Confusion at Crytek on Free-to-Play Future

There appears to be some confusion within Crytek about its future as producer Mike Read appears to be slightly at odds with company boss Cevat Yerli in terms of the future of the company in terms of free-to-play gaming.

Back in June, Cevat Yerli stated baldly, "Right now we are in the transitional phase of our company, transitioning from packaged goods games into an entirely free-to-play experience."

For his part, Read tells CVG that, "I think Cevat's statement was more of a broad industry statement as to where free-to-play is going." This is certainly a step away from the very definite view stated by the boss.

Read does go onto point out that, "Some people may not be familiar with the free-to-play title we have out there right now called Warface, which has done very, very well for us in Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries, and we've started to explore the possibilities of expanding that out to all the different markets as well.

"So we see the value in free-to-play, and I've talked a number of times to people about where the market could potentially go. Crysis 3 won't be free-to-play, but the way industry trends are going, I mean free-to-play used to be synonymous with a 'crappy games' tag, but the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Tribes Ascend, for instance, have really created a triple-A experience in a free-to-play environment."

He does, however, make it clear that in his opinion, "Free-to-play is definitely where things are moving, whether people like it or not."

As for console gaming, starting with the Wii U, "I can definitely say that we are working with Nintendo, and that's about all I can say on that front. I wouldn't rule it out, but there has really been no official releases associated with the Wii U yet, and given that we're releasing Crysis in an eight month time period in February of 2013, we can't play off of what their schedules are. I wouldn't rule it out, but you know, it is a possibility."

And the rest, " I really do believe that the next generation of consoles are going to have physical media attached to them because there are a lot of countries out there where digital distribution is not an option because of connection issues."

More here.