Wargaming Has Bought F.E.A.R. Developer Day 1 Studios

In a rather interesting turn of events Wargaming, the studio behind the Free To Play “World Of Tanks” MMO, has announced the company has purchased Day 1 Studios, developers of the FEAR franchise, stating the company’s intent to enter the console game market.

It’s quite huge in itself that Wargaming bought Day 1 for $20 million, but the purchase may give an interesting insight into the future of console gaming and the free to play model.

Consoles and the relationship with the free to play model is still in its infancy. Sony and Microsoft have both dabbled with FTP with their latest consoles, Microsoft with Happy Wars and Sony with upcoming MMOFPS Dust 514.

Now that another studio (CCP Games being the other example) that is dedicated to the FTP market has stated its ambition to branch out to consoles, it should be seen as a signal that the next gen could have a lot more FTP options coming for it.

Source: Press Release

4 Comments

  1. Free Realms is F2P and I think DC Universe Online went that way on PS3, too?

    It’s happening, at least until the first wave of high profile failures take the sheen off this business model. What’s most interesting is that an F2P MMO dev/pub is starting to throw some of its money at consoles. Hopefully this is the start of that immensely profitable business model paying back into my preferred method of playing games. That sounds selfish but… well, it is I suppose.

  2. I found the F2P is the end just devalues games as a whole. Buying new levels etc… I understand but player upgrades etc.. that I can live without and still play the game aren’t going to make me spend cash.

    I’ve spent hours and hours on Ecolibrium on the vita and haven’t spent anything. I probably would have spend a few pounds to buy it initially or after a demo/trial but I’m not paying anything now.

    The F2P games have made a lot of games seem very expensive but I would think most (like myself) and live without paying for upgrades for most F2P games. That model can’t last long.

  3. Hopefully WoTs will come too consoles , I regularly play WoTs on PC and will probably play world of warplanes when its is in open beta. Wargaming.net really have the F2p model bang on ,

  4. So day1 gets bought for 20 mil, bet THQ is scratching their heads.
    F2P sucks on consoles, well at least it currently does, maybe it’ll get better, but IMO F2P doesn’t fit in with console gaming at this moment. Maybe next gen will have more success with a F2P push, but for decades console gamers have been conditioned to expect full gaming experiences. I realize that DLC has started to break this trend, but people still haven’t truly excepted DLC either. Its seen as greedy in alot of peoples eyes, and look at the hate of DS3 IAPs. I can’t imagine a CoD where you have to unlock all guns with real money, or buy your ammunition with real money. Or beating a level in GoW and being asked to pay more to unlock the next level. As greedy as publishers are getting on the console format I can’t see console gamers accepting F2P any time soon.

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