Topman EA: all games will be free to play

Peter Moore, the chief operating officer of publisher Electronic Arts, thinks that all games will be free to play in the future. Publishers will make their money from microtransactions, Moore thinks. The market can grow from that.

“I think it’s inevitable that within five to 10 years the game client, the part you install, will be free,” said Peter Moore in an interview with Kotaku. Moore, second-in-line coo at the publisher, thinks publishers will fully transition to the free-to-play model, where the game is free to play but extras can be purchased through microtransactions. Moore thinks the market can only grow that way.

“I measure the success of games by the millions of people who have bought our games. Maybe by the time I’m retired, hundreds of millions are playing our games. No one is buying it, hundreds of millions are playing it. We get 5.6 cents arpu a day from all those people the vast majority never pay a penny for it and that’s fine they add to the ecosystem and the people who do pay are happy to do so because it’s great to be at the top of a game played by, say, 55 million people.”

Moore compares the model to a shopping mall. Customers can walk in anywhere and try items, but whoever wants it has to pay for it. The CEO thinks that the hardcore gamers category will not be happy with the development. He also thinks that games labeled as hardcore are the hardest to translate into a free-to-play model.