The game developer behind the new DUST 514 PlayStation 3 shooter, David Reid, addresses the future of free-to-play gaming in this interview.
Free-to-play, subscription and premium are just three of the business models being used in the online space today. Why is there so much hype around free-to-play at the moment, and does this mean subscription and premium will simply die out?
Part of the excitement around free-to-play today is because it’s new. The premium model, where a game shows up at retail for $60 and has big box office premiere weekend like Hollywood, is still healthy, but it doesn’t work for every game. There’s no good reason to move away from that when you can make hundreds of millions of dollars in an opening weekend. Free-to-play is getting new gamers into the business and with the right games it makes sense. CCP’s EVE Online is a subscription game that has flourished even as the MMO business has been under pressure because gamers devour content faster than developers can create it. That’s because of the game’s strong PVP (player versus player) vibe continues to flourish under subscriptions. With DUST 514 we’re building a free-to-play game that allows new players to tiptoe into this crazy MMO universe. All of these models work because we, as gamers, buy products with all three models. It’s important to think from a high-level perspective what’s right for the game and service you’re offering. When EA saw that subscriptions weren’t working for The Old Republic, they added free-to-play later. I believe it’s better to start developing the game with the right business model from day one, rather than trying to force a game into a business model later.
With such low price points and such high levels of competition, it can be tough to keep players engaged and playing your digital titles. How important is the use of analytics in keeping players engaged and spending money?
It’s super important, but it’s not the solver glue to fixing everything. Analytics will tell you what people are doing in your game today and what they might do if you turn the dial. But games are a creative industry and an executive producer still needs to have the ability to add a creative incite that numbers might not predict. When you look at some of the mechanics with Zynga’s business over the past year, the feeling was that the company ruled by metrics instead of design. Metrics can’t build you a good game. Games are both an art and a science. While metrics will show you how things are going and research can help you avoid making mistakes, they’re not going to give you a Minecraft or EVE.
Cross-platform has been a buzz word for a while now, how important is it to provide a good cross-platform experience for your players, and what challenges are thrown up in the process?
Cross-platform is an interesting concept, but it’s not a requirement. It can be a terrific amplifier if done correctly through a transmedia way of doing different things together in the same universe. Square Enix allows people to play Final Fantasy on PS3, PC and Xbox 360 together in one shared experience, while meeting consumers on the platforms they chose. EVE and DUST take place on a persistent, shared universe, where all the history of EVE has always happened. EVE is an MMO RPG on the PC that has flourished as a single shard universe with a robust economy and thousands of people joining corporations and going to war with each other. DUST introduces a new kind of player into this universe without having to go to a PC game with 10 years of history. Cross-platform can work for a unique experience, especially with new cloud technologies that have opened up new opportunities, and it can be a big eye-opener with the right games like EVE and DUST.
What are the key platforms developers and publishers should be creating for today?
The advent of casual, mobile and social are not going to replace the deep end of gaming for real gamers who look at games as an important part of their life. It’s like the sport of golf. Some people play golf for fun, others spend thousands of dollars on the best equipment. But they’re still playing golf together on the same course. The games industry still needs to have high-end console systems and PCs with immersive, breakthrough experiences. And there will continue to be a need for new portable platforms and more shallow gaming experiences. I see things evolving moving forward. There are a lot of things that happen in an MMO – auctions, grinding, equipping – that don’t have to happen on a high-end PC. They can go in a cross-platform device or in browsers. You’ll see those types of elements taking a bigger part of the gaming experience, augmenting experiences on other devices. With DUST 514 we have a NeoCom App on Vita – similar to what the Fable guys were doing with the Fable Pub game on Xbox Live. These things are becoming an important part of cross-platform. The console business isn’t dying, but the ecosystem of devices is going to be a bigger part of a fully integrated AAA gaming experience.
