item mall == p2w, not p2p (pay to win).
If indeed 10% pay, but they pay more than 10 times (on average) what customers for a p2p game pay, it's a higher income business model.
Combine that with typically less overhead (no real accounts department, fewer paid GMs (typically it's all volunteer work in f2p games, at least part employees in p2p games)) and your margins are higher too.
Blizzard is profitable in large part because of bulk (volume of paying accounts), their overhead must be massive.
What I'd like to see some day is a comparison in the average (pay active account) revenue and profit per account between f2p and p2p games taken over many games and a long period. That'd be an interesting comparison to see which business model is the most potentially profitable.
If indeed 10% pay, but they pay more than 10 times (on average) what customers for a p2p game pay, it's a higher income business model.
Combine that with typically less overhead (no real accounts department, fewer paid GMs (typically it's all volunteer work in f2p games, at least part employees in p2p games)) and your margins are higher too.
Blizzard is profitable in large part because of bulk (volume of paying accounts), their overhead must be massive.
What I'd like to see some day is a comparison in the average (pay active account) revenue and profit per account between f2p and p2p games taken over many games and a long period. That'd be an interesting comparison to see which business model is the most potentially profitable.