Everyone is talking about free-to-play games these days, and Crysis developer Crytek even says that it's dedicating its whole future to the business model. Not for Starbreeze.

Although the company is currently working on a game called Cold Mercury (which is apparently not free-to-play, but "cheap-to-play"), CEO Mikael Nermark told Edge, "We're never going to do free-to-play, because then you have to cater to everyone out there – that's costly and it's hard. We're probably going to go down the road of cheap to play. Would we go all out? No, I don't think I'm going to bet on just one business model."

Nermark has also previously re-iterated the company's commitment to triple-A game titles as well.

[via CVG]

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Now these guys seem to have a better grasp of reality and the fact that not everyone desires F2P.

Good for them. F2P sucks. It's never single player and always not really free.

I wish they'd vow to do The Darkness 3.

How do free to play games work?

Microtransactions. Some are essentially pay to win because you have to buy everything good in the game with real money, while the better ones just sell less essential things like skins and XP boosts.

There are a few F2P games out there where the monetary transactions are based PURELY on cosmetic items, so you're wrong. They're also some of the most popular F2P games in the world (and I'm sure you can guess why).

Still, I think it's stupid that so many analysts and industry vets are yelling for a F2P-only future. It's simply not going to happen...

Good, I don't think I've enjoyed the business model of any F2P game.

I wish Crytek weren't so strung up on F2P, purely because they house the remains of Free Radical and I still have a bit of a soft spot for them.

I don't really know who Starbreeze are, though. Wikipedia tells me they're the ones who raped my beloved Syndicate.

edit: When I type "Starbreeze" in on google, this thread comes up with Millenium's avatar as the thumbnail. GG!

Ok, so there are a few F2P games that only ask for money for comsetic stuff. I'd prefer to buy the game and get all the cosmetic stuff with it. Although I don't care about that kind of stuff so I wouldn't buy the game anyway. But I still maintain that F2P games are never singleplayer. I have almost no interesting in multiplayer games of any kind so I don't give a crap about F2P when all it gets you is some endless and pointless multiplayer experience.

The day that a free to play game comes out with an imersive singplayer campaign that doesn't force you to pay anything to fully enjoy the game is the day that my opinion will change. As it stands, F2P is bullshit.

Free 2 play = Play to win
But btw. isnt Starbreeze the developer who made Syndicate?

Thats good. I feel like this whole free to play buissnes model hype would just gives companys more room to put out unfinished and unpolished games and since it would be "free" we wouldn't be allowed to complain.

Games would probably end up being demos or betta versions and to "upgrade" to the full version you'd have to drop some bucks every 10 minutes.