PC Free-to-Play Revenue Has Doubled since 2012

Despite the negative perception surrounding microtransactions, free-to-play spending on PC has actually doubled since 2012. A new report from market analyst SuperData shows that revenue generated from freemium PC titles has risen to $22 billion in 2017 from $11 billion in 2012.

The report suggests future game monetization may even mean triple-A publishers completely doing away with $60 products in favor of "product ecosystems." However, as the recent Battlefront II loot crate debacle shows, it also warned that publishers still have some way to go when it comes to understanding how to best deploy free-to-play techniques.

The dark side of this is as soon as the game becomes unprofitable, it's shut down and no one can ever play it again. While the big names don't have to worry about that, it means we're having more and more games that can never be played in the future.

Battlefront II is irrelevant because it isn't a free to play game. It is a $60 game that also wants to use the free to play model, and double dipping like that is extremely unfair to gamers.

tetris42 said:

The dark side of this is as soon as the game becomes unprofitable, it's shut down and no one can ever play it again. While the big names don't have to worry about that, it means we're having more and more games that can never be played in the future.

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Very good point! I love having my old cd’s around to load up and play games.

tetris42 said:

The dark side of this is as soon as the game becomes unprofitable, it's shut down and no one can ever play it again. While the big names don't have to worry about that, it means we're having more and more games that can never be played in the future.

Click to expand...

I'd go further and say that the new crop of games where they tack on some wonky multiplayer aspect will become unplayable in the future also when their servers shutdown. Many of them don't have a single player detection system so when the server is gone, the game is gone. That's why I'm leaning towards single player games again as one of the main reasons why I choose to play games on the PC is that I can play older titles many years after they have long been forgotten.

Good old paywall at level 60 on Knight of the Eternal Throne. Yeah no thanks. I will just keep collecting legacy points. Currently liking the Smuggler storyline, which is pretty funny. Even though the voice work is not all that great.
You can level pretty fast from doing heroic missions and flashpoints very early in the game. I hit level 50 by chapter 2. Getting great armour and weapons for later missions doesn't hurt either. What is pretty funny about the later missions is the rewards you receive for completing story missions. The armour and weapons are lower than heroic missions and flashpoints.
By chapter 3 I was getting 340 armour when I already had 946. What is kind of sad though is that a level 25 can still kill you without getting heals or healing yourself, at the right time or a group of 3-4 level 25's vs a level 50-55. I have never seen a game whore itself out the way KoTET does. Everything is based on cartel coins. Hey you want more inventory space? Cartel Coins? You want to level past 60? Well subscribe and add Cartel Coins. You want a faster vehicle speed? Cartel Coins. It is a fun game though. It is also a time sink if you have more than one character leveling.

As I said before, from the consumer perspective, the most expensive things in tech hardware, software or services are marked FREE!

This news is no surprise to me, the writing on the wall has been there a few years now. I still have PC games I can load without connecting to a server to authenticate, but I figure the OS market will soon put an end to those as well.

Only Free to Play i.. Play is War Thunder. Sure I've spent a little money for gold and a couple premium tanks but I've spent less than 100 bucks and have been playing for quite some time. I look at it as my money is currently helping add content (debatable) and keep the servers up.

Thats a heck of a lot of wallet voting.

Also a heck of a lot of money well spent on marketing psychologists.