Above: I don’t care if the reader is sick of this clip. I will keep showing it to hammer the importance of SHOW ME THE MONEY.
I’m still looking for the ‘success’ of Free To Play models outside a few Asian specific games. Show me the money these games are generating. Note how no one is reporting it. Perhaps it is because it doesn’t exist.
Take a look at this. Apparently, World of Tanks, is such a ‘massive success’ that I have never heard of it (as I am sure the reader hasn’t heard of it).
World of Tanks is a massive global success. It has over 35 million registrations after two years on the market, with the company behind it growing from 120 to 1000 staff.
Registrations are not success. Registrations don’t even have to be people as Facebook got pummeled when it was discovered that it has registrations done by multiple people including their pets. And the number of staff behind the game isn’t an indicator of success.
A game’s success has always been shown by sales portrayed in a sales tracker. Free-To-Play obviously cannot show that. So what they must show is the profit generated from the game.
And we never get that information. The closest they can get to showing ‘money’ is claiming the investment money is ‘showing you the money’. It isn’t. Just because more investors are investing in you doesn’t mean your product is successful. Tell that to the Dot Com companies over a decade ago.
Free To Play is considered gaming’s graveyard. When MMORPGs fail, they go ‘free to play’ like SWTOR. And everyone laughs at them.
I don’t dispute there are people getting rich from Free-To-Play models, but they are getting that money from the investment money pouring in. I still haven’t seen anything to indicate that Free-To-Play models are anything substancially diffrent than the Dot Com models. The ‘success’ is always shown in ‘users’ but the cashflow is not presented.
Note how this CEO takes a shot at Starcraft. Let’s listen:
There are people who would pay for a box of Starcraft for $300 but you’ve lost them.”
This isn’t true. Blizzard makes a fortune from merchandising and selling tickets. Passionate Starcraft fans end up paying more money which goes into Blizzard’s pockets for all sorts of things. Keep in mind Blizzard also sells Collector’s Editions which gains money as well.
More lies from this person:
“The people who are not willing to pay $60 or $10 a month for subscription or 99 cents per mobile app, you lose them.
No, you don’t. You actually gain when you set a price. There are more people who refuse to do anything with Free To Play than people who refuse paying 99 cents for an app.
They don’t enter, ever.
Being a little over-dramatic, don’t you think, reader?
They never have a chance to look at your game, to enjoy it for a day or a week. The set price does not cater to those who are willing to pay less, but interestingly you also reject those that are willing to pay more.
Ever heard of demos? Or Shareware?
There is something very shifty about this guy. Game developers aren’t swallowing what he is selling. Why? It is because game developers tend to be gamers first. And they know how it feels being a gaming customer.
