JCTango

This sounds too good to be true.. EA / Dice coming out with a free game?! It looks like Team Fortress 2, but looks like it could be fun and silly at the same time.

__________________

Lord of the Mangoes
In the nuclear world, the true enemy can't be destroyed.
In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.

w.WAREHOUSE

Are you talking about the same company that puts spyware in their games to brainwash us with billboards and advertising propaganda???

__________________

JCTango

O_O;;

__________________

Lord of the Mangoes
In the nuclear world, the true enemy can't be destroyed.
In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.

llPANCHOll

Ill bet the cartoon guns shoot straight.. even if they do have clay barrels

__________________

MacMurchu

Funnily enough that's why this game is going to be free.

Shiner

I hope people don't just jump on this as a way to bash EA. I'm not sure what kind of quality game this will be but I think the model is going to be the future of games.

Model:

Advertising Supported Free "Base" Game (includes a decent set of features and a small set of maps)
Microtransactions allow users to purchase additional weapons, maps, vehicles, unlocks...
or
Subscription package allows users to get *all* additional content the game for a monthly fee.


Why this works? It defeats pirating and maximizes value of brand by allowing everyone to participate in a "expanded demo" experience and then they can choose to purchase the upgrades as they see fit. No more buying a game only to install and find it is awful. I'll be the first to admit that I've "hypothetically" downloaded a recent blockbuster that starts with a C and tried it out on my computer first to see that it would run before buying the game off amazon. This may make me a "pirate" by the letter of the law, but I wasn't going to spend the $$ on a game my computer can't run well. The flip-side of this strategy is that by removing some of the risk inherent in the purchase the will likely be charging you more over the life of a game you really enjoy then under the old purchase model.

Why does this REALLY work for us gamers? It makes the incentive for GOOD games clear to developers. If you produce a game and it doesn't generate goodwill (perhaps its buggy or is poorly conceived), then far fewer people will buy-up to the expanded features and you lose money on the release. Flip-side is that you create a game people can't get enough and you have lots of incentive to patch and expand the game-content to increase $$.

__________________

JCTango

A lot of the "free to play" mmo's out there have already adopted this model.. It seems to work for games in Asia.. especially games like Rappelz etc..

I think we'll probably be seeing this model in the Americas pretty soon, if we aren't already.

__________________

Lord of the Mangoes
In the nuclear world, the true enemy can't be destroyed.
In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.

oldirti

yes, but it makes people who don't pay really hurt

i played a FTP fighter MMO where everyone was supposed to be equal, despite the levels (just showed your skill level basically) but people who bought the extra fighting styles or the experience doubler had a large advantage which eventually turned me off from the game, but the developers probably didn't want me around stealing bandwith anyway

__________________

Steel_Penguin

I had to lol at the magazine cover:

__________________
_____________________

w.WAREHOUSE

Just imagine how many billboards are going to be in this one! I bet it has 50,000 banners and you can't even see the game because of all the pop-ups! I hope i don't find my self shouting: "I don't want to buy any diapers damnit! I don't have any kids!"

__________________

snooggums

Sounds like you are talking about game demos, like we had for BF1942, BF2 etc...

....but then they just don't release the real version.

__________________

Bisclaveret

It's probably not going to be billboards, etc. This game could be supported like Warrock was, with the micropayment system. Imo that still sucks, though.

Warrock was interesting, it was like a BF2+counterstrike type of MMO, very fast paced with different game mods when I was in the betas. It's free to play, but people who also pay (and in different payment tiers from 5-20 dollars/month) get free ingame money which is how you buy better weapons in the game, as well as experience/rank boosters and etc. So while you can play for free, you still get pwned by everyone who has the money to shell out for the game because your guns aren't as good as the guy who was able to afford the SAW, and for you to afford it, you need to get a million bajillion points for more ingame currency, and then only get to keep it for 14 days.

__________________

BigGaayAl

Free to play games supported by advertising is the way to go for PC IMO. The only real quality example out their is... America's Army. It still is a very well made and supported game, but 100% advertising in its nature.

Subscription is not the way to go at all on the other hand, and it is all I expect EA to do in the future. They have been saying they will go this way since before BF2 was out. I don't like how subscription ties you into that one game, and nearly forces you to play it. I like to play totally different games when I feel like it. I'd hate to have to subscribe to all of them.

The only thing they need to avoid piracy is.... multiplayer. You can easily pirate BF2 to play it in single player, but no one has found a reliable way to play online without paying for your key. To me, buying a game is just that; buying a key to play online. In this model you don't even need any cumbersome and always defeatable copy-protection on the software.

__________________
I wsih to agzoiollppie for tinpyg so mnay tpoys

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
~ Bertrand Russell

Away from gaming, lost everything, trying to rebuild my life from scratch.

Sabre_Tooth_Tigger

Sounds allright for a laugh, so it'll be like tf2 I guess.

This is good news for us because it frees up the idea/ model for bf3 to be the basis for something more serious


I dont want pay to play because like people say it becomes more about your credit card then skill but adverts are fine by me. You can get farcry the full original game for free because of adverts

__________________

Terminal Boy

I'm not playing any online game I have to subscribe to. Ads are fine as long as you can block the ad server as with BF2142.