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Let the games begin: Novarama CEO says freemium game devs are degrading the industry

This happens more often than we actually report but game development studios and their staff, usually of the upper management / executive variety, just love to throw opinions out there which are usually attacking another company or business model in the gaming industry. Today we have the CEO of Novarama who has launched quite an attack on the freemium gaming sector.

Freemium is a business model that you either love or absolutely hate. It really depends on what games you like to play and also what you are used to doing. A lot of up-and-coming mobile gamers are already used to the freemium business model while more veteran, or should we say traditional (console/PC) gamers who also play mobile games absolutely hate freemium games.

Novarama CEO Dani Sánchez-Crespo apparently really does not like the freemium business model or the game developers behind it who create freemium games. In fact, speaking at a mobile gaming conference in Barcelona yesterday, he goes so far as to say that the developers who make freemium games are “degrading the whole industry”. Mr. Sánchez-Crespo also comes up with an interesting analogy of what a freemium game is by calling it the “taxi model” which, as he explains it, are games which require no payment upfront, but which you never truly own.

While the CEO of Novaram does admit some titles do deliver top quality gaming with the free-to-play business model, those are far and few between.

When I see FarmVille and Uncharted both called ‘games’, it really gives me the creeps – Novarama CEO Dani Sánchez-Crespo

While some games really do not warrant a free-to-play or freemium business model (yes, those are two different business models), other genres of games fit perfectly into either of those models and actually are better with them. For those of you who don’t know who Novarama is, they recently signed a deal with Sony to make Augmented Reality games. It’ll be interesting to see who, if anyone, comes out to speak against Mr. Sánchez-Crespo’s words.

Website Referenced: PocketGamer

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