EA: free-to-play can be “as profitable” as console games

[theRepublic]

mchaza said:

enrageorange said:
no please. Just let me pay for the game once and get all the things rather than having to pay triple that amount to be able to fully experience one of the "f2p" games. This is just for the majority of "f2p" games. Some are actually pretty good about making sure transactions are only nice little perks.

the model for Free to Play set by DICE and many other developers is that that they offer microtasactions to get you ahead or you can very slowly unlock them anyways. So basically this gets the player to simple constantly play the game because its costing him nothing but sooner or later will eventually buy something. Its such a great idea. 

The PC gaming market is greater then mobile and consoles combined, priacy is huge when it comes to core titles, but steam and digital distribution platforms are posting record profits, free games are everywhere but microtactions are huge making companies like zynaga be worth around 20 billion dollars. 

Console gaming remains a very large piece of the puzzle.

http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/87023/report-consumer-spending-on-games-to-reach-216-billion-in-2011/

As we start to move into the next generation, we should see another uptick in spending on console games.