Hellgate: London players may not have to pay for online content after all. Flagship Studios' CEO Bill Roper has said that a subscription fee is only a possibility.
Roper clarified his comments about subscription fees, claiming that they were intended in a theoretical context. The monthly subscription fee model is only one source of revenue that it is considering. What he didn't clarify is what other models are being considered.
SPOnG spoke to Flagship Studios today but we were unable to get anybody at the company to confirm what other options might be used to fund additional online.
Roper also guaranteed that the action-RPG will have at least some free online content. He was, however, unclear about what level of access non-paying online players will get.
"If you want lots of great continual content, and all of the services, we'll have to figure out how to do that," said Roper. He indicated that Flagship Studios will need to create some form of revenue to support a full team of developers post-launch. He also highlighted the fact that finding a solution that is both financially viable and acceptable to players is difficult.
Reading between the lines, the facts are these: a development team will continue to add content to the game online after launch; said team needs to be paid; there is currently no way to do this other than with subscription fees (or, at a stretch, in-game advertising). A logical conclusion here being that there will be charges for much of the content. Bill Roper just doesn't seem to want to admit it yet.
Charging for new content is completely acceptable (despite what Roper seems to think), it's part of how that economy thing we have works. We just wish he'd bloody well admit that they're going to do it.
Roper clarified his comments about subscription fees, claiming that they were intended in a theoretical context. The monthly subscription fee model is only one source of revenue that it is considering. What he didn't clarify is what other models are being considered.
SPOnG spoke to Flagship Studios today but we were unable to get anybody at the company to confirm what other options might be used to fund additional online.
Roper also guaranteed that the action-RPG will have at least some free online content. He was, however, unclear about what level of access non-paying online players will get.
"If you want lots of great continual content, and all of the services, we'll have to figure out how to do that," said Roper. He indicated that Flagship Studios will need to create some form of revenue to support a full team of developers post-launch. He also highlighted the fact that finding a solution that is both financially viable and acceptable to players is difficult.
Reading between the lines, the facts are these: a development team will continue to add content to the game online after launch; said team needs to be paid; there is currently no way to do this other than with subscription fees (or, at a stretch, in-game advertising). A logical conclusion here being that there will be charges for much of the content. Bill Roper just doesn't seem to want to admit it yet.
Charging for new content is completely acceptable (despite what Roper seems to think), it's part of how that economy thing we have works. We just wish he'd bloody well admit that they're going to do it.
Games:
Hellgate: London
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