As far as free-to-play shooters go, Warface looks pretty damn sexy; both in terms of visuals and good ol’ fashioned traditional FPS gameplay. But considering that Crytek is also currently working on three retail products—Ryse, Homefront 2 and Crysis 3 (http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/304014,the-top-three-pc-games-of-e3-day-two-arma-iii-hitman-absolution-and-crysis-3.aspx)—it comes as a surprise that Crytek intends on ditching the retail model completely.
According to an interview with VideoGamer, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli empathised with gamers by stating what many of us already believe: DLC and premium gaming services are tools used for “milking customers to death”. More interestingly, Cevat went on to state that Warface was the beginning of the future for Crytek.
“Right now we are in the transitional phase of our company, transitioning from packaged goods games into an entirely free-to-play experience. What this entails is that our future, all the new games that we’re working on, as well new projects, new platforms and technologies, are designed around free-to-play and online, with the highest quality development.”
According to Cevat, Crytek doesn’t believe that free-to-play equates to skimping on development costs, either. “As is evident in Warface, our approach is to ensure the best quality, console game quality. That implies budgets of between $10m to $30m—so no compromise there—but at the price-point of $0 entry. I think this is a new breed of games that has to happen to change the landscape, and be the most user-friendly business model.”
I’ve never really been a fan of free-to-play games, but the recently released Tribes: Ascend caught my eye and I’m keen to play Warface.
What do you think about Crytek’s decision (and reasoning) to move to exclusive free-to-play development?
(I’ve also attached some E3 screenshots for Crysis 3 to this article.)
