Tag Archives: free-to-play

Gabriel Leydon, CEO of mobile company Addmired, has told a DICE audience that the high cost of console games to consumers is pushing growth in the free-to-play market.

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Free-to-play games are one step closer to world domination. Aeria Games, the publisher of WolfTeam and Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, among others, has just signed a deal with EA to bring the Play4Free titles to a wider audience.

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Zombie Studios has announced Blacklight Retribution as the name of its free-to-play sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down.

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Age of Conan has joined the growing ranks of high-profile free-to-play MMORPGS. Is chasing the micro-transaction dollar a sign of impending doom, or the future of the genre?

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HanbitSoft has announced it will launch Hellgate as a free-to-play MMO later this year.

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Spicy Horse studio head, American McGee has said that Alice: Madness Returns “may be the last retail box product that we do for some time.” However, he has an idea or two about Alice 3, should EA ever choose to make it.
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Australian web game developer Soap Creative, in conjunction with Microsoft and Namco Bandai, has created The World’s Biggest Pac-Man, a web-based, free-to-play update of everyone’s favourite dot-gobbler. With over 1,300 user-created mazes, economic productivity is likely to take a hit today.

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Champions Online has joined the ranks of the free-to-play success stories, with Atari claiming numbers have grown by 1,000 percent since dropping a subscription model.

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What’s the solution to all of life’s problems? Ask someone in the modern gaming industry, and they’ll give you three simple words: free-to-play. Speakers at the GameON finance conference in Toronto, however, see it as less like a cakewalk or taking candy from a baby and more like curing the resulting diabetes.

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With Champions Online going free-to-play on January 25, Cryptic thought this would be the perfect time to post an FAQ regarding the new business model. If you have been playing since launch or just getting started on it, you may want to hit it up.

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Atari and Cryptic announced today that the free-to-play update of Champions Online will become available worldwide on January 25.

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According to a report by research firm Parks Associates, subscription models for online games are on the wane.

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Lord of the Rings Online has been free-to-play since September 10 in the US, but players in Europe have not been as lucky, as the launch of the new model was delayed. Thankfully, the wait is finally over, as Codemasters revealed today the revamp will go live next Tuesday, November 2.

This isn’t the first time a Turbine game has hit a snag in Europe, as the free-to-play model for Dungeon & Dragons Online was also delayed in the region, but finally went free-to-play earlier this year when Turbine took over the servers on the continent.

Thankfully, all issues getting the contractual matters sorted are finalized, and in order to get European players acquainted with some of the changes and additions, we’ve been playing the game and taking a few notes since it launched in the US, and hopefully our summarization will get you excited for some free-to-play goodness.

Not only are there new quests and a lovely new area to explore, but the Harvestmath Festival is also going on at the moment, and while always fun, there’s a new bit of madness to take part in this year: Bilbo’s infamous basement.

In summary, Bilbo was one sick little man.

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Sony Online Entertainment and LucasArts announced today Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures has registered one million users just one week after the free-to-play MMO’s launch on September 15.

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Codemasters has delayed the European free-to-play launch of The Lord of the Rings Online in order to better prepare its infrastructure for the massive influx of new and returning players.

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Stop! Don’t lay a finger and/or hammer on that piggy bank! Age of Empires Online, you see, has no need for your nickels and dimes.

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We’re pretty sure the saying doesn’t go, “The best things in life are free – except in some places where they’re not free until a year later.” But here we are anyway.

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Funcom has received a grant for $260,000 from the Norwegian government’s Norsk Film Institutt to aid the development of a free-to-play snowboarding title.

Titled Edge of the World, the PC and Mac game will feature online competitions, social networking access, and trans-media integration.

While a release date has yet to be announced, Funcom plans to use the game to promote Norway’s winter sports.

Sounds like some gnarly online jibbin’ to us.

Via Develop.

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Sony Online’s Free Realms has close to 5 million registered players and the game has only been live since April 28, according to SOE president John Smedley,

During it’s first ten days, the game hit 1 million subscribers and has steadily grown by leaps and bounds each week.

Smedley attributed the popularity and success of the game to the company’s free-to-play business model, with microtransactions.

More through Gamasutra.

Louis Castle, co-founder of EA’s Westwood Studios has left the firm for free-to-play games company InstantAction where he will act as CEO.

InstantAction specializes in third-party 3D browser-based games funded through advertising and micro-transactions.

Castle, who founded Westwood with Brett Sperry in 1985, became general manager of EA’s Blueprint Studios after Westwood was acquired by the publisher in 1998. It’s greatest success came from Command & Conquer series.

Via GI.biz, IndustryGamers.