Despite constant attention from developer Boss Key Productions, LawBreakers continues to struggle with player counts. Recently, CEO and designer Cliff Bleszinski admitted it might take extreme measures to keep the title afloat, including a potential switch to a free-to-play model.
In a somewhat confusing-to-read interview from GameSpot (thanks to the author failing to denote the questions and answers beyond the first couple of paragraphs), Bleszinski leaves the door open to LawBreakers going F2P, however, he feels the game isn’t there yet:
…60 dollars is a lot of money [for a video game]. Even 100 dollars for all the special editions that you see coming out. And I was of the belief that $29.99 … It’s pretty much an impulse buy. And did it help? Did it hurt? Should it have gone free? Maybe. Would we consider experimenting with that in the future? I wouldn’t remove it from the table.
Bleszinski calls free-to-play “sleazy”; he doesn’t want to be on the nose with LawBreakers’ “fledgling community”. That said, he’s cognisant that the company’s hand may be forced if the game expands into other markets:
Well, we’re considering in the future, rolling the game out in Asia. It’s one of those things that you almost have to do that in Asia, so we’ll be considering doing that, maybe one of those things if we do it there, would it make sense to roll it back out to the states? Possibly. But, I don’t want to start doing gun rentals any time soon in game.
Hard times for CliffyB, though pretty much par for the course for a majority of independent developers.
Cliff Bleszinski On Saving LawBreakers [GameSpot, via Blue’s News]
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