Candy Crush is played by millions of people around the world and yet the game has often been criticized for its microtransactions which many claim make it a not so free to play game.
In an interview with IGN, King Games Guru (that’s the actual job title) Tommy Palm explained that he believes the free-to-play is a good one and that more developers should explore it. He said: “The micro-transaction is so strong and it’s definitely a much better model. I think all companies have to transition over to that. If you talk to many hardcore gamers, they’re not happy about it right now, but if you asked them about the long term, “Do you want to continue playing your favourite game for years to come?’ And the answer will be yes.”
Palm was quick to stress that the pricing of content should be sensible in order to make them fair saying: “I think for companies it is very important to find a good balance. Free-to-play games are difficult to do, and you really need to be good at making it feel balanced to the gamers. So it’s not too greedy.”
He continued, saying: “At King, for instance, we took the decision to make our games truly free-to-play, so you will never end up in the position where you’re forced to pay. So you can play all the way to the end without having to pay. For instance, in Candy Crush, of the players who are on the last level, more than half of them didn’t pay to get there.”
He then went on to give Hearthstone as an example of a great free-to-play title, saying: “Just looking at Blizzard’s Hearthstone – it’s a great example of a F2P game that is made really well, it’s well balanced, and I don’t think many people are complaining about that business model. It’s easy to see if there’s concept that is close to your heart. It works out really well.”
Source: IGN
