eugene-evans
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Industry execs conclude that gamers like free games
The latest declaration regarding the validity of the freemium business model comes to us from MCV. "It turns out free is the price point people want to pay for games," BBC Worldwide executive Robert Nashak told the website. Nashak goes on to say that freemium raises the quality bar by virtue of putting the power in the hands of the consumer. "If you're not hooking people in you can't monetize," he says. BioWare-Mythic's Eugene Evans agrees, and he says that the model has its roots in the games rental business. "For me that really did start when I saw the retailer Blockbuster started renting out games. I'm convinced that probably put some studios out of business," Evans explains. "There [were] a lot of people [who] complained about game rentals at the time, but they were often the people whose product was just bad."
BioWare-Mythic says F2P is the 'democratization of game prices'
What's this, another studio bigwig has said that microtransactions are the consumer-friendly way of the future? We're positively shocked! This time around, the refrain was sung by BioWare-Mythic vice president Eugene Evans. The occasion was the Develop conference in Brighton, where Evans also opined that cheaper needs to be better. "The lower the price, the better your product needs to be, especially if it's going to stand out. Any notion of pay-to-win means we've done a bad job of it," Evans said. He also touched on the challenges developers will face as the current console generation gives way to the next. Gamers are already part of large communities connected to their current hardware, he says, and the company that best manages a large-scale community migration from one platform to the next will be "the most successful," according to Evans.
BioWare Mythic isn't playing favorites with free-to-play and subscriptions
BioWare Mythic says that the market is big enough to support both free-to-play and subscription models -- and everything else in between. Talking with Gamasutra, GM Eugene Evans said that the company has to acknowledge that there are people who don't like F2P and those who do, and it's important to reach out to both groups. With Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes in beta testing, BioWare Mythic is testing the waters of free-to-play while preparing for Star Wars: The Old Republic's massive subscription launch. "We often got asked about taking our old games free-to-play, and in the case of Warhammer, we felt there was a different way of doing it," he opined, going on to say that the Mythic branch was learning a lot about polish and quality from the BioWare team. Evans commented on the observation that the widening global market means that no one business model is guaranteed to work in every country: "We're all still figuring out what free-to-play means, what the best way to monetize is, and how to run it as a business and engage players in ways they're prepared to accept."
BioWare Mythic on Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes' MMO origins
Not everybody is in the closed beta of Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes; if we were, it wouldn't be closed. That's just about the only way to know any details about BioWare Mythic's new free-to-play spinoff, as the company's been quiet since announcing the game at GamesCom. During GDC Online, I asked studio GM Eugene Evans to explain just what Wrath of Heroes is, especially in relation to the existing Warhammer Online MMO. "The scenario gameplay that you experience within Wrath of Heroes is part of Warhammer Online," Evans explained. "You can go and have a similar experience in Warhammer Online. But it means that you have to go and start with a base character, level that character up, and then get into the scenario."%Gallery-136533%
BioWare Mythic says "Never!" to Real ID
Worried that Blizzard's Real ID system may be coming to an MMO near you? BioWare Mythic has a few words of reassurance on that point: "No. Never. Never. No." This was the response by Warhammer Online's Carrie Gouskos to Eurogamer when asked if BioWare Mythic was mulling over a Real ID-type feature for its games. BioWare Mythic's general manager Eugene Evans supported that sentiment and expanded on it: "We wouldn't do it. I'm surprised they did it, and for a group that is so close to their community, it was amazing that they misread it that poorly. I'm pleased to see them reacting to the community. We should all learn to listen to our communities. Their community made it very clear what the right answer is." This follows the controversial decision -- later retracted by Blizzard -- to force World of Warcraft forum posters to use their real names in an attempt to cut down on trolling and forum spam. Since the controversy, other MMO studios have come out strongly against Real ID, so it's good to see that this includes the folks behind Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
