The sleeping giant: How the West will one day embrace paying for free-to-play

I’m sitting in bed, fighting off sleep to finish celebrating and mingling at my birthday party with Kim in the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game. I can’t quite get there. I need more energy to reach 5 stars, and I need more Twitter followers to become an A-list celebrity (for research purposes only, of course). The offer to pay is there, and I know it will get me to that level of fame I desire in the game, but I’m resistant. I reluctantly give in and spend $5 to finish the party with 5 stars. Why did I initially feel guilty for spending money in the game? I didn’t have to pay to download the game, and I’m having a lot of fun playing it.

Free-to-play games dominate the U.S. Google Play and App Store top-grossing charts. Upward of 85 percent of all revenue from these stores are from free-to-play games. These numbers are high, and they’re getting bigger each day. But we’re not even close to the potential revenue these apps can achieve in the West, so much so that I contend that within 10 years, the West will surpass Japan and Korea in game monetization.