Gotham City Cost Cutters

Gotham City Imposters is a great game. Honestly, it’s something I can play with the same religiosity as I play Team Fortress 2. It’s also just gone free to play this week, so you have absolutely no excuse not to play it yourselves. However, this sudden move towards the free to play model has got me thinking. What inspired the move, and are free to play games always inherently successful?

My first thought of the free to play model has to be the way it has shaped the MMORPG world. Since World of Warcraft essentially has a monopoly on the genre (you can disagree with me, but that don’t change the facts) other MMO’s with a subscription based payment model just haven’t been able to survive. Heck, the first question anyone asks when they hear an upcoming title will come with a subscription is: “How long do you think until they’re forced to make it free to play?” I should know, often those words are coming out of my mouth. A subscription based MMO going free to play, is often a sign that not enough people are playing the game to make it profitable, which as far as I’m concerned is never a good sign. It reeks of a last ditch effort to get people through the door and playing their game before they must inevitably resort to shelving it.

Now, MMO’s are expensive to run, not only do you have to cover the cost of producing the game, but you have to pay for servers and server upkeep, you’ve got to provide support to players with problems and you’ve got to make sure the game is running without a hitch 24/7. Basically, if you’re not pulling in a constant revenue somehow, you’re game’s getting shelved. The thing is not all game’s are like that, especially if the amount of people playing in a game is limited to 10 or 16 players. In this scenario you don’t need dedicated servers to run the game, and while they do keep things running smoothly, you can get by with one player serving as host for that round, essentially eliminating any running costs of an online game. If that’s the case, then why would a shooter go free to play, and why would a game company worry if a game they’ve already profited on isn’t being picked up any more?

Well firstly I’m solidly of the opinion that Monolith Productions has absolute faith in their product, and wants as many people to see it as possible. And WB Games... well, they’re interested in shipping even more overpriced DLC, but that’s beside the point. The simple truth is, that any multiplayer game needs a critical mass of players. If not enough people are playing it, then not everyone who wants a match is going to find a match. Below this critical mass, an online community in a game is just not sustainable, and so it gets forgotten. This happens to many good games, one that springs to mind is Section 8: Prejudice, however it’s also the natural progression of a game to become outdated and make way for a new title.

Team Fortress 2 is a prime example of how the free to play method has increased the game’s shelf life, and injected new players and new fans into the game. Switching to free to play has undoubtedly become a win for Valve, and microtransactions in a game people are playing has proven to be far more profitable than a one off payment for a game only die-hard fans were playing. So is this why Gotham City Imposters has gone free to play? Is it trying to emulate the success of Team Fortress 2 rather than the act of desperation of Star Wars: The Old Republic?

The truth, I’m afraid, is that we just don’t know. Monolith Productions has basically released this on the quiet, leading many pundits to scratch their heads. The only information I could really dig up that wasn’t speculative, was an offer of extra content to anyone who had bought the game before it went free to pay, to compensate them and thank them for being fans of the game. All I can really say to that is Yippie Ki-Yay for new content, but it still leaves the circumstances surrounding the game in the dark. Is this a game on the way out? Or is this a push to make a great game better?

It’s no secret that the free to play business model has been highly successful, and the microtransaction based profits from League of Legends stand testament to that, forcing other MOBA game’s to also go free to play just to be able to compete.There are plenty of examples where it has been done right, and plenty where it has been done wrong. I could go into detail about paid content being “horizontal promotion,” and the other dos and don’ts of free to play games, but that’s for another time. Right now, I’m just hoping that a really fun game has made a positive choice, and we the gamers benefit as a result.

Now, go count the Oxford comma’s motherfuckers!
Jamie out xoxoxo