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Dust 514 Bringing F2P To PS3
The PlayStation 3 shooter MMO will be free to download and play according to a press release from developer CCP Games this morning.
The explosive growth of high quality, non-exploitative free-to-play action games in the PC space over the last year or so should make this no surprise to anyone. League of Legends and World of Tanks, to name two examples that spring immediately to mind, are shining exemplars of how successful such a model can be. Combine that with the lack of a proven audience for a subscription-based game on consoles (with the partial exception of Final Fantasy XI), and taking Dust 514 this direction seems like a no-brainer.
Though this morning's release makes no mention of what CCP will be charging for, when we talked with CCP about the game at last year's E3 show the developers talked about how all of your equipment will have to be purchased using in-game money, which can be earned through play or bought for real-life currency. You may want to think twice about bringing your shiniest, newest loadout to a battle where you're unsure of your teammates, as dying repeatedly could get expensive quickly under this model.
CCP will be giving hands-on demos of the game at an event in Iceland on March 22-24, so expect more news then.
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