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Forums - Nintendo - Wii U's Unnoticed Secret to Winning?

Torillian on 22 October 2012
wfz said:

Torillian said:
PS3 also has Free Realms. That's the first thing I thought when I saw the thread title. Guy above is correct as well, Dust 514 doesn't really work under your assumption.



Come on man, at least read the whole thread or my OP edits! You're a mod for cryin' out loud. :P


I read the OP edits and the thread, didn't see Free Realms mentioned and that's the first F2P on consoles that I can recall so I tossed it out there.  I remember being briefly interested but it took forever to come out so I stopped caring.  

Second bit was relevant when I posted, believe your OP edits still mentioned that Sony had a more restrictive F2P stance for third parties, which could be true but doesn't seem plausible with all the ones releasing.  

Personally I don't really think F2P on consoles is a game changer in any right because I don't think all games will move towards it like some analysts seem to think.  



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Adinnieken on 22 October 2012

It's amazing how Sony centric this thread is.

Microsoft has done F2P in the past, and they've recently released another F2P game.

Happy Wars was recently released:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Happy-Wars/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410ae9?DownloadType=Game

The game is free, with content available for pay.

Microsoft has done the same with Age of Empires Online. The game is free, up to Level 10 or 20, then if you want to advance beyond that you have to pay for the Civ. packs.

But Microsoft has offered free to play in the past. They've just been inconsistent about it.



famousringo on 23 October 2012
Soleron said:
famousringo said:
Soleron said:
Has any company ever definitively made money on an F2P game?


Zynga was making TONS of bank, right up until the total collapse.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-zynga-revenue-net-income-2011-7

Nope. You see how clever their PR is to make you believe that?

I stand corrected. The $50M on $200M quarter is really very nice, and the two quarters before that weren't bad at all. The early quarters are defensible as the company was growing quite aggressively.

Too aggressively, it seems.

But there really is money to be made here. I look at the App Store, and 9 of the top 10 grossing apps are freemium games. Much as I detest the trend, it's real, though I suspect quite risky and over-exploited.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

Soleron on 23 October 2012
famousringo said:
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I stand corrected. The $50M on $200M quarter is really very nice, and the two quarters before that weren't bad at all. The early quarters are defensible as the company was growing quite aggressively.

Too aggressively, it seems.

But there really is money to be made here. I look at the App Store, and 9 of the top 10 grossing apps are freemium games. Much as I detest the trend, it's real, though I suspect quite risky and over-exploited.

I do think there is money to be made; I don't think it's a revolution that will make unsuccessful products popular or have unprofitable platforms make money. Changing business model doesn't affect what customers think of your product nor can it compel them to spend more than they wanted to spend.