"How do you strike a balance in free-to-play between giving people enough to enjoy the game, and actually selling enough content to be profitable?
I’ll give you a good statistic: roughly 10% of the people on Planetside 2 actually spend money. It’s very interesting to watch that balance. We designed the game from the start almost completely ignoring the F2P business model – we just wanted it to be fun. And the way we see it is that the 90% of players who don’t pay are making the game fun for the 10% that do. So we look at the world in terms of how many people are playing the game, and not in terms of how many are paying. The players are content for one another, so the free players are just as important as the ones who are paying. You do have to design the game to ensure there’s enough stuff to monetise – and we’ve done that – but you also need to make sure it isn’t ‘pay to win’. And we’ve done that too; I think we’ve found the right balance."
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/14/s...de-2s-future-free-to-play-and-everquest-next/
I’ll give you a good statistic: roughly 10% of the people on Planetside 2 actually spend money. It’s very interesting to watch that balance. We designed the game from the start almost completely ignoring the F2P business model – we just wanted it to be fun. And the way we see it is that the 90% of players who don’t pay are making the game fun for the 10% that do. So we look at the world in terms of how many people are playing the game, and not in terms of how many are paying. The players are content for one another, so the free players are just as important as the ones who are paying. You do have to design the game to ensure there’s enough stuff to monetise – and we’ve done that – but you also need to make sure it isn’t ‘pay to win’. And we’ve done that too; I think we’ve found the right balance."
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/14/s...de-2s-future-free-to-play-and-everquest-next/