Is it the fall of Free to Play gaming already?

Not-so-long time ago, Team Fortress 2 joined free2play online gaming model with only cosmetics to buy, joining many other games that follow the same path to reach the largest amount of players possible. With the announcement of LawBreakers being buy-once though, this Cliff Bleszinski competitive game opened our eyes on the state of free to play games and how they’re fading away.

LawBreakers isn’t the only one at that, you also have Black Desert Online which was free in Asia, not so free other places. Overwatch and Battleborn also spring to mind as two games that were expected to be free but ended up being paid.

What’s pushing these developers to drop down the infamous F2P model that made games like DOTA 2 and LoL so popular? Well, we don’t really think it’s the financial side of the business since games like these make millions each month. So is it to have a better control over the community?

When CliffyB announced LawBreakers leaving F2P model recently he explained by saying he wants more freedom with violence and dark themes. One of the faults of F2P gaming is that it puts your game out there for everyone to play, including little kids. And let’s be reasonable here, it’s not that we only wouldn’t want a kid to play violent games but they’re also mostly annoying, ruining the communities with their trolling and bad mouth.

When you make your game available for purchase only you provide the best you can do to limit the community to loyal customers only with mature attitude, as well as making sure that every player is a paying customer who doesn’t take advantage of your free game and makes tens of accounts to troll and hack people, poisoning the entire community.

Are you with or against F2P model in games especially competitive ones? Will you be sad seeing that age coming to an end? let us know.