Personally I get put off a bit by free to play. I expect to have the game pushing ads at me non stop or trying to get me to purchase things in game. Where as I associate a quality paid game to be clean and just giving me the game without all those other distractions.
Granted I am sure there are some decent free to pay titles, just the mental impression I get before trying new games, based on past experience.
True... YOU expect the game to push ads at you or try to sell you things, because this is your domain. You look at it from a totally technical point of view, you have plenty of experience dealing with this sort of thing. Mr Smith the average app user on the other hand doesn't have this expectation, and if a little box pops up telling him he can upgrade his sword twice as quickly for just 99 cents, he just might do it..
If you think about it, though, most things are already sold this way. The people who are less engaged are subsidized by those who are more engaged. Mobile phones and broadband internet are good examples.
Is it really the case for broadband? I pay as much as the guy frantically torrenting day and night but right now I'm just commenting on a text-only website.
I've been building out free-to-play games that are purely ad-supported, with unobtrusive banners only, no interstitials. It's not as profitable as IAP or in-your-face ad-based games, but it seems to appeal to my target market.
The problem is that to remain competitive, I'm feeling pushed to build an IAP game :-\
What's even worse are the paid games that also have "Buy 10000 coins" in IAP.
At this point I have enough games to play and any games that have IAP consisting of energy/coins/diamonds/whatever I immediately avoid, even if it's a well-liked game. I don't have time for that sort of thing.
Granted I am sure there are some decent free to pay titles, just the mental impression I get before trying new games, based on past experience.