When Greg Richardson spoke at Casual Connect San Francisco on Why the Time is Right for AAA games on Emerging Platforms, he observed, “The majority of gamers are now playing free-to-play,” as an indication that this business model has been accepted and adopted by game players of all kinds.
AAA + F2P = Killer Apps
Greg Richardson is Founder and CEO of Rumble Entertainment, a developer of connected games. With all games free-to-play and available across a variety of devices and social networks, their intention is to create experiences that surprise and delight players. Greg believes they will change the way gamers play together by combining the best of AAA game design with free-to-play accessibility.
He tells us the proudest moments of his career have come from his association with great creative organizations in the business, including BioWare, Crytek, DICE, Ion Storm, Pandemic, and now Rumble.
Game Companies are Service Providers
Greg feels the biggest challenge in the games industry is finding ways to leverage business models, devices and channels in order to give players exactly what they want, wherever and however they want it. In order to meet this challenge, the industry must optimize for players to have more fun rather than optimizing for business goals. At Rumble, they work to meet this challenge by maintaining constant focus on their players and their needs, while being patient with iteration in order to achieve high quality.
Mass Market Media
Over the next three to five years, Greg expects mobile and browser to become the platforms of choice for gaming and free-to-play to become the dominant business model. As well, the look and feel of the games delivered on these platforms will rival anything players are used to seeing on console or client PCs. He also insists that video games have the potential to become a true mass market medium on a par with television and film. This will happen as accessibility continues to improve and the cost barrier is removed, while quality is maintained. Greg says, ‘’At Rumble, we are positioning ourselves to be at the vanguard of those trends.”