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Even though summer is winding down and many schools are preparing to go
back into session next week there is still a whole slew of gaming
convention goodness going on. Our intrepid team of uber-editors piled
into the Ten Ton Van and shipped off to Vegas for SOE Fan Faire this
week. Normally this wouldn’t be much of a blip on my radar, but this
year the announcement of one of my favorite games of all time, EQ2,
rolling out a free-to-play version got my attention. Check out all of
our target="_blank">coverage of the event here.



Another item that piqued my interest was a little piece here at Ten Ton
Hammer that lambasted free-to-play gaming and spawned some colorful
discussions. While my position on the matter has been well documented
throughout the course of this column, it may be time to restate the
reasons why free-to-play is here to stay.

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Last week one of our esteemed contributing writers, Mattlow,
put href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/jumping-on-the-free-to-play-bandwagon"
target="_blank">out an editorial about the
pitfalls of free-to-play games and asked if perhaps this trend of
monetizing games through an item shop is really all it’s cracked up to
be. His piece represented his own opinion and, while it differs greatly
from mine, I feel he has every right to whatever belief he chooses. The
article itself wasn’t what really got me fired up, however; I laugh
myself through lots of similar rants against free-to-play games all the
time. No, what got under my skin were the href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=52608"
target="_blank"> comments against free-to-play gaming
that seemed to be based on preconceived notions rather than informed
opinions with some experience to back them up.



I too used to be opposed to subscriptionless gaming. I thought many of
the same things that were stated in our forums.  But then
something very interesting happened to me--I actually went out and
played one.  It was after reading a column here at Ten Ton
Hammer by our former free-to-play guru Ralsu that I went out and
downloaded Atlantica
Online and gave it a shot. It didn’t take long for my
preconceived notions to melt away, replaced by a great gaming
experience.



What strikes me the most about this argument and uproar is how closely
it mirrors one that happened about a decade ago.  It was
around 1999 when the first discussions began to turn into flame wars as
players squared off over the newest outrage – paying to play a video
game. Ultima Online
and EverQuest
riled the feathers of many a player who asserted that they would NEVER
pay a monthly fee to play a game they had already purchased. The
naysayers predicted a quick demise to this new model of gaming and
laughed at anyone foolish enough to participate. I think we all know
how that debate turned out.Now the models have changed, but the
arguments remain the same as one side asserts that they will NEVER play
a game where every aspect of the experience isn’t included in a single
monthly fee (but a billion sparkle ponies prove that many of them don’t
actually believe this.). 



The two main complaints lodged against free-to-play gaming on our
forums last week centered on game quality and affordability. The
quality issue may have been viable five years ago, but it is laughable
now. In addition to the large number of formerly subscription-based
titles turning to a subscriptionless format there are also a ton of
games with big budgets that were specifically designed as free-to-plays. style="font-style: italic;"> Runes of Magic, style="font-style: italic;">Allods, style="font-style: italic;">Free Realms and style="font-style: italic;">Aika all had
significant financial backing and top notch development. Several new
titles from major developers are in the works that will merge big
budgets with no monthly fees. I have a sneaking suspicion that the
developer that finally squashed the old debate about paying a monthly
fee to play a game will also be the one who href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/86407">ends the
free-to-play debate.
Mark my words, Blizzard will make a free-to-play MMOG, and it may be a
lot sooner than you think.



The second major argument that seems to boil people’s blood is that of
greed or affordability. It seems that most of the opposed believe they
have so little self-control that if they ever did “fall into the
free-to-play trap” that they would start dumping their entire paychecks
in a quest to stay competitive. Are restaurants greedy for offering
more than one entrée? Do you order all 16 of them every time you go in?
I suspect that there is some confusion over greed and what is actually
an issue of restraint. 



While some of the older free-to-play games may have used heavy handed
tactics to force players to spend gobs of cash to keep up, the new
breed has taken the approach of time vs. money, meaning that anything
in the item shop can be attained by an investment of time in game. This
does less to weight the game towards the paying customer as it does to
level the field between those willing to grind and those who have less
available time but want to keep up with their friends. Developers of
free-to-play games aren’t greedy, they simply want to get paid for the
hard work they have put in. Allowing players free access to try their
games is the best bet they have gain the exposure needed to achieve
success.




The North American market is by and large the only one where you will
find such distaste for the free-to-play model. Unfortunately, for those
who don’t buy in to this model there isn’t much that can be done to
stop it. The developers are going to go where the money is and where
the best chance for success lies. The main target demographic for MMOGs
is males aged 18-35. That demographic represents 73% of the internet
users in Asian countries. Keep in mind that the two largest Asian
countries, China and India, have 420 million and 300 million people in
that demographic respectively. That alone is over double the total
population of the United States and Canada combined and doesn’t factor
in other more internet savvy nations such as South Korea and Singapore.
To put it bluntly we are globally outnumbered by folks who embrace and
demand their games being free-to-play.  



No matter which side of the podium you fall on this debate the truth
remains that these games are here to stay and are indeed the future of
online gaming. If you feel this is a bad thing then there is no one to
blame but gamers themselves, because year after year we witness some
amazing pay-to-play games crash and burn due to our fickle nature and
mob mentality.  The good news is that the days of quickly
compiled clones and low quality money-grabs are nearly gone as they get
pushed off the ledge by a much stronger crop of quality titles. I
challenge you to put no money where your mouth is  and
download one of the newer free-to-play titles and take a test drive.
You really do have nothing to lose.



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