The UK ‘is lagging behind in free-to-play’

The UK is lagging behind other countries in the emerging high-end free-to-play market, NaturalMotion’s CEO has claimed.

Speaking to Develop, Torsten Reil said that whilst the UK had taken strides forward in the free-to-play sector, developers had yet to find a solution that resonated with consumers.

He added that many in the UK industry also still didn’t properly understand the market, but felt that would change in future.

“I think the UK is still lagging behind very much,” said Reil.

“I’m seeing on some games that are coming up that I think look great and take a huge step forward in visual fidelity on these devices but they are not games that resonate that well necessarily on a large scale because of either the subject matter or more likely the play pattern.

“The tend to be more ‘gamers games’ that have reasonably long sessions, are very highly skill based and those games don’t tend to break out as much as other games, and take a slightly more inclusive route in terms of the overall demographic.

“The third area is fee-to-play, I think free-to-play is not properly understood in most of the UK, and I think that is a huge issue, but it is something that will change.”

Reil said that UK studios would have to act fast to get in to a sector he has previously claimed has the potential to be “the biggest market of all time”, and that he hoped NaturalMotion would be one of the leading companies in the space.

“It’s just a question if whether it happens fast enough for several big companies to emerge,” he said.

“We’re going to end up worldwide with probably three-to-four really big players worldwide in this market and we want to be the leader.”