Classical game of Breakout - break through the wall by hitting it with the ball

Insights from the gaming industry

Free To Play Games

Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games, also known as free-to-start, are games that give players access to full content without paying. When a game requires the user to invest money to have an advantage or even to continue the game, it can not be qualify as free to play. If that content that is offered by the company does not influence the development of the game, then we can call it free to play, such as appearances, as long as it does not influence the evolution of that game. Free-to-play can be contrasted with pay to play, in which payment is required before using a service for the first time.

There are several kinds of free-to-play business models. The most common is based on the freemium software model; thus, free-to-play games are oftentimes not entirely free. For freemium games, users are granted access to a fully functional game but must pay microtransactions to access additional content. Another method of generating revenue is throuygh integrate advertisements into the game.

The model was first popularly used in early massively multiplayer online games targeted towards casual gamers, before finding wider adoption among games released by major video game publishers to combat video game piracy and high system requirements.