Hamburg - Entering the virtual world of online game has typically involved purchasing a physical, packaged copy of the game and then signing up for a subscription with monthly payments. The durability of this model has been demonstrated through World of Warcraft & Co., but another idea is starting to make headway: "free to play." As the moniker suggests, it doesn't cost anything to play these games. Cash trades hands only if the player wants extra bonuses. The idea of free gaming is not new. The current wrinkle is that these games are not low-budget affairs with a correspondingly low budget feel. One example that has turned some heads is Frogster's Runes of Magic (RoM), released at the beginning of the year.
It's not exactly reinventing the wheel - it is a role playing game with all of the features that World of Warcraft players know and love. Yet that's precisely the point. Players can build up their characters in a medieval fantasy world and join together with other fighters to conquer strong monsters and acquire powerful relics and artifacts - all in a free game that is nevertheless of a comparable quality.
The developers claim that it is possible to survive all of the adventures without paying a real cent. Which doesn't mean that opportunities to spend aren't available: The business model behind the "free to play" concept is the item shop. Registered players can spend a few dollars to acquire the game's internal currency. That can then be used to by gear from the shop, up to and including a steed.
The idea appears to work. Frogster issued a press release in May announcing that more than a million players had registered for RoM. "Some 10 to 15 per cent use the item shop," says spokesman Axel Schmidt. That number, if accurate, would be quite high relatively speaking. "The French are frequent visitors to the shop, as are the Germans. In the USA the users are a bit more hesitant," Schmidt says.
Other developers believe that the American reluctance is dwindling. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), known in the online RPG industry for Everquest, recently released its own free-to-play title called Free Realms. It's been successful, too: only 17 days after launch, the game had already registered its millionth user.
That may reflect the fact that Free Realms is more than just the familiar seek-and-slaughter mission. It instead aims at entertainment for the whole family. While fighting is an option, gamers can also undertake more mundane tasks like acquiring pets or simply discovering new territory. No annoying installation is required: only a small amount of data needs to be loaded on the computer.
"Subscription-based online games will be there in the future," says Stephan Reichart from the German Association of Computer Game Developers (G.A.M.E.) in Berlin. He adds: "The mass market will be for free to play titles."
The manufacturers themselves are not innocent in this regard. For years now, older games have been given away as an incentive prize for magazines. That has gotten many people used to paying very little games for games - and away from a willingness to pay 50 dollars for current titles. Reichart knows a lot of younger players who use "free to play" titles. And if they like what they see, then they'll invest a couple of dollars in the item shop.
