Sony have done a great job with the PlayStation Plus service, as it managed to attract lots of players to an already popular gaming network. The promotions work out quite well for everyone involved, as they give players something new to enjoy while also boosting the popularity of certain publishers and developers.
It’s been getting more and more clear in the gaming industry that free offers are the best way to turn players into loyal customers, and many companies have come to this conclusion on their own through different ways.
Valve are arguably the ones who started the trend of giving things away at a low price – or even free – or in the very least they were the ones who really popularized it and made it mainstream, showing other studios that there is potential to this idea.
And now, we’re seeing studios from all over the industry coming out with their own free offers to entice players, following in the footsteps of Valve. Sometimes it works out just as well as it did for the Seattle giant, in other cases it looks like the company should put some more effort into their offers in order to come up with something that attracts players a little better. But after all, this is a relatively new field with much left to learn and explore.