nerfherder
Latest
How freeloaders help free-to-play games succeed
Do those scruffy-looking nerfherder freeloaders (like many of us here at Massively) actually contribute value to an MMO? A new article at Gamasutra argues that yes, they do, and in fact are necessary to a free-to-play game's monetary success. "If you are going straight after this demographic at the expense of a wider audience, you will struggle if you want to be a worldwide success," the introduction explains, "especially if you want to be seen as real AAA-title rather than, say, a casual game. This is due to the fundamental fact that free-to-play works best at scale." The article lists three primary reasons why non-paying customers help a game. The first is that they bring new users via word of mouth, and a certain percentage of those new users will become paying customers. The second is that freeloaders can show appreciation in other ways, such as cross-promotion between games and generating community content. Finally, this segment of players can be the targets of advertising, which is in itself a huge revenue generator.
EA confirms The Old Republic won't be launched before April 2011
It is a dark day for the Republic (and the Empire, for that matter) -- Gamasutra reports that Star Wars: The Old Republic won't be gracing our desktops before April 2011. Or, if you're a half-glass-full kind of person, EA did confirm that TOR will be launched during the company's 2012 fiscal year, which goes from April to December 2011. So there's that. EA CFO Eric Brown said that this was the first time the company's publicly stated a launch window for TOR, a game that is one of its most highly anticipated titles for next year. BioWare previously said that it is aiming for a spring 2011 release. The Old Republic has been deep in testing for months now, and with 2011 just a month away, the title's release doesn't seem so much of a remote concept as an event that's lurking right around the corner.
