Once you decided to make a free-to-play game, what did you decide to do differently?

Avni Yerli: Free-to-play was a decision we made in 2006 after examining the market in Asia and really coming to understand the DNA of a free-to-play game. We really needed to understand what made the difference with free-to-play design.

Nick Button-Brown: We set up a Korean office, in part because they have such a great knowledge of how [free to play] works, and they built up that knowledge by making many many games trying to figure out how free-to-play works, because it's a very experimental market. We're working with great partners all around the world -- we're working with Tencent -- and the people we're working with have such a great understanding of how the market has changed, and the knowledge we're getting is just immense. A lot of that knowledge does affect how you build it, you build it in a way that makes sense. Warface has evolved while we're doing it, and we invested a lot of time to get to the stage we're at now.

Did you encounter any unique challenges or opportunities while making your first free-to-play game?

NB: You see what other people have tried, things that have worked and haven't worked, you're looking at how somebody interacts with it, what resonates with them, what makes them want to invest more time in it.

Michael Khaimzon: For the first time in the history of Crytek, we have statistics. And the value of that is unbelievable. You don't have to guess any more. You know what works, what people are doing with your game.

AY: But that is post-launch. And one difficult thing, to be honest, is to make a game that is localized culturally. We are learning what works in one country and what doesn't work. It was a big learning curve for us, and we struggled at first.