14 DAY TRIAL // Well-known video game developer Peter Molyneux says that the free-to-play-focused studios need to significantly change the way they design their games in order to abandon obsessive greed, which could lead to tougher regulation for the entire industry in the long term.
He tells Develop that, “We cannot continue to be obsessively greedy with our consumers, grooming children for hundreds of pounds from their parents' accounts. I hate the term ‘free-to-play’, and I hate the way the model is burning through our consumers and the tender shoots of new gamers.”
Initially, the free-to-play model was created in order to expand the video game market and allow a wider variety of players to engage with a variety of experiences.
The idea is that most of those playing a title can get it entirely for free, although they might lack access to some advanced features, while a smaller number of very involved gamers will be willing to pay, via microtransactions, in order to keep the title viable from a business point of view.
Peter Molyneux has described his own title Godus as being invest-to-play, because it remains responsible when it comes to monetization.
Recently, the European Commission announced that it was meeting with a number of national government agencies and with big companies like Apple and Google in order to make sure that customers were protected from nefarious business practices.
The Office of Fair Trade in the United Kingdom has gone even further and has given developers that operate in the country until April 1 to make changes to their free-to-play titles and make sure that users are notified about microtransactions and in-game ads.
Molyneux believes, “If we're not very careful, we'll be in the same place that gambling apps are now. Those go through unbelievably strict legislative requirements.”
At the moment the free-to-play business model is mostly used for social, mobile and casual games, but it has also made big inroads in the MMO space in the last few years.
Big titles like Star Wars: The Old Republic use it and World of Warcraft from Blizzard and the upcoming The Elder Scrolls Online from ZeniMax Online and Bethesda are part of a small number of games that are still using subscriptions.
It’s unclear whether the coming changes proposed for the free-to-play genre will make it easier for players to understand the business model and only use real world money when they actually intend to.