In an interview posted on VideoGamer.com, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has stated that all of their future games beyond those already in development will be entirely free-to-play.
As stated before, this bit of information comes from an interview that VideoGamer.com had with Yerli on the last day of E3. While the complete interview is yet to be posted, the conversation seems to have started when VideoGamer.com asked Yerli about his thoughts on DLC and additional paid-for gaming services (see; Call Of Duty Elite and Battlefield 3 Premium). Yerli goes onto say that DLC and premium services are, “milking customers to death,” but instead of saying things need to change and not doing anything (*cough* JOHN RICCITIELLO *cough*), Yerli plans to steer Crytek into the free-to-play market.
Using Crytek’s new gaming platform called GFACE (acronym currently unknown), Yerli wants the company to solely be focused on creating extremely high-quality free-to-play games. Crytek’s first free-to-play game, Warface, has already been launched in Russia and to Yerli it is an example of what Crytek brings to the table; “As is evident in Warface, our approach is to ensure the best quality, console game quality [in our free-to-play games]. That implies budgets of between $10 million to $30 million – so no compromise there – but at the price-point of $0 entry.”
Yerli also believes that free-to-play games have effected the industry at large and also breed a more welcoming environment than most console games. “I think [free-to-play games are] a new breed of games that has to happen to change the landscape, and be the most user-friendly business model,” to pull out the direct quote.
Personally I’m happy and at the same time a bit sad by this news. It’s great to see high-quality developers give away content for free, it is also always disheartening to constantly have the notion that you cannot be the absolute best without paying for it with a ridiculous amount of hours or a small check. Hopefully we will not see the entire industry go the way of Crytek but instead achieve a nice balance.
