Nexon CEO says consoles will F2P or die

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Filed under: Business models, MMO industry, Free-to-play, Consoles

Never one to mince words, Nexon America CEO Daniel Kim stated that the traditional game console's days are numbered -- if it doesn't adapt to the market. "Console developers are starting to realize that as well, that unless they make accommodations or think about changing their own business model they're going to quickly go the way of the dinosaurs," he said in a GamesIndustry.biz interview.

Kim predicts that there will be no way for the console market to grow without free-to-play. His perspective comes from Nexon's research in Korea, which indicates that market developments have shifted players away from the old way of doing things on consoles. He also said that F2P puts the onus on the developers to "earn the business" of players instead of taking their money up front and running.

"It's really hard to beat free-to-play as an offering," Kim said. "I know it's tough for [console developers] to just cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to say 'OK, we're going to go free-to-play and make our bed here,' because that's going to piss off a lot of people who they already have an existing business relationship with."Nexon CEO says consoles will F2P or die originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: Games Industry
  

Price to beat the end-game bosses in current P2P games on consoles: 40 euro/dollar
Price to beat the end-game bosses in current F2P games like Maplestory: 4000 euro/dollar

Nah, I think P2P games will stay around a lot longer...

wth is he talking about lol, 9 times out of 10 i'd get so much more fun from a console game than the same value in NX..

Daniel Kim needs to stop talking to the press. This is embarrassing.

I actually prefer the console model to F2P, as long as they don't pull an EA on me (Day 1 DLC, required DLC for story) I would much rather pay $60 for the entire experience that the game holds rather than paying $1.2 per item for a chance to get better at the game. F2P is a garbage model under Nexon.

Although, honestly, at this point, I'm not too worried about Nexon's CEO's image.

What's worse?

Making P2W on a F2P,

or putting important payable DLC on a console game?

Daniel's thought about consoles dying was a bit too extreme. F2P may pay off better than a full game bought in one price of $60, but how many hardcore players can you attract and keep them long enough to them to pay for pomegranate than your causal video game player paying for full games on a console/PC? (assuming no cheap tricks)

Anyone have a general consensus on revenue for both consoles and F2P?

WHY COULDN'T THE EA BUYOUT HAVE BEEN TRUE? I think I would honestly do anything for that feeling of satisfaction that would come from seeing two of the three companies that are responsible for the depression of the gaming market kill themselves like a headless, thrashing snake; they've killed any drive for innovation, which obviously includes new IPs, but that also includes the fact that devs don't make decent new engines/systems anymore. Why bother, when you can just copy/paste old, pomegranatety ones, or make new ones for nothing and call it state of the art? I think the issue even bigger than that is, by killing innovation, they have killed the drive to satisfy the customer, and have brought about a new wave of companies that use gamers as a literal cash cow instead of an actual audience.

This is about as convincing as Zynga's CEO saying non-casual gaming will die.

*sees thread title*

...console games are going to get hit by a climate changing meteor?

I actually prefer the console model to F2P, as long as they don't pull an EA on me (Day 1 DLC, required DLC for story) I would much rather pay $60 for the entire experience that the game holds rather than paying $1.2 per item for a chance to get better at the game. F2P is a garbage model under Nexon.

how about pull a capcom and make some of the data on the cd locked as DLC, and force users to buy another version of the game to unlock more characters rather than make them DLC.

[video=youtube;FopyRHHlt3M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M[/video]
Nothing more to say.

Generalization fallacy on Kim's part. The rest of the world's behavior cannot be predicted based on a few market studies done in Korea. Also notice that the the statement that console developers will have to "earn the business" is based on absolutely nothing.

Imagine if Nexon ran any of the CoD games in their F2P model...

10 cents per bullet to reload, $1.2 to randomly upgrade weapons, etc..

Oh the possibilities for them there.........

What the hell is he talking about?

.....Console gaming is already dead. What we see before us is a shambling corpse.

The F2P model is definitely the future, but probably not for console gaming. Console gaming is becoming stagnant due to other reasons. Also, I don't feel like he's the best person to say things like this when Nexon America is actually a good example of how a F2P business model shouldn't be.

Unfortunately many people believe F2P can never be done right because there are so many who do it so wrong. It seems like many companies view things as, ''Well, if it ain't broke don't fix it''. In other words, ''If we can still get a decent amount of money then why bother changing it?'', without realizing they have room for improvements. They seem to just settle in practices that aim to make them a quick buck instead of focusing on proper balancing for what the player can get with their money, and if there is a reasonable and fair way to obtain it in-game, for example. In Maple you typically can get nowhere near what a paying player can get without having to spend days, weeks, or even months hoarding up on various types of items, merchanting them, etc. Does this sound reasonable? Holy Christ, no, and especially not when you have to repeat the process over and over until you finally get anywhere near what the paying player achieved in just the fraction of the time. This isn't proper balance, and only makes the player feel forced into paying, or even resorting to ''cheating''. Why is hacking so prevalent in gMS? Because Nexon America (Or Nexon in general, really) produces the strong demand for players to cheat themselves. Instead of trying to combat the hackers directly, why not try to look at why people feel the need to want to cheat in the first place and fixing those issues?

They won't, because they're too busy trying to force players into becoming invested into the game, then taking advantage of that for extra money. This is typically how DLC works in ''traditional'' gaming. Companies usually get away with charging for DLC, or ''Collector's Editions'' for added content because they know people have already become invested into the franchises. If the player is already invested chances are they'll keep desperately shelling out more money when DLC comes along, even if they don't like it.

Lmfao. They think they actually "earn our business."

I might make a video game just to manage it right and become the richest most loved person on the planet, I'd only accept being second to LoL or Valve

Sure, it is quite funny to hear this from a Nexonian, but when companies keep doing pomegranate like Capcom for example... I don't think he is all that wrong

Oh lawd, the title alone is full of lulz.

Time to use the classi-

[video=youtube;FopyRHHlt3M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M[/video]
Nothing more to say.

OKAY, PLAN B.

[video=youtube;ztVMib1T4T4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4[/video]