Epic's technology boss Tim Sweeney has made some interesting comments about the relative merits of the Asian, North American and European games industries, arguing that while Western games generally trump Asian ones for production values, countries like Korea are "far, far" ahead in terms of how they do business.
"We've been building these games like Gears of War where you go into the store and you buy a piece of plastic! You just buy this DVD. That is going to change rapidly.
There are things Asian developers could learn from the West, however. "Asian online games are far ahead of Western games in terms of business model, but the Western games do have a real advantage in terms of production values."
Sweeney still has a lot of time for the old boxed model - "I think like a typical American, in that I just want to buy the game once" - but reckons free-to-play is the only real long-term alternative to the costs and constraints of physical media. "I agree that this is going to be the way that almost all games will be distributed worldwide. Where is this going in the long-term future?"
"We're at a point in the world's history where we're starting to run into resource limitations. ... The virtual environment is completely unlimited. It makes me wonder if some day the virtual economy could be greater than the economy for physical goods."
An intriguing prospect. What do you think? In March this year, Sweeney opined that a disc-free Xbox 720 would have a "dramatic advantage" for all sorts of reasons.
5 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 27 Jun '12 said:
No thanks, he'd only say free-to-play is better if it was more financially...better... for him in the long run. You don't get something for nothing, and I can only see a game like GoW for example being free for a chapter then charging for the rest.
Honestly I don't get it - when I buy skyrim I get skyrim, if I bought a free-to-play game, what do I get? A game for free? or is it charge for everything that isn't the first level/no mp levelling up - you have to buy everything?
CunningSmile on 27 Jun '12 said:
Judging by most Free to Play games at the moment it would be more like buying Skyrim but only getting the leather armour. You could go any where and do anything, but you're likely to be seriously twatted unless you spend £x to buy the steel armour, which will only get you so far before you'll need the Orc armour. Want to fight a dragon with a hope of winning? You'll need a better bow, that's £x. Want to unlock that new shout? We don't use dragon souls we use cash, so that's another £x.
If it's any consolation Peter Molyneux said free to play is the future of console gaming, so it'll die a death within 6 months.
STE MO on 27 Jun '12 said:
This is all well and good but South Korea has one of the best Broadband infrastructures in the world, if not the best. So downloading a game would take next to no time, where as downloading a game for me on a 6mb connection will take at least an hour depending on what time of day and size of the game. It's quicker to go to the shop, physically buy the disc get home and then play it, and you don't have to worry about DRM or always on internet.
And just say my BB provider had problems and their BB went off, if the game had to be connected to the Internet I couldn't play it, where as if I had physical media the Internet isn't a problem, just put the disc in and play.
Thos. on 27 Jun '12 said:
Everything about free-to-play seems slightly deceitful, and about underhand monetisation, not developing a game that is a fun experience to play through. To me free-to-play means:
Low production values
Random unintelligible Japanese adverts at the bottom of the screen
Having to pay for in-game objects
Psychological tricks to try and get me to pay for in-game objects
Skewing the game to force me to pay for in-game objects
Don't play mind-games with me. Forget free-to-play, just be upfront about it: Give me a free demo, then if I had fun, charge me a fiver to buy the game.
Drainwater on 28 Jun '12 said:
When I think of free to play, I think of Civony or whatever it's called these days. And then I think that if Civony is the future of gaming, then it's likely to be a future I'll have no part of. Dlc is already treading the line of the 4th wall for me...pay real money to go on this adventure in the game or whatnot. That I can take in small doses, but having to do it every time I reached a milestone in a game would make it thoroughly unenjoyable for me.