It seems like the big trend nowadays in the gaming industry is to adapt a free-to-play business model. From Valve's Team Fortress 2, EA's Battlefield Heroes and Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online, among others, many developers and publishers alike are slowing heading to the free-to-play route.

“We’re aggressively investing in things that are very low cost like free-to-play,” said Frank Gibeau, head of EA Games said today in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz when quizzed about the importance of the free-to-play model in the industry. “The free-to-play group inside of EA Games is growing extremely fast — we’ve got 17 million users.”

“I’m reaching an audience with Need for Speed content,” said Gibeau. “It’s an engine that’s not as advanced as [those used in other big budget EA titles] but it’s certainly got great production values and great game designs, and it’s free to play with microtransactions. It’s a very exciting time from our perspective because it’s not all about consoles. It’s about smartphones, tablets, free-to-play, browser, social.”

“There is clearly a vast and largely untapped audience waiting to play games and buy them in a different way,” continued Gibson. “It’s unlikely that the boxed [games] industry is ever going to reach the same heights that it has before. We think microtransactions are increasingly attractive to a vast chunk of users.”

While I'm not surprised with the sudden move of many developers and publishers to adapt the free-to-play business model, there are still existing barriers that needs to be fixed. One of which is the fact that console manufacturers are still hesitant to adapt the business model.

How about you guys? What's your take on the free-to-play business model? Share your thoughts below or continue the discussion at the forums.

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