Superdata CEO: F2P audience has 'reached its limits'

SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen spoke yesterday at the GameON: Finance conference in Toronto. He posited that the F2P monetization model is declining in popularity. "So I think what's really happening is on the one hand you have the free-to-play audience, and I think that's reached its limits, to some degree," van Dreunen said. "And then there's the premium audience saying, 'Yes, I want to buy a game. I don't want to deal with the ads and in-game items. I want premium.' While in the mobile market, three-quarters of stuff is built with free-to-play as its dominant monetization model, you see somewhat of a backlash."

He cited Apple's recent decision to remove the word "free" from F2P App Store titles, and he also mentioned Warlords of Draenor's success as an indicator of healthy demand for paid titles.