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Sony Wants Free to Play for The Agency

Ameer | August 24, 2007 | News | Playstation 3 
Sony are looking to implement a micro-transaction policy in pricing with The Agency, Sony Online Entertainment's new spy-based MMO. Similar to games such as Guild Wars, micro-transactions are payments made for in-game items, and pay only areas, rather than paying a lump sum for a time period. However, sceptics remain critical of the possibility that end users could end up paying more through micro-transactions than a monthly fee system.
At this week's Leipzig Games Convention, the president of Sony Online Entertainment John Smedley held a talk on "Subscriptions vs Micro-transactions" in regards to MMO games. During the briefing, he indicated that Sony was looking at making their upcoming pc/ps3 spy-themed MMO a free play title, meaning there would be no subscription fee (unlike World of Warcraft). Instead, SOE would fund the title via micro-transactions and a 'velvet-rope policy' where certain area are only available if people pay for access.

Smedley acknowledged that consumers are used to the subscription based model (as is SOE, considering their long history of subscription based MMOs), but said that they "believe very strongly that this is the future of MMO gaming, but we also know that it is something that players have an issue with... There's going to be an aftermarket, and we want to control it so that players don't get duped into having something switched out from them."

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  • 0 thumbs!
    Seeker X | August 24, 2007
    Hahaha, not bad at all...Premium access and Basic access, a bunch of MMOs are using that anyways, this wouldn't be the first time...not to mention there's already a shitload of people saying they don't want to play the game if there's a monthly fee involved, damn good idea.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Reenee | August 24, 2007
    Free MMOs typically suck. Take caution.
    • 3 thumbs!
      Subtle Demise | August 24, 2007
      Not always. There's a few good gems hiding out there. 2Moons and Tales of Pirates are both great MMOs that are free.
      • 0 thumbs!
        teodortenchev | August 25, 2007
        Have you played them for more than a few hours? Both of those games lack depth and both of them look bad even for F2P games. I agree with you though, free MMOs are not always bad. Take a look at the money-making machine that is Maple Story for example: simple cartoonish graphics to entertain the children, tons of premium items that cost real money no story to lead you through the entire game, some random quests instead... you got the perfect game. Millions of people play Maple Story even though it's nothing special. Same for Silkroad Online. Stunning graphics , lack of decent English in any dialogue or description you read in the game, crappy battle system, laggy servers, hundreds of quests that will send you to kill loads of monsters just to get a couple of items and still millions of people play it, a lot of them pay for premium items and so on...

        What makes a good MMO game then? I don't know, I'm yet to see one.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Final Blade | August 24, 2007
    Well this isn't that bad, i would go for it.
  • 0 thumbs!
    Silver Mirror | August 25, 2007
    Micro transactions are better in my opinion, it means you get to choose what you pay for and you don't waste money if your busy for a few weeks

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