Over at Adrian Crook's Free To Play blog, there's a great new piece up analyzing how traditional retail models are (and will continue to be) affected by the rise of a Club Penguin generation. Here's an excerpt from the article, inspired when Crook noticed on a family trip that his young cousins were playing online mixed-model games more than retail:

What does this say about where the North American PC market is headed?

Based on overwhelming anecdotal evidence, it’s clear to me that the younger set (under 20) is embracing free to play and virtual goods games because the budget and engagement model is tailored made for for them. And as the younger set is further weened on the same virtual goods business model that’s already dominating Asia, retail only pay-to-play PC games will be ignored en masse.

In some respects, North American companies have begun adjusting to the F2P/virtual goods wave. With gifting sites like Facebook and HotorNot.com, microtransaction services like Xbox Live and casual MMOGs like Puzzle Pirates, one might argue that we’re at least keeping up with the pack in this emerging space.

But what are traditional North American game publishers (EA, Activision, etc) doing to adjust to this new, non-retail, online-centric business model? Are they seeding their own internal virtual goods projects? Building virtual goods into their existing or upcoming products? Acquiring early movers in the space?

At least right now, the answer appears to be “none of the above”.

Crook notes that the traditional North American "partner and acquire" approach just can't work in this market, and that's a good point -- can you imagine how much it would cost an American company(assuming it's possible to price such a transaction at all) to buy one of the Asian giants of the virtual goods space?