FreetoPlay.biz, one of our favorite blogs, has an interesting "devil's advocate" analysis that lines up the 10 reasons why the free to play business model that is the de facto standard in Asia might face obstacles in widespread adoption in the West. Among the factors cited -- legal issues surrounding virtual property ownership, a "huge disparity" between broadband speeds in Korea and in North America, oversaturation in the MMO market and a surge in what Adrian Crook calls "watered-down adverworlds."

Crook also proposes some solutions that might offer diversions around these very pragmatic roadblocks -- for example, advertisers can evolve the way they target their userbases in virtual worlds to combat the rise of environments that are essentially elaborate, interactive ads that might, as their prevalence steadily increases, encounter consumer resistance.

Since multiplayer online games and abundant social worlds are the primary driver of free to play thanks to their inclusive gameplay, Crook is concerned that this general homogeny in the business model might turn users off to the broader trend. This one is tougher to solve -- Crook points out "pay to kill" FPS Kwari as an example of an alternate option, but as he says, it's too soon to tell what sort of effect it will have.

But hope might come in what Crook lists next. Though the fact that big-budget developers like EA are entering the arena with free to play games like Battlefield Heroes might mean that rising development costs could pose an additional roadblock, it also means that these veteran gaming companies have the opportunity to offer innovation on the Far East MMO stereotype.

Check out Crook's interesting run-down in full at FreetoPlay.biz. He'll also be speaking about the issues surrounding the free to play model at our upcoming Worlds in Motion Summit, taking place February 18th and 19th in San Francisco -- don't forget to register!