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Recommended Reads: Adrian Crook Talks Free To Play

“Most of these games, Crook added, utilize a dual-currency system, which allows users to purchase stuff via in-games efforts alone—in other words, an attention-based currency—and a real money-based system for the ‘cash rich, time poor.‘“ (Adrian Crook, WIM Summit 2008)

The Worlds In Motion Summit, part of GDC in San Francisco, which closed its doors yesterday, brought a lot of valuable insights on massive worlds and their convergence with MMO’s. Worlds in Motion has covered a lot of them, but one article on Adrian Crook, senior producer at Relic Entertainment / THQ Canada, and his talks about “Free to Play” appealed to us in particular:

“Adrian Crook opened his talk on free-to-play with a look at the larger trends surrounding the business model in the real world. In Vancouver, ad revenues are used to offset the costs of public toilets. Musical artists like Radiohead are using the “name your own price model” and finding success. And European discount airlines like RyanAir utilize the free revenue model by charging for cargo and incidentals, and by negotiating reduced landing fees at airports. ... “With free to play, it’s all about monetizing attention,“ Crook pointed out. Among the worlds with the highest userbases, only WoW charges subscriptions. 91 percent of the online PC gaming that kids under 18 do is of the free to play variety, noted Crook, citing NPD stats.“

To allow “users to purchase stuff via in-games efforts alone—in other words, an attention-based currency—and a real money-based system for the ‘cash rich, time poor.‘“ is exactly Coobico’s revenue-model, we couldn’t agree more, Adrian.

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