Crytek to make free-to-play games only

Quote from Izuno

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-…-item-tradesAnd sort of relevant but not entirely...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... k-to-earth

The top article is about making botting illegal. Nothing to do with free to play or companies selling stuff for their own games.

Quote from Izuno

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-…ame-item-trades

Like the editor I have doubts that this law is going to pass at least in its current shape and form. I hope it isn't going to. However since SK is the homecountry of f2p and in many ways ahead of the curve, it is concerning what nasty side effects a virtual item economy can have...

Quote from Izuno

And sort of relevant but not entirely...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... k-to-earth

Digital Chocolate has recently gotten into trouble and more studios are going to fall as social gaming is approaching the "trough of disillusionment". Since Facebook has drastically reduced the visibility of the apps the golden days are over. One of the reasons why Heiko Hubertz (CEO of Bigpoint) emphasized the importance of having diverse channels to reach users. Zynga was at the right time, at the right place - now it's biting them in the ass, people start to realise it isn't going to continue doing as well as before and people get more realistic expectations - which is a good thing.

Zynga is picking up mobile game studios left and right, I'm wondering do they have plans to launch an own mobile app store where they can control virality? Maybe they have already announced something like this, it's what I would do (if that's even allowed by Apple).

Actually that Korean thing is a pretty real threat to the industry (erm...in Korea) because even if it does not pass it is a sign that the Korean government is taking the entire online/MMO/F2P/etc. space very seriously. It specifically speaks about botting but the concern is that because they are looking at this one area, they will look at others. So given some F2P models get interpreted as very shady and that other governments are cracking down (ie what's going on in Japan that's impacting Gree and DeNA) it's possible the Korean government will start going there as well.

So would this go all the way to impacting the real money auction house in games like Diablo III? Eh...not that likely right now given that Blizzard is very popular in Korea. Still, it just means more challenges in the space.

edit: did some more thinking on this with a colleague:

The article is somewhat confusing. The government there intends to curtail in-game item farming for wholly commercial purposes. Regular item sales by operator to consumer as a part of normal gameplay are not being targeted. The first sentence in the fourth paragraph is the key: "item collecting". That's why the regulations would also restrict the use of bot tools. We can infer that these regulations would shut down/restrict third-party auction sites where the item sales are negotiated. But all normal in-game AH trades would continue, although the article does not state that. You have to read between the lines. For any of this to work takes a lot of developer/publisher data parsing, so I suspect these regulations are coming at the behest of game operators who desire to rein in black market item sales. Stopping the purported criminal activity seems more like PR window dressing.

So this is a win-win for online game operators.

Interview with Michael Khaimzon about Warface:

Quote

"We have a lot that we can learn from each other, and we look forward to supporting the Epic team as they embark on their next phase of gaming innovation across both emerging and familiar platforms."

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1726 ... _Games.php

I'd say expect f2p and more mobile games by Epic, too.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... ossibility

Free-to-play Timesplitters 4 ?