Free-to-Play Games Will Rival Retail Ones in Terms of Quality, Crytek Says

Crysis 3 developer Crytek believes that future free-to-play games will rival, in terms of quality, actual retail games and, in order to benefit from the rise in terms of profits generated by such titles, the studio's different regional divisions are focusing on this segment.

Crytek is mostly known for the impressive Crysis first-person shooter series and for the powerful CryEngine 3 technology.

Besides these efforts, however, the studio also has a variety of regional divisions all around the world, including the recent Crytek USA, and many are working on different free-to-play experiences, like Warface.

According to Crytek boss Cevat Yerli, this emphasis on free-to-play was decided many years ago and it's currently paying off.

"We decided five or six years ago that we want to marry the quality of triple-A games with the business model of free-to-play," he told Venture Beat. "At that time, we decided some other games, in some of our other studios, would head in this direction."

However, the studio continued to deliver games onto the PC and consoles, as it was still a popular segment, but things are changing nowadays, as Yerli believes free-to-play titles will easily rival retail ones in terms of quality.

"We kept pushing the quality bar higher on our console business, which is the main dominating business for the Western world, but we are observing, plainly - and we see this already with Warface - that the free-to-play market is on the rise.

"I think over the next two to three years, free-to-play is going to rival retail with quality games like Warface."

In the future, Yerli wants Crytek to transition completely to free-to-play experiences, abandoning the traditional retail titles.

"Our primary goal is to make triple-A free-to-play games for the world market and transition entirely to that," he added.

As of yet, Crytek is preparing to release Crysis 3 onto the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, as well as Warface on the PC in the Western world, after already launching in Russia.