Free to Play with either overpriced dlc or $120 games? Leave it to EA they always seem to please everyone anyway. Nice article by the way but you havent really said anything "news worthy"
EA's Frank Gibeau: 'I've seen new consoles from Sony and Microsoft'
By
Guy Cocker, Editor
President of EA Labels confirms new hardware from major manufacturers; believes free-to-play will become the dominant pricing model for the industry.
The rumour mill regarding new hardware from both Microsoft and Sony has been particularly active of late. On Microsoft's side, general manager Brian Hall name-dropped a "new Xbox" earlier this month, while on Sony's side SCE UK boss Fergal Gara reaffirmed the company's commitment to retail "whenever the next cycle starts."
One key player for both consoles is EA's president of labels, Frank Gibeau, whose company has pledged to spend $80 million on next-gen development this year. And during his keynote address at the Gamescom opening ceremony, Gibeau confirmed not only that new machines from both Microsoft and Sony exist, but that he has seen them.
"I've seen both of them," he teased during his speech about the future of the industry as he saw it. "Ten years ago we used to measure our market in terms of 200 million people. Now we are at a billion people playing games, and we have a straight line view on 2 billion," he predicted.
Gibeau also reaffirmed EA's commitment to free-to-play, showing off the new Command & Conquer, which is built using developer DICE's Frostbite 2 engine. "Free to play will become the dominant pricing model by the end of the decade," he added.
By
Guy Cocker, Editor
Guy Cocker is the Editor of GameSpot UK, a handheld gaming fan, and someone who actually managed to use video games to lose weight. He recently took up the position of games expert on BBC 5 live and is a BAFTA games judge.
279 comments
2 Like I smell something fishy. It doesn't seem right. Whatsup?? I'm guessing F2P with a truck load of expensive DLC.
2 Like Free to play is a scam. You can't have a gaming model that's somehow cheaper for us and yet makes more money for the developers unless a lot more gamers enter the industry. However, the largest growth of people entering gaming are casual gamers: Smartphone, tablet/mobile gaming. Those aren't the people who will spend $300-500 on a next generation console.Essentially what they are trying to sell to us are "Free Games" but with so many micro-transactions and items/levels/DLC we'd have to buy that over the course of the game, we would need to shell out > $60 to play the game. By charging us little every month or whenever we buy, they are counting on us to not keep track of all the small payments we make. That's how they intend to make $. Otherwise, they would have never ditches the $60 single player game. Also, it's a great co-out for just focusing on multi-player and abandoning the single player game altogether. I guess we might not see many games with more than 5-6 hr single player campaign if that happens.
Shut it EA! I never brought your ME3 or other shovel ware! try figuring out why wont take a genius.
As a matter of fact it would. ME3 is a good game, so I'm not sure why someone wouldn't get it if one liked the other two.
the only reason i read this article is to read him state the existence of next gen consoles. everything else was "blah blah blah".
Awaiting the update to this article where Gibeau states that his words were taken 'out of context' or some other drivel.
2 Like Guys I havent been on here in a few years cause I took a break from games. I also am an older dude just turned 31 last week.
Have to say the free 2 play if it is what i think it is where you pay as you go along, I hope the game companies go broke as its a very sneaky way of getting money especially of younger people who dont know any better and older people are usually paying.
On my iPad I got some games where you *need coins to play proplerly.. even on a paid version!! And to me it is ridiculous. The model doesnt reward shitty games, but if a game is actually good, it will make so much more than what currently happens..
It all started when our consoles went online.. and to get a new map, or skin for a gun, we had to pay. Im still one of the few people that think its ridiculous to have to pay anymore, especially when we fund the industry and are not pirating like so many others..
Honestly gimme the game, tell me the price and move on.
Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Pay-to-play or pay-to-win (the game is essentially so crippled that it's either impossible to play for more than short stints or impossible to progress without buying in-game items). And yeah, a lot of these games still aren't free to initially play.
Consumers get tired of that model very quickly. These people think it'll be dominant because people are still figuring out how it works, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out you're being nickle-and-dimed, and once you realize that, you don't want to pay for anything. It's such a self-defeating payment scheme that it amazes me how some of these execs haven't figured it out yet (even Sony's Jack Tretton realizes that it won't replace traditional pricing).
I'm not necessarily against DLC, because it can add value to a game that people already own while giving developers projects to work on once games release... but DLC should be more akin to expansion packs than individual items.
Glad there are no EA game franchises I like anymore, nowadays I'm all about Bethesda/Valve/Square/2K and some japanese devs. Got out of EA's curse with the last Mass Effect, it was about the only game I cared about.
F2P, it's not a big deal. There are plenty of games on plenty of platforms and if I can play PS2 and have fun today, then I can surely play PS3 the rest of my life too and have fun. Or any of all the PC games I haven't touched. Heck, I could probably only play Civilization for a year and have fun.
The point is, if you don't like it, nobody forces you to buy into it and there are plenty of alternatives. There is nothing to see here people, move along.
It's because of people like you that all this exist. Gas prices overpriced.... it's ok buy a bike a STFU...
Bank sheep us.... stop crying and don't use it.... Pay 2 Win ..... it's ok ... c'mon man!
They could do a Good Generals 2 game but they don't want to put too much efforts so they do a 1/3 game free and you will be paying really more than 60-70$ for the whole game. They do it for money(that part is still ok) but they try to tell us it's what we want and that's it's almost perfect when in fact this products WILL be inferior.
Well then, let us protest some and then simply ignore the F2P games and the model will surely go away if it is that terrible. Meanwhile we can be sad about seeing an occasional favorite game become a F2P or look somewhere else. Maybe my attitude reflects that I've long given up and that I nowadays expect everything new to be hollow mainstreamshit and when it's not then it becomes a nice surprise. Less disappointments and letdowns that way. Easier on me.
He's exactly right. Consumers drive the market. Take responsibility for your spending habits and exercise your buying power. If everyone thinks that free-to-play is so bad, and everyone stops playing those games, then they'll go away, because there won't be any money to be made.
I do think eventually that most people will realize free-to-play is essentially a scam and they'll stop playing them. It might still linger, but it's certainly not going to be the dominant method. I'll gladly pay $60 for a brand new, full-featured, quality game over spending little to nothing on a mild distraction that begs me (or forces me) to buy in-game items.
@thrice00 If it's pay to win... you aren't going to play it, I'm not going to play it, a stigma will emerge and only claim the souls of the mindless masses. You forget that pay to play offers something in return for money, this has little to do with said something being a ripoff.
I think it will work for some games, and EA will be trying to find those select few.
Oh yes, the evil corporations are at it again (sarcasm). Actually, it is free to play; people can login and play the game without spending a dime. This encourages people to try their games without wasting 50 or 60 bucks on garbage. With that said, the free to play model is working well because of the economy is sucking right now as well. Yes, how is that change going for you? Before you blame Bush, the debt skyrocketed under Obama in his first two years when he had total reign with a left wing congress. Now that aside, businesses are in it to make money. I have a business and guess what? I want to make money. Anyone want to mention the people EA employs? Yup, if they did not make money these people would not have a job. Instead of thinking poorly of others, start thanking them.
2 Like
Many "free-to-play" games are only free to play for the first 10 minutes. After that, you have to buy something in order to get more time, or you're stuck at a specific level until you buy something else. If the games are actually free to play, then fine, but most of the time they aren't. Also, most of the time, the fact that they're giving the game away for free automatically means that they're not putting as much development effort into it.
The economic problems come from spending. Bush spent a LOT of money, but Obama spent even more. Both did damage to the economy. You can't solve problems that were caused by spending by spending even more money.
Sure, EA employs people, but that's like saying Obama created jobs by paying people to burn money. I mean, it's not the actual employment that stimulates an economy (nor is it spending, which is a common misconception), it's the production of goods. If you produce a product that people want, then you are providing a net benefit to the economy. If you are creating a problem and then selling the solution to the problem you created, you are a parasite to the economy (the broken window parable: a window maker pays a young boy to break windows so that he can sell windows and stimulate the economy... but really, he is just destroying windows, so the net effect is negative).
Argue the merits all you want for free-to-play, but if the end result is a product that nobody wants, then the labor spent making those games and the money spent employing those people is wasted, and the net economic effect is negative.
@AnointedSword C'mon man. Yes company want and need to make money. But with all we've seen from EA in the past decade, THEY(EA) Give inferior products to make money and i can't fathom you are ok with that.
8 Like Free-to-play does not exist!
Why does EA like it? Micro transactions! And they like micro transactions because:
- It encourages buying on impulse. It's only a small amount and you are in the heat of the moment.
- It's very hard to keep track of your total expenses when constantly paying small amounts. People will almost certainly end up paying more for games than before while receiving exactly the same or less.
- It helps to squeeze every last Euro from people. Example: Someone with only ?20,- in his/her account cannot buy a ?50,- game but can buy twenty ?1 parts of a game.
- You can create an unfair advantage for people who are willing to spend an extra amount for a new weapon pack, virtually forcing others to do the same.
- The 2nd hand market will be obliterated, as you cannot trade downloadable content.
Commerce... It takes markets a step ahead but in the meantime consumes their souls.
@LiquidSifu80 Obviously you don't know what Free to PLAY means. Play! Play! Play! Yeah, if you can play it for free, then it's F2P. NO money is required to play. Understand??
F2P will become the main model because with so many F2P games out there, that's the only way others can compete. WoW survives because it's old and many people have long investments in that game, but it's age is very much showing and it's only a matter of time before it's done.
4 Like "Free to play will become the dominant pricing model by the end of the decade," he added. The same Frank Gibeau that told investors pre SWTOR release "With Star Wars The Old republic we feel very bullish to be able to come into this category with a fresh offering, something that's brand new that appeals to a majority of that category.", less than 12 months later and after a complete failure of an MMO that has had to go F2P he is now spruking that F2P is the way forward. Forgive me if I laugh in at the comments from this clown.
Alright let me say this again about console's and their franchise.
iam 33 next month, i played games since the 1st Atari and commadore amiga sega nintento playstationa nd you name it.
When i say Zelda, FF, GT, and all those epic franshise's sucks i mean that their quality went backwards alot.
If you compare them in the old days, they are but a schadow of they once where.
I can still remember FF7, i played that game so much, i think it wa one of the most epic games off all time, same with zelda 2 and Link, metroid 1 and 2 are also still the best.
When i compare that to the latest parts there is no contentest, they plain suck.
Planetside 2 has 3 factions, 2000 players per faction can join in 1 single battle, that makes 6000 players in 1 map.
If your a real gamer and grew up with the older games, then you would understand why the franchis's are alot worse.
Thats why i sold all my console's and never looked back.
PC gaming was rare in the old days, but they concquered the hearts of real gamers real fast once hardware became better and alot cheaper.
You can hate me for saying all this, but older gamers would understand exactly what iam saying.
1 Like
im a bit of an old gamer too. To me the 90s to like 2001 were the best EASILY. Consoles games had really ground breaking stuff when PS1 came out. PCs in the 90s.... was the god of gaming. Even modern day PC gaming is a joke to the gaming goodness you can experience with a <16mb of RAM.
I see less single player epic experiences in the future like Witcher 2, Halo 4. I hope even if gaming trend goes in the f2p direction, single player story experiences will not be in short supply. Because thats what I really want from games
1 Like I hope these consoles come with vaseline if they go with free to play. just be easy im a virgin
1 Like Let me paraphrase what this guy's trying to say.
"Microtransactions are the future, and we believe we can target 2 billion people one game at a time, with loads of microtransactions they will think are better than buying said game outright, because to them it's like a game with DLC for only the price of a DLC."
Smater gamers know that free gaming, is rarely ever free, hence the term "Freemium".
Every F2P multiplayer game is imbalanced by design, which means I'm more likely to be annoyed and quit playing. And I don't know if many F2P single player games exist, but if I can easily add up the cost of "the full experience" and see it's not worth it then I won't play that either.
If you make a good game, people will buy it. I don't see how it's less risky to release F2P games that could easily fail from the start and lose more money than a paid game. I'm interested to see how Warface is, though.
@apollo333 Only bad games Apollo only bad games that have a cash shop that lets you pay to win.
Check out Planetside 2 - only cosmetic items can be bought.
Check out guildwars 2 Buy to play no sub, only cosmetic rewards can be purchased.
These are only 2 examples of company's that understand the future ;)
@Mothanos If the future of gaming depends on people that love to waste money on virtual hats and clothing, then I'm worried!
@Mothanos both games are not even out yet and they are still in beta. Ofcourse due to publicity they will make it look clean, but after launch the reputation will drop. Look at blacklight:retribution and SMNC
@y3ivan And that's why Heroes of Newearth, that came before LoL and just like it is inspired by Dota, is just as popular(sarcasm). Dota has nothing to do with LoL success (that is connected to F2P model), it was not the first, nor the last game with such mechanics.
@y3ivan You might want to check League of Legends model, the only things, you can't grind are cosmetics. The result - 10 million people are playing it (most played game in the world today) and Riot is rich as hell. F2P model works, if the game is good and if implemented right.
1 Like @y3ivan Actually Guild Wars has already been without subscription since the first game and it worked really well. I'm all for no subscription fees in MMOs but I'm not really a fan of the f2p model as I feel that it diminishes the worth and value of games. People will start treating games like IOs or Android games and toss them on the whim.
2 Like And is it just me or is it just EA making this huge deal of F2P in the last month because the few good games to come out that are F2P in recent memory are actually doing good and they want in on the profit ?
8 Like do me a favor EA, take a bag, fill it with all of your stupid ******* ideas (AODRM, online passes, Overpriced DLC, Watering down of games so stay at home moms and people with 2 digit IQ's can play everything, murdering of games franchises, murdering of developers, origin, this sudden fad with F2P which for you is pay to win, and the assault on used games ) AND SHOVE THEM. ^^^^
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