If Darrah is correct, then companies will need to come up with new ways to monetise their games (pic: YouTube)
Despite how lucrative they are for the industry, Mark Darrah of Dragon Age fame thinks free-to-play games and microtransactions can’t last.
It’s no secret that the free-to-play model for video games is extremely popular from a business perspective. Numerous games, from Fortnite to Overwatch 2 advertise themselves as being completely playable without you needing to spend any money on them.
The caveat, of course, is that these games still give their players a reason to spend money, be they cosmetics, playable characters, or progressing through the game faster.
Given how financially lucrative the free-to-play model and microtransactions have become, it seems safe to assume that they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. However, a former producer from BioWare believes that they can’t last and companies will eventually seek something new to replace them.
This comes from Mark Darrah, who was with BioWare for over 20 years and served as executive producer on the Dragon Age series until his sudden departure from the studio in 2020.
He’s since taken up making YouTube videos and in a recent Q&A livestream (made to celebrate reaching 10,000 subscribers), Darrah was asked for his opinion on free-to-play games and microtransactions.
While he doesn’t deny how much money they make, even referencing FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode, he believes the concept is ‘doomed to eventually collapse’ based on his own experiences.
‘The first mobile game I played that was free-to-play I think I spent $80 on it,’ he explains. ‘Because I thought ‘I’m going to play this forever, it’s worth the money.’ And then I quit within a couple of months of spending all that money.
‘Next game, I was like, ‘Okay right, I’m not going to play this very long so I’ll spend even less money.’ $20, I think I spent, and I quit that even faster. Now I might put a dollar into every tenth game, but I basically don’t spend at all.’
He goes on to suggest that more and more people will start approaching these sorts of games like he does, and that those games will become wholly reliant on the ‘whales’ who are able to dump much much money into them.
‘At some point, those of us who were playing these games for free will realise that we are content and reject that to some degree. That’s my feeling, that eventually it’s going to become unsustainable and something else will have to come along.’
That said, he’s not willing to place any bets on when that could happen, considering how long the free-to-play model and microtransactions have been around.
As long as microtransactions, even in full price games, continue to make enough money to justify their existence, then companies will keep pushing for their inclusion.
Although there does seem to be a growing awareness that not every game can benefit from forced microtransactions or free-to-play elements.
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Take the Dragon Age series itself. The upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be a traditional single-player role-playing adventure, but a 2021 report claims publisher EA and BioWare initially wanted it to be a live service title with multiplayer.
EA wound up changing its mind due to the failure of its Anthem live service, as well how successful the single-player Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was.
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Despite how lucrative they are for the industry, Mark Darrah of Dragon Age fame thinks free-to-play games and microtransactions can’t last.
