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Forums - Gaming - Plants vs Zombies 2 Downloaded Nearly 25 Million Times, Underscores Appeal of Freemium Model

kitler53 on 01 September 2013

Plants vs Zombies 2 Downloaded Nearly 25 Million Times, Underscores Appeal of Freemium Model

Sunday, September 01, 2013 - by Paul Lilly

Not a fan of the freemium game model? Unfortunately for you, there's plenty of incentive for developers of casual games to go this route. PopCap Games, for example, found nearly 25 million reasons with the release of Plants vs. Zombies 2, the sequel to the highly popular Plants vs. Zombies tower defense game.

"Plants vs. Zombies 2 has smashed records and been downloaded nearly 25 million times by players around the globe," PopCap Games bragged in a blog post. "Downloads for Plants vs. Zombies 2 have exceeded total downloads for Plants vs. Zombies, the original favorite from 2010. Our fans have been loving the sequel, giving it an App Store rating of 4.5/5 stars."

That's an impressive figure for a title that's barely been on the market for a week. What it boils down to is massive incentive for developers like PopCap Games to go the freemium route rather than charge a nominal fee for a casual title. Not all of those 25 million downloads will translate into in-game income, but you can bet there will be some big money made.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 is free to download, though you can spend money upgrading your defenses. You can buy individual plants for $3 to $4 apiece, buy coin packs, and more. One of the top in-app purchases on iTunes is the 20,000 pack for $10.

source

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okay,..

A) 25M is an impressive number.

B) ..being one of thoe 25M downloads i have to say i've been quite disappointed with this game.  fucking freemium model disrupts the entire game.  from the persistant reminders to buy coins to level faster or in game power-ups to locking some great plants behind paywalls i'm just not having as much fun with this one as the first. the game feels like an ad not a game.   i wish i could just pay $3 to have to full game like last time...



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green_sky on 01 September 2013

Can't compete with those download numbers on dedicated consoles. On the other hand would be interesting to see the total revenue or revenue per user. That should give slightly better perspective on this. Back in days i just downloaded so many free games on ios but never played them more than once or twice.



Seece on 01 September 2013
green_sky said:
Can't compete with those download numbers on dedicated consoles. On the other hand would be interesting to see the total revenue or revenue per user. That should give slightly better perspective on this. Back in days i just downloaded so many free games on ios but never played them more than once or twice.


Minecraft is nearing 9 mill on Xbox 360 and that's like $20?

If you put PVZ2 on PS3 and 360 FTP it'd get "downloaded" a ton of times.



 

kitler53 on 01 September 2013
green_sky said:
Can't compete with those download numbers on dedicated consoles. On the other hand would be interesting to see the total revenue or revenue per user. That should give slightly better perspective on this. Back in days i just downloaded so many free games on ios but never played them more than once or twice.


not sure how legiite the number were but someone posted that animal crossing had more revenue than all of rovio. 

..anyhoo,. i would have paid $3 for this game as a purchase.  as f2p i won't give them a dime.



yo_john117 on 01 September 2013

Locking duplicate thread