‘More games should become free-to-play,’ suggests Trion Worlds CEO

The CEO of Trion Worlds has said that more titles should considering adopting a free-to-pay model, as paying upfront for games becomes harder to justify.

If there’s one thing we’re learned through all of our own prior development, it’s that the barrier of having to purchase a thing before getting into a game is proving to be a bigger and bigger barrier as time goes on,” Scott Hartsman told MCV.

Trion World’s MMO Defiance’s storyline synchronises with the television series of the same name, the second season of which is set to begin this September, and Hartsman commented that games should aspire to provide a television-like ease of accessibility by offering base gameplay for free.

[Accessibility] is really a huge part of it with free-to-play in general,” he explained.

What are the barriers of watching a TV show? The barriers are quite literally to turn on your television. So we believe in order to make everything the best it possibly can be the barriers to the game should be as close to that as possible.”

He went on to advise fellow game creators to consider adopting free-to-play and crowd-funded business models in order to keep with the modern zeitgeist.

What we’re discovering is that if you take great content and great gameplay and reduce the barriers and take that leap of faith, customers will be there for you and will be there to support you,” he said.

We live in the age of Kickstarters where people are happy to pitch in on stuff they believe in, and I kind of think that where we are in online game culture is very similar to that: where if you do a good job people will actively find a way to support you.”