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Free to Play - Discussions/Trends/News (Consoles and PC)

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Free to Play last decade has been one of most prominent force on the console and pc ecosystem where early years it made huge strides on PC in the first half of the decade and has massively changed entire console ecosystem and plays a key and a big contributor of revenue on the ecosystem in the latter part of the decade

Several Premium Multiplayer Software have been adapting freemium model and big franchises have been majorly focusing on having an established focus on this domain

Due to lack of data visibility, an accurate ranking cant be established yet however I think we should have a dedicated thread to discuss the trends/state of big F2P games on PC and Consoles , upcoming free to play which can challenge the established leaders or discuss the free to play games and their impact on the consoles and PC
 
Thanks for making a thread on this important topic. While we have some visibility on the mobile side, it is true that we are reliant on the publishers goodwill to have information about PC/console F2P games.

I think it would be benefitial to compile here the data we have on these games.
 
F2P games have had a big impact console sales. The Fortnite boom in 2018 is a noticeable impact as it helped keep PS4 and XB1 sales steady over 2018.

That game alone helped push both the Battle Royal genre and F2P popularity on consoles. Major IP like Call of Duty and Halo both went for a F2P solution and Halo is heavily rumored to be working on some BR mode.

Even an IP like Titanfall exploded thanks to Apex Legends being F2P. Respawn then went on to become the #1 studio for EA, working on multiple Star Wars properties and helping previous #1 dev, DICE.
 
Lelouch0612 said:
Thanks for making a thread on this important topic. While we have some visibility on the mobile side, it is true that we are reliant on the publishers goodwill to have information about PC/console F2P games.

I think it would be benefitial to compile here the data we have on these games.
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Yeah, its going to be more major this gen I think. MS has already entered the Free to play in a serious way with Halo Infinite and Playstation with GAAS Approach might have 1-2 games which can be F2P from the Get Go.

Factions is something which can be really really big IMO


Welfare said:
F2P games have had a big impact console sales. The Fortnite boom in 2018 is a noticeable impact as it helped keep PS4 and XB1 sales steady over 2018.

That game alone helped push both the Battle Royal genre and F2P popularity on consoles. Major IP like Call of Duty and Halo both went for a F2P solution and Halo is heavily rumored to be working on some BR mode.

Even an IP like Titanfall exploded thanks to Apex Legends being F2P. Respawn then went on to become the #1 studio for EA, working on multiple Star Wars properties and helping previous #1 dev, DICE.
Click to expand...

Also F2P now represents 25% of PS4 Revenue which is insane.

Looking at Play Tracker Estimates and Xbox Most Played Sections Halo Infinite has done so much better on Xbox vs PC.

Due to strong association with the Xbox Brand, Fans on Xbox have been engaging with the short coming and content challenges , I personally feel they should had delayed the PC version by 6 months because PC Ecospace has more competition and while the brand name brought lot of users Day 1 and the short coming couldn't keep them engaged
 
I have approximate rankings for GaaS with earnings in 2021, focusing on PC/Consoles:

1Fornite$2,300 MFY2020 = $2771, est decline from activity numbers
2Roblox$1,900 MFY report (includes mobile)
3League of Legends
4Warzone$1,200 MEst from FY report
5Apex$1,000 MApex made $1B+ in 2021
6World of Warcraft
7FF14$500 MSE FY, total MMO money is $600M, est from that
8GTA Online
9Destiny$300-500 M$164M in 2018. Est from P/E multiple Sony payed to acquire Bungie.
10PUBG$333.6 MFY report (does not include mobile, pre-F2P)
11R6 Siege$312+ MFY report
12Overwatch$300 MLaunch year only (likely significantly down)

The two big ones missing here are Genshin Impact (hard to split mobile and console revenue) and Rocket League, which ranks high. Both RL and Genshin were included in Sony's Top 5 for PSN.

PC games from Valve (CSGO, DoTA) and Riot (LoL, Valorant) are also hard to find financials.

I've come to the coarse conclusion, extremely successful GaaS bring in around $300M a year. This may not seem a lot, but the profit margins are in a league of their own. Destiny 2018 OI was 56%.
Mega hits that are big enough to become a platform/publisher in themselves make $1B+ a year. Profits could be $600-800M, more than the entirety of profits of entire publishers coming from 1 game.
 
I think a lot of Japanese devs going F2P during the PS3 era was a mistake. Ace Combat, Tekken, Dead or Alive, Gundam all went big and don't really have much to show for it. They were ahead of the curve.

But now you have successfully mobile F2P coming to console like Bleach Brave Souls. So I think they will slowly give it another try. My Hero Academia 2 may as well be F2P with the amount of money you need to spend on costumes and characters.
 
awng782 said:
It had better be if it wants to find any meaningful success.
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It doesn't strictly need to. There's a good number of successes in multiplayer games in the PC space that target budget pricing. Ark, Valheim and V-Rising all come to mind. For multiplayer shooters specifically, I can think of the Payday games and recently that Aliens game.
 
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