hey there fellow game industry professionals,

has anybody noticed that in the past few months the development of microtransactions as a sustainable business model for free-to-play games has SERIOUSLY accelerated? between facebook and iphone, casual games are the top growth segment for the industry right now -- especially compared to consoles, which are way down year-on-year from 2008.

i think you are going to see all of the big players try to get into the free-to-play space. we are already seeing the beginning of this with EA's Battlefield Heroes and Ubisoft's Facebook portal.

any other thoughts on this issue?

I can only say that I support it, but the quality is, of course, lesser then full games. Besides most F2P-shooters look all the same, you should compare for example Operation 7, War Rock and Combat Arms. They all are look-a-like's...

I actually just did a quick post on MMOCrunch.com on the topic. For better or worse, F2P isn't going anywhere.

http://www.mmocrunch.com/2009/07/28/free-to-play-microtransaction-games-here-to-stay/