Retail Principles for Free-to-Play Games:
Free-to-Play is the most radical model being adopted by many of the larger games studios and publishers.
I use the term ‘radical’ because it’s having far-ranging implications for developers. In the past, games developers primarily needed two key skills: strong creative and strong development. For that reason there are large numbers of small indie studios with only a couple of people: an artist and a programmer. Of course other skills have always been desirable too such as sound and audio, animation, story telling, testing, server-side programming, infrastructure set up etc. However, the shift towards Free-to-Play now alters the playing field and means that developers now need to have a new skill set around retailing.
