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Speaking to gamers who are sceptical of the free-to-play business model that has rampaged through the industry, Bejeweled franchise business director Giordano Contestabile states there is “nothing inherently wrong with freemium”.
Writing in a column on Edge, Contestabile explains that Facebook titles which many gamers look down their noses at were simply experiments with the model in its early days.
“The first experiments in that sense could barely be defined ‘games’, and were simplistic ‘applications’ built by web developers with little or no exposure to game design, aiming to take advantage of the platform’s viral features for rapid growth.
“While issues such as cloning and shallow gameplay are still rampant, many compelling game experiences are emerging, developed by teams that understand not only the dynamics of social games, but also that the most important feature of any game is also the most difficult to pin down: fun.”
It is not the model itself that is the issue, but rather how it is used, he says.
“There is nothing inherently bad or wrong with freemium: all it does is give designers more freedom, enabling a much more rapid usage growth and providing the tools to measure what players actually do in the game, allowing for continuous iteration and improvement.
“Those are all advantages, and can be engaged to make awesome games in an array of genres, for an ever-expanding audience of ‘gamers’. Imagination being the only limit, wouldn’t joining the party be a better use of your time than complaining about it?”
Last year the studio was acquired by EA, with the publisher paying approximately $650 million in cash and $100 million in shares of EA common stock to certain stockholders of PopCap.
