The people over at EA’s What’s Next Department have gazed long and hard into their crystal balls, consulted the runes, checked their horoscopes, read the tea leaves, and asked their moms, and finally declared that “Freemium is the future”. Who wants to pay for something when they can get it free, and then pay even more for extras than they’d probably have paid for the game in the first place?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future is not about one-time payments, the future is about freemium. A decent number of people convert to paying and they may not pay a lot but most of them actually pay more than you\u2019d think,” EA Interactive senior VP Nick Earl told MCV.<\/p>\n
A number of high-profile companies – EA’s own Play4Free<\/a> business included – are already cashing in on the freemium game model for PC, but console is something else altogether. Or is it?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if freemium gets to console but I do know that humans like free stuff. I also know humans who will pay for something if they\u2019ve tried it out and they like it. I\u2019ve wondered if freemium expands beyond the tablet, Facebook and smartphones, and out into consoles? I don\u2019t think it\u2019s impossible for that to happen,\u201d said Earl.<\/p>\n With Sony’s recent acquisition of cloud streaming service Gaikai, it’s obvious the company is thinking hard about its digital distribution options, but whether or not they decide to go into the free-to-play space remains to be seen.<\/p>\n Dead Trigger for Android now free because of \u201cunbelievably high\u201d piracy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Free Mars Rover Landing game for Kinect descends onto Xbox LIVE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Digital Extremes reveal new free-to-play shooter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nSource: MCV<\/a><\/h5>\n
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