The freemium business model is “where things are going,” according to site CNET about the recent launch of Real Racing 3, the executive explained that the mobile game has been a big success, due in part to its business model.
That’s definitely one opinion of it. But Earl is not the first from EA to praise this payment model. Gamespot goes on to tell us:
games moving forward.
Before that, EA chief operating officer Peter Moore said he believes microtransactions will be in every game in the next five to ten years. He likened the business model to a clothing store like The Gap.
“It’s free to me to walk into The Gap in my local shopping mall. They don’t charge me to walk in there,” he said at the time. “I can walk into The Gap, enjoy the music, look at the jeans and what have you, but if I want to buy something I have to pay for it.”
I’m not sure if I completely agree with the store analogy (doesn’t really make sense) but I get where they are trying to go with this. They’re really makes the game fun.
Freemium might be the way of the future according to EA but I expect it just might be the death of some game developers who try to use this as their money-maker.
A concept that might really take off is advertising within the video games. Would you play a game with ads if it meant you could play for free? What if the ads were subtle or easily ignored (like Facebook ads in the sidebar)?
Rather than getting a pared-down version of a game you have to pay to upgrade, what if you could get the full version of a game for free and all you had to do was tolerate some advertising in-game?
