Head of EA Games, Frank Gibeau has been talking to GamesIndustry.biz about the success that EA have had with free-to-play games, saying that they can be as profitable as their core console titles.

Free-to-play games are now a firms part of the publisher’s future plans. In addition to their major games like Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3, EA are set to “launch some new services like Star Wars that are unique, and in addition to that do a bunch of free-to-play businesses, that frankly when they get to scale, have huge audiences, are very profitable, they’re not cannibalising the main games and they actually reach markets that we’re not currently serving.”

EA has a small stable of free-to-play games, including Battlefield Heroes and Need for Speed World. “If you get a couple of those to scale they’re as profitable as a console game,” says Gibeau. “The free-to-play group inside of EA Games is growing extremely fast – we’ve got 17 million users, 4-5 services stood up right now.”

One of the great advantages of free-to-play games is that they’re popular in parts of the world where piracy makes it hard to make money from traditional boxed retail sales. “With Need for Speed World, Russia and Brazil are number one and two – the Ukraine is in there,” says Gibeau, “I can’t sell packaged goods in those territories. But I’m reaching an audience with Need for Speed content. It’s an engine that’s not as advanced as Frostbite 2 but it’s certainly got great production values and great game designs, and it’s free-to-play with micro transactions.”

Gibeau’s comments coincide with Blizzard’s announcement that World of Warcraft will be free to play up to level 20. Recently Team Fortress 2 went free-to-play, and Steam has started hosting free MMOs, too. It’s the culmination of a trend that has seen a number of ailing MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online and Champions Online revived by a shift to a free format in the last couple of years. The rise of social games funded by microtransactions, like Farmville hav also proved that free to play can be incredibly profitable, and big success stories like League of Legends and World of Tanks will have caught the eye of major publishers looking to make more money from the PC market.

Free gaming has never been bigger, and it’s likely to grow more as large publishers like EA take interest. “It’s a very exciting time from our perspective because it’s not all about consoles,” says Gibeau, “it’s about smartphones, tablets, free-to-play, browser, social.” It looks like we can expect to see more free to play games like Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield Heroes in future.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/29/ea-free-to-play-can-be-as-profitable-as-console-games/

yeap and that concept will keep growing.... now I can see a day where it is the same for console.... imagine a console completely cloud based.... you don't pay for any games any more.... you pay for the console and for the different level of live.... then you have access to the entire library.... but the catch is here you can play only a couple hours or couple levels..... or the first couple stages etc.... then you pay by microtransaction for extra DLC content.... but never the full game (unless you want to)

that could change the market completely.... devs wouldn't have to spend millions durring 2 or 3 years for a game and risk serious losse if the game is not AAA.... they can work on different project and extend there calendar with different DLC release date... correct stuff through customer feedback... do bundles.... have a better and bigger margin of error.... (you just realocate resources more easily among your project, focussing on what needs focus, and cutting short what doesn't work before spending XXX millions much like TV shows now a day)

customer pay for what they actually use... I can play 30 hours of fallout stop it for 2 years... play other game for a couple hours... pick up new ones... and when I'm in need of some fallout I just have to pay again... but at least I didn't sunk 60 bucks in a game I won't finish right away.... or if I get borred of a game I won't have payed full price for half the completion....
that approach if handeled right would be the best for both party consumers and devs....

I hope so for their sake, because KOTOR Online will be free to play within a year.

Over a decade ago I was arguing that this was a revolution that was just around the corner, and today I would say that it is still 5 to 10 years away ...

There is a lot of potential for marketing in videogames (especially online multiplayer games) that could produce revenue similar to what is seen from television but it will take time to develop the market to a level to support that. Essentially, there is a lot of loading and waiting in many/most multiplayer games as you give people time to join between matches and to play a 15 or 30 second ad in that time would not be that obtrusive; if you can generate $0.01 per ad, have 1,000,000 matches per day, and keep people playing 100 days you have $1 Million in revenue.

While that doesn't seem like a lot of money, I think those are low estimates on what is possible; and it is likely that a company might be able to get closer to $0.05 to $0.10 per ad, a good game could probably get 10,000,000 matches per day, and this could be maintained for years on end; all resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue.

It will be interesting to see the economic impact of having the dominant growth area be where people don't pay to use goods and services, and suppliers of goods and services have to come up with alternate ways to stay in business.

I agree with you EA, :D

I like free shit.

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.