Premium services are 'milking customers to death' says CEO Cevat Yerli.
Crytek's future output will solely consist of triple-A free-to-play games, Cevat Yerli has revealed.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com on the last day of E3, the Crytek CEO lamented the rise of DLC and premium gaming services, which he considers to be "milking customers to death".
Warface, Crytek Kiev's multiplayer FPS, will be the company's first foray into the free-to-play sector. But once Crytek has completed its current contracts with traditional boxed products, its studios will only produce F2P titles - supported by its new social gaming platform, GFACE.
"As we were developing console games we knew, very clearly, that the future is online and free-to-play," said Yerli.
"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."
Yerli added that he wants Crytek's games to stand out from the current crop of F2P titles. All future projects will aim for triple-A production standards, with development budgets to match.
"As is evident in Warface, our approach is to ensure the best quality, console game quality," he said. "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."
In short, Yerli agrees with the view that games are destined to become services, rather than the standalone products of old. However, he's clearly no fan of the premium models adopted by the likes of Activision and EA:
"If you look at what kind of games are done in the packaged goods market, with DLCs and premium services and whatnot, it's literally milking the customers to death."
Warface is currently live in Russia, and is undergoing a closed beta in China. There's no word yet on when the game might be coming to Europe and the US, but it will be published by Trion Worlds.
For more from Cevat Yerli and his vision of Crytek's free-to-play future, keep an eye out for next week's complete interview.
Source
Long story short, Crytek seems to be following the "games as services" philosophy that Valve has adopted - and they're not gonna be selling $60 products to gamers once they're done with their current contracts.
All things considered, new business models like this might be what the industry needs to survive, with game development costs making current business models increasingly unsustainable. Some MMOs have prospered significantly after going free-to-play, and TF2 is raking in oodles more cash for Valve now that it's free-to-play as well. This seems paradoxical in terms of conventional business wisdom, but there is most certainly a way to monetize "free" content successfully, and if you do it right, you could rake in way more cash than you would selling games individually.
Edited by Masaru Daimon, 09 June 2012 - 09:33 PM.
