CGF'09: 'Paying upfront for games has five years left'

"People will only continue to pay upfront for games for, picking a number from the air, perhaps another five years at most," suggested Zattikka's head of development Matt Spall.

Quick to agree at today's event, vocal Playfish CEO and co-founder Kristian Segerstrale added: "Once games become a service, just like with any service, people will stop paying upfront. It is pretty much inevitable that it has to go there, and it's a huge opportunity for all of us.

"But what we must ask is, in terms of the huge new market out there that we must get product in front of, 'how can we get something in front of them that is meaningful, and how do we charge different people in different ways to best grow as an industry?'"

In general the panel, which also included Finblade chairman John Chasey, agreed that microtransactions offer the most sustainable, potentially profitable model for casual gaming.

"Microtransactions do trump a lot of things," said Segerstrale. "As an ability to offer a menu of options to your players in terms of the way they consume and enjoy their games it is very powerfull. That is a huge oppotunity to reach beyond the concept of the gaming budget. That means we can evolve business models and understand consumer behaviours beyond offering a single price point. That is a huge growth opptunity for all of us."

"If you look at it as something like gambling in reverse, where every now and then you have to put in a little money, it is very addictive," added YoYo Games CEO and founder Sandy Duncan. "It plays on human behaviour, and in that context out of all the funding models microtransactions are perhaps the most pervasive and important."