A Namco Bandai executive has issued a daming assessment of the growing free-to-play trend, saying that games that use the increasingly popular model "can't be high quality."
The claim comes from Olivier Comte, senior vice president for Europe, during his talk at Cloud Gaming Europe in London, reported by Industry Gamers.
"Free-to-play games can't be high quality," he said. "We need to put value on certain work. When you're a big company ... you can't take risks too quickly, you can't make a change just because there's a fashion for a couple of years; you want to be there in 20 or 30 years."
It's strong stuff, but Comte is entitled to be confident given that Namco Bandai is reaping the rewards of staying true to its roots - especially in Japan, where it enjoyed an 18 per cent market share in the middle six months of 2011. Few would dispute that freemium is now a viable business model, but it would be churlish to criticise Namco for sticking to what it knows best, especially given that it's working.
Source: Industry Gamers