The latest entry in Firemonkeys’ Real Racing isn’t just going to be the nicest looking entry in the series when it drops on February 28 — it’ll also be the first one that’s completely free to play.
In an interview with Bloomberg, EA’s senior vice president for mobile and social game development Nick Earl said the company is making Real Racing 3 free in order to appeal to a wider audience of casual players — the sort of players that see Real Racing 2 for sale at $US4.99 and feel absolutely no compulsion to purchase it.
With Real Racing 3 looking as spectacular as it does and costing the end-user nothing up front, I smell an overwhelming success, at least from a pure downloads point-of-view. Real success will depend on how the game is monetized and how traditional and casual gamers alike take to that monetization. Earl told Bloomberg the game features 900 different events and 600 hours of total gameplay. I wonder how much of that we’ll wind up paying for?
There’s a Real Racing 3 press event in San Francisco this afternoon, so expect more details on where the money is coming from soon. The game launches on February 28 for iOS and Android.
Leave a Reply