There once was a game called Hardware: Shipbreakers. Made by some ex-Relic developers, it was going to be a free-to-play game. Now that it’s got Gearbox money behind it, however, that won’t be necessary.
Phew.
Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford tweeted over the weekend:
@Giolon With our investment, Homeworld Shipbreakers can be a proper commercial release. No need for F2P.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) September 2, 2013
As pretty as it looked, the fact Shipbreakers was going to be F2P had hung over it like a black cloud, people concerned at the prospect of junk like microtransactions getting in the way of their strategy.
Good to hear that won’t be an issue now.
Comments
17 responses to “That’s One Less Free-To-Play Game To Worry About”
Isn’t assuming a game won’t have microtransactions because it has a commercial release a thing of the past? Or am I just jaded? I suspect both.
When the creators of said game have declared it won’t, I think that’s a safe bet it won’t. This is Homeworld 3 now, officially, not just in spirit so it’s looking good…
This isnt Homeworld 3. If anything, it could be a prequel.
Not micro-transactions, but I suspect DLC. Probably a season pass as well.
You don’t need to buy the DLC, and back in the days when it was called expansion packs it certainly wasn’t unheard of for RTS to have them.
Should you decide that you want the DLC the Season pass is a fantastic way to go. 75% of the price for all the non gratuitous content.
I may have purchased the Borderlands 2 Season Pass but I never purchased the skins.
Yay? Now there’s a gatekeeper fee? Why is that somehow better than ala carte microtransactions?
Because micro transactions are almost always specifically designed to hit compulsion centres in your brain to encourage you to spend maximum money for minimum content.
Because free to play usually means multiplayer… hopefully this means we’ll get a single player campaign.
After Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever, I’m guessing Randy Pitchford will hype this into infinity, screw it up and finally scapegoat the original team. You see, those ex-Relic hyenas are the real enemy, it was their fault, a commercial release was their idea!
Why should I believe you? Everything you ever told me was a lie.
OK, F2P demon… slain. Yeah yeah, great great, tell us about the single/multi-player focus.
Seriously, this has to have some of the best art design in a game for ages.
Yeah. It’s nice to see that “ZOMG GRAPHICS” has become less of a thing that companies try to push. The return of good art design is a lovely thing.
Of course, with the new console generation, that’s probably going to be overtaken by how much bloom and how many particles onscreen again. In 6 years we’ll start seeing designers given some freedom again.
Agreed! Maybe we might get a bit of both. Star Citizen looks pretty and has good design.
Bloody well hope so. There’s always room for good design. Always.
HUZZAH!
No one else finds it weird that this says…. “well, we have a source of income now, so we no longer have to give you the game for free”…
As a gamer who understands the F2P/microtrans model, I know it makes sense… but without context, that sentence would be completely insane to anyone else.
It’s nice to know that even game developers admit that commercial releases are inherently better than F2P.