subject: Are Freemium Games The Future of Online Gaming? [print this page] Are Freemium Games The Future of Online Gaming?
Freemium games, or free to play games as they are also known, have been taking over the gaming world by a storm. These games may not always be of the same quality as some of the other, more premium games, but these offer players a chance to try out the games before spending any money on them.
The basic difference between freemium games and the standard MMOs lies in the subscription model. In both games and mobile phones, these freemium applications have been doing very well. One third of the top grossing titles in the gaming world actually belong to the freemium category, so you can imagine how high on the popularity wave they are riding.
The games on Facebook are a classic example of how freemium games are getting an increased player base. Most of the games on Facebook are free to play, but there are elements integrated into the game environment, which are premium and come at a small fee. Facebook games are not the only ones that are free to try. Runescape, Fusion Fall and Wizard 101 are some of the top freemium games in the MMORPG niche.
There are developers like BigFish, Zynga and Playfirst that have been giving out free to try games with some game content available at a small cost. These games also have a huge social component attached to them, which is why they are so popular.
For most people, who are looking for a social environment in the virtual world, these freemium games are just the thing. Though initially there were a lot of concerns about the validity of the subscription model, over the past few years all concerns have been proven completely wrong. When implementing the freemium model, most developers give players a lot of freedom to use the free content in the game.
Most of the freemium games are known to have built up huge social communities and a large fan following. You can choose the things you want to pay for, and you can also decide not to pay for anything at all. At the end of the day, it is you who chooses the game experience that you want.
Though at the outset, everything about this freemium games seems great, there are some problems with this model as well. There are some games which simply cannot survive being distributed in free to play MMORPG model. An alternative to that are the games which are free to for the first hour and if you want to continue, you have to purchase them. This model is more of a bait and switch kind.
Though they are largely free to play, freemium games can make a lot of money for the developers. They capitalize on the massive communities and the leaderboards where you can move up a lot more quickly if you have some of the purchasable virtual goods. These games also look great and if they continue to offer all the advantages that they offer right now, they can grow even bigger.
