IT Territory, which is a part of Russia's largest online game holding company Astrum Online Entertainment, announced today that it will start to utilize the free-to-play business model for its downloadable casual games.

Previously, users were offered a free 60-minute trial session and then they had to buy the game if they liked it. This was the only business model utilized for distribution of downloadable casual games. IT Territory is the first company in the world that decided to break with tradition and change this. Today on its gaming site www.PlayIT.Ru IT Territory offers all the fans of their casual games the chance to download some of the games absolutely for free!

“Although nobody has ever distributed such high-quality casual games absolutely for free, we have some positive predictions. We expect to have 45-50 million downloads by the end of 2008. This radical change of the business model will help us to make casual games more popular in Russia”, - says Alisa Chumachenko, VP of marketing at IT Territory.

Within six months IT Territory is planning to introduce the free-to-play business model on most of its own and its partners’ gaming portals and sites which will include a special platform allowing to put advertising into the casual games. IT Territory is planning to start utilizing these platforms in the autumn 2008. 

There are now three free casual games available for download:
http://games.playit.ru/game/Spiderz/
http://games.playit.ru/game/goldenhearts/
http://games.playit.ru/game/TimeQuest/