gamescom, f2p and OnLive

gamescom is an annually held games fair which has opened it’s doors for the 4th time on the passed weekend. It’s the largest event of this kind and gamers, journalists and exhibitors from all over the world come together in cologne for a few days to show, play and talk about the latest game developments. Where gaming was only a nerdy hobby a few years back, it has now evolved to one of the largest business branches generating millions of jobs and a higher revenue than the entire hollywood film industry. You may ask why this is and the answer is pretty simple. With everyone having a smartphone and/or tablet today, gaming has been brought to a broader audience than just some “freaks” hiding in their rooms and tinker about with some hardware parts trying to build a functioning PC for their latest game.

This has various effects not only on the gaming industry but also, and in my opinion more important, the people who consider themselves gamers (I certainly consider one myself). One major thing though, that you have to differentiate between, are “core” gamers and “casual” gamers. Where core gamers are more about the nerdy side of their hobby, putting a lot of time and effort into their hardware as well as into a few (but time consuming) games, casuals are those people who play angry birds or cut the rope on their mobiles and spend real money on some virtual seeds for their next harvest in FarmVille. Both of those groups have their good rights to exist but as a core gamer myself I see some future developments coming which I consider not only good.

I am talking about the latest trend in games industry called free2play (f2p). Up until one or two years ago you either had games which were absolutely free, part of some package (like solitaire for windows) or you had to pay a certain amount of money (usually ~50€) and you were good to go. You played as long as you liked and that was it. Then the f2p trend started where you would get the basic game for free and could play for free. Until a point where you were reminded by the game that from here on out you need to pay (be it for the next level, a necessary upgrade for your character or an item which you absolutely needed to get along). This kind of system quickly was named as pay2win from gamers (because you couldn’t get along without paying) and the term has caught on and kind of negatively sticks to the whole idea of f2p today.

The system has of course evolved and the line between free and paid is getting mixed up in a way where you kinda feel you want to pay, not you have to; And there are some games where the system works fine where I dare say those games wouldn’t have made it with a traditional payment system (yes, League of Legends, I am talking about you). For “traditional” gaming this means that producers and publishers have to think of ways why gamers would want to pay 50€ for a game when they easily could play something similar for free or with only little amounts of money spent. As it looks today and from what has been presented at gamescom, most publishers just ignore the “core” gaming branche and hop on the f2p train, or at least they try to serve both clientels by presenting f2p alternatives to their already established core games (e.g. Anno Online or the upcoming Command&Conquer).

Having said that, there are also more positive aspects such as independent studios being able to create games without being tied to a publisher and being financed by the community; keyword crowdfunding! But the line between milking the cashcow and listen to what the community wants is a very thin one and only few studios have managed it so far (at least in my opinion).

Which brings me to the last topic I want to talk about in this post. A few days ago the game-streaming (or cloud gaming) service OnLive has announced that they have to lay off employees and sell their assets before they have to declare bankruptcy; and all this only 3 years after the service has been announced at GCD 2009. For me this comes as no surprise as it was just not the right time and place for such a service. Not enough coverage of highspeed (fiber optic) internet, no sophisticated payment model and way too less involvment of community, publishers and game studios. For me it’s almost save to say that the idea of such a service will come back at a later time and, provided it’s in the right hands (hello Valve and Steam), will roflstomp the market like a boss.