It’s been revealed that the PS3 game won’t actually be free to download, as players will have to stump up a “cover charge” of $US10-20 (the final price hasn’t been decided) just to get access to the game, which will then be “refunded” to the player in the form of in-game credits.
Um. If you have to pay money to download a game, it’s not free-to-play. Doesn’t matter how it’s framed. It’s $US10-20 to play. Not really sure why it couldn’t have been advertised as such in the first place!
DUST 514 requires “cover charge” from PS3 players [GI.biz, reg required]
Alinos
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:39 PMMakes sense to me.
prevents people making accounts for hacking and the like.
i already know people who have set up hat farms with TF2 free
Marek
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 2:15 AMThey’ll run into a bit of a problem when they try to trade those items to the main account though: you need to buy something from the store for trading privileges and you can’t add less than $5 to a steam wallet.
MRS TC
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:54 PMHow is this news? They announced it in early June.
aliasalpha
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:13 PMIts free to PLAY, just not free to BUY
Steve0410
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 11:35 PMThis is just splitting hairs and by definition, “Free to play, not free to buy” should include virtually every videogame ever made excluding MMOs.
There’s a reason the ‘free-to-play’ term exists, and it doesn’t cover cases like this.
mattroe
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 12:06 AMBy this logic, every game is free to play, which makes your point irrelevant.
aliasalpha
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 10:00 AMWell it was actually one of those joke things so it was more facetious than serious
Thomas Robinson
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:16 PMUm, didn’t they say this at E3?…
TimTim
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:42 PMAustralia has regulations from the ACCC governing use of the term “free” – it can only be used when there are literally no conditions or other strings attached.
But we’re talking a US company here. Not sure if they’re bound by the same rules.
Christopher
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 11:27 PMIceland is in the US now? What.
Braaains
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 9:01 AMYeah, I think they got foreclosed on and now the nation has been repossessed. Damn you, GFC! *shakes fist*
JPhillips
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:45 PMYou all need to take a step back and look at the author…
thyco
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 2:13 AMExactly, Luke has a strong hate for MMOs of any form.
Kyle_Katarn
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 10:55 PMSince it’s an MMOFPS, then I could still classify it as FTP, even though it sort of goes Guild Wars on us (still not much of a problem to me).
Jillaye
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 12:45 PMAnother poorly researched article from this author.
I don’t know how anyone could make this anymore clear, pay for DUST once with no ongoing subscription fee.
MrBS
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 12:52 PMI call dibs on the space monacle!
Allanon10101
Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 4:17 PMIf they announced it as “Free-to-play” and have been advertising it as such, and then they are charging people for it, then it’s not free-to-play and it’s false advertising, which is a legal breach