Top Ten Free to Play Games - Distributive Properties

[Ralsu]

Danny "Ralsu" Gourley loves to find good games at a great price. That's why he tells Ten Ton Hammer readers about the best free-to-play games he's tried each week. In his latest musings, Ralsu claims developers have to find a way to distribute their products that competes with the box sales of subscription-based games if they are ever going to compete with them in breadth and depth of content, too:

Because of the short time in which a F2P games must make a good first impression, digital download (almost exclusively the way developers distribute F2P games) limits the options of developers. Think of it as a glass ceiling for designing games.

Read "Distributive Properties" to hear Ralsu's solution.

[Vroshnak]

As long as downloading the game for entirely free is still an option, and that your "send in the mail" and "have at the store" options simply complemented that option, then I'm good with that.

If free to play games could get their discs into checkout lines at megastores, grocery stores, and convience stores and have a price tag of around $3 - $5, I bet they would sell OK and really grow the player base of those games. (However, I would not buy them... I pay a hefty cable modem bill every month just so I can download anything I want, quickly.)

When I try a F2P game, it has a very short amount of time to impress me. But if I purchase a game, I will give the game more of a chance to impress me (because I want to feel like I wisely spent my money). I wonder if paying a small nominal fee is enough to trigger that reaction?

[Bansaw]

EQ2.. oh wait..

[Ralsu]

Originally Posted by Vroshnak

if I purchase a game, I will give the game more of a chance to impress me (because I want to feel like I wisely spent my money). I wonder if paying a small nominal fee is enough to trigger that reaction?

I'm not sure $5 would marry me to a game. But the ability to buy a game that I could play with no other costs for $5 would be attractive if the download were too large. Or maybe just seeing the box in the store would sell me on a game I kept overlooking.

[catjinkyjam]

This is definitely a recurring debate I keep seeing, but it's funny how we've been here before. In the early days of shareware it was common to see stacks of games on 1.44 floppies you could buy for $5 to try the first episode (I played the hell out of Halloween Harry that way); the only difference is instead of paying for pure content you're paying for additional enhancements to the freely accessible content.

The real question in this debate though is price tiering. What's the sweet spot for consumers to buy a F2P game on disc that lets it compete with full-priced offerings or subscription-based mmos?

Perceived value is an issue the F2P market is still evaluating how to tackle. Right now the problem is an attitude of 'oh they're giving it away for free, so it must not be any good.' Yet F2P games can't compete with console or full titles, so there has to be a unique price structure specifically for these types of games. Personally I think it's a matter of time before one of the many game operators figures it out.

Take your favorite F2P MMO. What price would you feel comfortable paying for it in a store, in a proper box? What price would it be a steal at? What price would you pass on it? These are the eternal questions