How big is Free to Play? Over 3x bigger than Pay to Play

I've long been a believer in the free to play model for online games and it's been great to see games like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Tera embrace the model with enormous success. These games are making much more money as free to play games than they ever did as subscription based games. Star Wars: the Old Republic for example more than doubled its revenue* after dropping its mandatory subscription. One of the main reasons is that going free to play dramatically lowers the barriers to entry. Players that otherwise never would have even tried a game are much more likely to give it a chance if it's free. The amazing thing about free to play is that it can actually boost paid subscriptions. Since going free to play, Tera saw its monthly paying subscribers actually increase. These aren't the only two games to benefit from going free to play either. So free to play works, but exactly how big is it?

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Tera - Pay to Play Gone Free to Play

According to data from SuperDataResearch***, the free to play MMO market generates ~$8.7B a year (2015 estimate) while Pay-to-Play MMOs make about $2.7B a year. The trend in the Western world has been to continue embracing the free to play model. There are a few holdouts though. Namely subscription games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. The beauty of free to play is that it expands a game's audience and opens the door for new players to try a game they otherwise wouldn't. This wouldn't exactly benefit establishes games like World of Warcraft or Eve Online though, as almost everyone who plays MMORPGs has at one point already played WoW. So even if they went free to play, the game's playerbase likely wouldn't expand. Final Fantasy XIV on the other hand, I personally think, could benefit greatly from going free to play, but the game's producer Naoki Yoshida, has already stated that they intend on remaining a subscription based game.

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Final Fantasy XIV - Says they Will Remain Pay to Play

Even though the free to play market is massive, it's forecast to grow even bigger in the coming years. F2P MMOs are set to grow from an $8.7B/year business to $10.9B by 2018 while pay to play MMOs are set to shrink from $2.7B to $2B by 2018. I've been saying for years that free to play is the way to go and it looks like the West is finally starting to embrace it. Seeing companies like Valve embrace free to play with Team Fortress 2 and DotA 2 is great. I suspect that Valve will make Counter-Strike: Global Offensive free to play in the coming years too. Blizzard Entertainment is fully embracing the F2P model with Hearthstone (which is actually the 10th highest grossing online game last year) and Heroes of the Storm. Their upcoming shooter, Overwatch, will be free to play too. I think aside from console games, more and more PC games, especially multiplayer ones, will use the free to play business model.

*GameSpot Star Wars: The Old Republic monthly revenue as doubled since 
**Venturebeat Tera tripled it's revenue since going free to play
***SuperDataResearch Global Games Market Report May 2015