Free-to-play not the future - Sony exec

A CEO getting things right, this hasn't happened in a while. Free to Play can work for MMOs, that's it.

Dc universe is the only free to play game worth playing

most f2p games are pay to win eg: combat arms, world of tanks, battlefield heroes, battlefield play for free and etc.

THIS

Of course they wouldn't support this.  Why should Sony invest heavily in F2P games when the majority of their income is from game sales?

Jack Tretton is incompetent and should be fired over the disaster that is the Vita,

Finally, someone who understands!

I prefer to just buy a game and know its all done. Sometimes I will waste £20 or £30 but there's something inside of me that hates the free to play model where you are buying things in game.

I cannot help but feel I'm not getting value for money - even if, technically, I am if I don't really enjoy the game. If I do enjoy it, I don't want to be shredding cash to play it.

Stick with the old model!

Farmville, Mafia Wars, Words with Friends... all came and went.  Call of Duty will live on forever.  /thread

The sad fact is that games CAN still be sold because they are an 'addictive diversion,' without mentioning the specifics I have mentioned elsewhere 8 billion times. I'm just glad that we don't have to live in that dark sadistic world.

I'll play a free-to-play game until I pay more than 60$ on it. Then it's quits for me.

Whaat. A man with a working a brain? Maybe gaming isnt doomed afterall.

and this comes from the guy whose vision has led PS3 to the top of the pile... that Xbox and Wii aren't in.

Has he been living under a rock these past few years? SWTOR is going F2P, and the sales increased. DCU went F2P and the sales went THROUGH THE ROOF. See what I'm saying?

Hmmm... I don't know.F2P games are better for a short time fun , because if you aren't inclined to pay for some stuff on the long run you will probably lose ground to players who invest their money on the game , so it's not equal to everyone. On the other hand P2P games with montly fee are more balanced , because everyone starts equal and progress along the way depending mostly on your skill and/or time invested on the game.

And btw i don't think tablets or portables will ever be able to *REPLACE* actual home consoles. It's cheaper for sure , and more people have acess to it.But they don't have the same hardware power , and hardly will be able to match a home console on hardware level.

When I see free-to-play associated with a game I just move along.

If Sony keeps going this route they will have won me back as a loyal customer,I have been against Sony in every way ever since they screwed me hard on a Sony Vaio PC purchase years ago.I still own a PS2 and play their games,but all used items and for exclusive games only back then.I have been a Xbox/Nintendo fan ever since and loyal customer to boot.I see Microsoft going in the direction of freemium models,diskless drives etc... If they do Sony will have my loyalty back I like what they are saying as of late and love that they are making the PS4 easier for devs to make games for by shedding the cell processor:P

F2P is rubbish, anyhow. So few companies actually know how to do it right it ends up being nothing but extortion most of the time. Funny thing is, people love to shell out cash for it.

Either Jack is not very bright or this quote was taken out of context. 

While I'm not a fan of Sony, GS has posted a few stories that have misrepresented the the context of the original statement recently.  There's been some very poor journalism here, in terms of reporting news, that really needs to be reviewed by GS management.

Gamespot, you forgot to include the final minutes where Tretton admitted that the press release was a suggestion made by his psychologist to help mitigate the mental damage caused by waking up night after night in cold sweat caused the fact that his company is losing market share to F2P games at a ridiculous pace.

Hmm after reading so many comments after my last comment i am amused at how many of you don't realize only 5% of F2P games are Pay2Win.

Most F2P are very cosmetic when it comes to money and at most you pay for xp boosters which don't mean jack shit to be honest.

Most military shooters are not P2Win.Cept for World of Tanks.

Most MMORPGS are not Pay2Win.At worst you pay a one time fee to be near on par with gold subscribers and still enjoy a great time.FYI that fee is usually only 10 dollars.

And so on and so forth. I probably have more than 100 F2P games under my belt from over the years so this is from experience and research.

Agreed.

Just because they're working on Planetside doesn't mean they think it's the future of gaming. He clearly isn't saying there's anything wrong with it, it's just not going to become the norm to the extent of today's gaming business model like many other companies are claiming. Makes sense to me.

how can you say that and at the same time be working on planetside 2 as a free to play????

It all comes down to how much money can companies make with each model. So far, I don't believe F2P has come close to surpass traditional selling strategies.

It is also troubling that F2P developers get their profit from the 1% that spend money on their games (like a Zynga guy confessed). You can only drain so much money from such a person, and alienating 99% of your audience from being spenders seems to be a huge drawback of the strategy, overall.

In the end, remember when people declared the end of single-player with the advent of online multiplayer and MMOs? I guess everyone agrees that prediction backfired.

F2P games are a new niche for games, it won't replace the common way. It work great for multiplayer, although it can became quite unbalanced for players whom don't want to spend a dime in the game. But games that are single player focused will follow the traditional method. The same happens with the smartphones/ tablet, it's a new platform, it gives the developers new place to work, but it wont replace a home console or a pc any time soon.