Gameforge: UK Media's Free-to-Play Snub "Unfortunate"

The free-to-play games market is a hyper-popular one, that has the attention of companies big and small - but games media outlets still don't take the time to report on them. And that fact is "unfortunate," according to browser and MMO portal Gameforge.

At Gamescom, SPOnG raised the point that many websites and magazines don't focus so much on the online, mobile or free-to-play market. Gameforge's director of corporate communications, Axel Schmidt, agreed. "It’s still difficult for us to convince media to report about free-to-play games, that’s true. Particularly in the UK.

"It's not that easy because the UK media seems very centred on console games, on retail box games business and not so much on these new trends. Although there are many players, I have the feeling that UK media are not taking notice that there is a big swing in the market. And I find that quite unfortunate because in our view, free-to-play doesn’t necessarily mean bad quality."

Schmidt used in-house title Runes of Magic as an example of such a game that has been largely ignored by domestic media. "You can have high production values and high standards for free-to-play too, and we wanted to prove that with Runes of Magic - our first successful MMO. We won many awards with that, but nevertheless UK media didn’t cover it so well."

Much more to come in SPOnG's full interview with Gameforge, later this week.