The man does come up with great soundbites
After weighing in on the backlash against EA’s latest Dungeon Keeper drama, Peter Molyneux has been talking to Pocket Gamer about how he plans to implement a different kind of free-to-play model for his god game, GODUS. “What we need is a new term,” Molyneux said. “And that term is more like ‘invest-to-play.’ We are tempting people to invest some of their money into a game.”
Now whilst our eyes all collectively roll back at the sight of another Molyneux soundbite, he does seem to at least be identifying the problems that is at the root of a lot of free-to-play games, like Dungeon Keeper. He describes the free-to-play system in a lot of mobile games as “taking a huge hammer and smashing our customers with it. We’re saying: ‘Be patient or pay money.’ That’s not going to get people to invest their money.”
Whereas more standard F2P titles on PC and consoles have more rounded payment model that can entice players to spend money on a free game, most mobile games I’ve played have simply gated player progression to a system of “speed this all up for cash.”
Molyneux is cagey about how exactly the payment model will work, especially as you can buy GODUS for £14.99/$19.99 on Steam right now. The only one that can tell us is Peter Molyneux and given his record, I will wait to see how this all pans out.
GODUS interview [Pocket Gamer]
