Free-to-play titles are becoming more common in the marketplace, and now Curse has provided some interesting data regarding the increasingly popular payment model. From Eastern MMORPG titles that carry with them the "pay-for-power" connotation in the Western world to MOBAS like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Bloodline Champions, free-to-play titles run the gamut of genres and styles. End of Nations recently announced a fully free-to-play system, and Dota 2 is likely to follow in Team Fortress 2's free footsteps.
Times are changing as the free-to-play model is making a strong showing, with players looking to avoid a monthly fee and with publishers taking a hard look at the bottom line behind the boss battles and ultimate abilities. Curse surveyed more than 11,000 community members to get some insight behind the emerging, and in some ways already dominating, free-to-play.
Some of the stats are interesting but hardly unexpected. Let's take a look at those now:
"Most of the gamers surveyed by Curse play F2P games (64%) and they do it on a daily basis (31%) or at least once a week (32%). Their main reason for trying these games is to avoid commitment to a monthly subscription (43%), or because they would like to try the game in a 'lite' version (29%) before subscribing to the premium or full-access edition.
However, just because a game is free-to-play doesn't mean players aren't willing to pay for it. According to Curse's community insight 43% of its F2P players make in-game item purchases, most do so monthly."
The larger implications of the "free-to-play boom" have to do with the sheer population potential with a F2P offering. It's easy to see in these examples massive gains in playerbase and revenue generation that doesn't just rival P2P – it destroys it.
"Valve's Team Fortress franchise saw a 12 times increase in revenue just after the first Team Fortress went F2P in June 2011. Team Fortress 2 which was released in January 31, 2012, also as F2P, has an average of 44,650 players per day according to Steam Stats ranking as the third most played game. Valve also mentioned that sales of in-game items alone were four times greater than previous revenue earned from games purchased.
Other examples include Lord of the Rings Online with a 400% rise in number of players and Dungeons and Dragons Online with an income increase of 500% after switching to the free-to-play model."
Is free-to-play the future? While the phrase may have been associated with games that rope players in with solid early content and then shift to endgames that require consistent purchases (far more than a subscription would cost, in most cases), it's clear that the new generation of free-to-play is being embraced by both company and consumer as experimentation with the model opens doors to cosmetic and customizable content.
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