Cryptic Studios - CEO Jack Emmert On Free-To-Play

Forbes has an interview with Cryptic Studios CEO Jack Emmert about how free-to-play is reshaping the MMORPG market, and  Neverwinter.

How was the decision made to go free-to-play with Neverwinter and other Cryptic titles?

The market simply had changed.  Subscription games and boxed product were not the only way, and the business model had shifted.  Some games were seeing a large degree of success with free to play. We were acquired by Perfect World Entertainment, they are a Chinese MMORPG company primarily, and they do films and other things as well.  They are entirely free-to-play.  They taught us an awful lot about what to do and what not to do, and we saw how powerful that business model can be.

We saw how their games were performing in the West, in the U.S. and Europe.  It was far beyond anything we could possibly imagine.  It’s just funny, the magnitude, if people knew the size of Perfect World they would just be astonished.  They’re one of the larger MMO players in America and Europe, I’m not talking about China, I’m talking about in America and Europe.    Sony Online Entertainment is a household name but it’s amazing to me that given the number of players that Perfect World has how that isn’t better known in the gaming industry.  It’s kind of baffling to me.

We listened because we could see how powerful the model was.  Neverwinter is our first fully free-to-play game and we have no intent to ever go to a subscription model.

Is there more of a challenge in creating a free-to-play environment? Risking division between a paying and non-paying userbase?

Yes, there’s a challenge in finding where to monetize and how to monetize.  It requires a lot of careful thinking because you don’t want to open things up to pay-to-win.  In our market, the Western market, that is strongly frowned upon.  Before it was just a matter of making a fun game.  Now it’s a matter of making a fun game and finding out how to monetize it.

Is free-to-play “the” model? Will there be something after this?

There always will be something after; it’s just a matter of what it will be and what form it will take.  I can tell you that free-to-play is going to be a greater business model that gaming follows across the board more and more.  That doesn’t mean that traditional box products and games sales won’t exist, but I think you’ll see fewer of them.  Free-to-play will tend to dominate.  My hunch is that these things change over time and someone will find something other than free-to-play and it will be just as good.