作者：Joost Van Dreunen

ngmoco的Ben Cousins或PopCap的Giordano Contestabile等免费游戏传道者认为，免费游戏并不是未来事物，而是当前已掀起的热潮。从目前游戏行业的状况来看，他们的选择似乎是正确的。以下便是3个原因。

freemium(from blog.games.com)

免费游戏更具盈利性

免费游戏的盈利超越了订阅游戏。2010年，美国免费游戏产生的总收益（13亿美元）要高于整个订阅游戏市场（11亿美元）。当然，订阅游戏盈利依然继续成长，2011年达到13亿美元，同比增长18%。而免费游戏收益在2011年增长至16亿美元，同比增长23%。

游戏给予人们各种选择

游戏本质上是互动体验。不同于歌曲、戏剧和电影，电子游戏要求你参与其中体验。所以游戏玩家习惯于做各种尝试，比如看看自己能否从某个角度狙杀敌人，或者寻找更好的问题解决方案。玩家将做决定当成他们娱乐的一部分，这一点在与读者、听众和观众相比显得特别突出。鉴于这种想法，允许玩家做多种尝试的盈利模式就会比传统方法更加符合玩家需求。毕竟，玩家手中的钱才是选票。

发行商去除发展瓶颈

通常来说，技术变革的速度要快于社会变革。在许多方面，人们在采纳新技术时会遇到瓶颈。当技术发生变革时，游戏公司的文化结构可能还无法及时做出转变。所以，那些比较具有创新意识的公司就能够获得较多的收益。最后，免费游戏的概念似乎被大型发行商所青睐。数年前这种模式并不被人重视，但现在我们看到许多开发者都对其大加褒奖。

令人振奋的是，决策者现在已经接受了这种模式。这意味着他们开始将免费游戏作为额外或者主要的盈利来源，从而使其获得进一步发展。

所以，下次行业讨论会的问题就不应是“我们是否应该选择免费游戏的道路？”，而是“我们之前为什么忽视这种方式？”。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

WHY YOUR GAME SHOULD BE FREE TO PLAY

Joost Van Dreunen

If you were to believe free-to-play evangelists like ngmoco’s Ben Cousins or PopCap’s Giordano Contestabile, then anyone asking whether or not free-to-play is a fad has missed the boat. It’s not the future anymore, they argue, because it’s already here. And from the looks of it, they’re right. Here’s three reasons why.

Free-to-play makes more money

F2P revenue is bigger than subscription. In 2010 the total revenue generated via F2P ($1.3 billion) was greater than the total subscription-based market ($1.1 billion) in the United States. Subscription-based revenue continues to grow, of course, and accounted for $1.3 billion in 2011, up 18% from the year before. F2P revenue grew to $1.6 billion in 2011, up 23 percent year-over-year.

Games give people choices

Games are inherently interactive experiences. Different from songs, shows and movies, video games ask that you engage with them. And so gamers are used to trying things out, seeing whether they can make that shot, snipe that enemy, or find a better way to solve a problem. Put differently, gamers make decisions as part of their entertainment, especially when compared to readers, listeners and viewers. Given this mindset, it can be no surprise that a monetization model that allows for more agency is a much better fit than the traditional ways of charging audiences. People vote with their dollars, after all.

Publishers have cleared the bottleneck

F2P has entered the C-suite. Generally speaking, technological change occurs at a more rapid pace than social change. Humans, in many ways, tend to be the bottle neck when it comes to adopting new technology. The cultural fabric of a game company may not be ready for the demands that a technological shift presents. And so it’s those companies that are innovative enough that reap much of the benefits. Finally, it seems, the notion of free-to-play has entered the C-suite of the large publishers. Where there was little interest only a few years ago, today we hear a growing number of executives sing its praises.

What’s exciting is that it is the decision-makers who are now on-board. This means that they will start advocating free-to-play as either an additional or primary revenue stream for their games portfolio, thereby elevating it to a standard business practice.

So the next question during your strategy meeting should not be “Should we go F2P?” but rather “Why haven’t we yet?” (Source: Games Brief)