Mythic Entertainment Co-Founder Predicts Free To Play Disaster

Mythic Entertainment, the company behind the likes of Ultima Online, is predicting the sharp decline in the Free-to-Play business model. While it has been going strong lately, all good things come to an end.

It seems somewhat appropriate, given the name of the company he co-founded, that Mark Jacobs would be making prescient predictions. In a recent interview with VG247, he said,  "Free-to-play is just another model, and just like every other model in the industry, it will hold its special little place for a while but then there will be consequences. Those consequences in a few years will be a bit of an apocalypse."

Nowadays, thousands of mobile titles run on the free-to-play basis. Even some of the biggest massively-multiplayer online role-playing games have gone free-to-play. The reliance on hooking gamers into the world and micro-transactions is where the risk is concerned. If a developer spends a ton of money on a free-to-play game that doesn't transfer players into revenue, they're bust.

For now, it seems though that the boom of free-to-play is going strong and we'll have to wait and see if Jacobs' predictions come true.