Free-to-play is preparing to swarm into the virtual reality market

Game developers have an opportunity to set price expectations for virtual reality games, but as with mobile, the industry will probably decide the price for a new game download is … nothing.

Free-to-play gaming is coming to virtual reality, a panel of developers and VR experts said during a panel at the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco. Right now, many studios expect consumers to have a lot of demand and money to spend on virtual experiences and games. This has led to products like AirMech — a free-to-play release for PC — coming out later this month for Oculus Rift at $40. But that trend of charging more for games on VR because they’re new and novel probably won’t last as studios experienced in the mobile market flood app stores for Samsung’s Gear VR, Google’s Cardboard, and more with games that are free to download.