Jagex CEO says Runescape will be cross-console, free-to-play (or else)

by Jessica Conditt on Aug 28th 2011 4:30PM

Developer Jagex is positioned to ship Runescape across all consoles, free-to-play and with complete cross-platform capabilities, if CEO Mark Gerhard has anything to say about it. Which, as CEO, he does. Gerhard told Develop that some console owners wanted to charge for Runescape, which he sees as absolute lunacy. "People get this for free. You're shooting yourself in the foot," Gerhard said. "But Sony was ahead of the game; they said they get it. They understand free. But all three said, 'okay, but we won't let our console play online with any other.'"

Gerhard is waiting for the console market to realize cross-play is a universally beneficial strategy, at least with Runescape, as it doesn't have any graphical aspects that favor one console over another. "I think they [Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo] will open up their platforms a bit more, liberate them a bit more. It's just a matter of time," he said. "But we're well placed to be on all devices soon so we can have a global community."

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[PC] Valve makes Team Fortress 2 Free-To-Play

[PC] Valve makes Team Fortress 2 Free-To-Play
You heard right folk. Valve's smash hit Team Fortress 2 will now be free to play. The news comes after Valve had planned to initially make the game available for players to purchase for free for a week only.

The game will now be available in two different accounts: Free and Premium. Premium accounts are for those who paid money for TF2, including buying the game off steam, activating a retail package or buying an item from the in-game store Mann Co. Premium accounts will have access to rare and cosmetic items in random drops, and more powerful trading and crafting abilities. Gameplay will remain unchanged between accounts and acquiring a premium account is as easy as purchasing an item from the in-game store.

Also announced are new training modes and offline practice for those who are new to the TF2 realm and want to get their feet wet before diving straight into online multiplayer.

Valve insists that the new model will not change their development of the game and they believe that this is the best model to take at this point in the game's life. Download Steam to Play!

Written by: Norman Ford (This post was last modified: 07-02-2011 02:14 PM by Foxy.) ZeldaFan
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Iwata: 'Nintendo is not interested' in free-to-play

by JC Fletcher on Jun 15th 2011 4:15PM

Nintendo has never shown interest in free-to-play games in the past, likely due to their requirement of support from sophisticated online infrastructure. And ... that is unlikely to change. Speaking to AllThingsD, Satoru Iwata said flatly that "Nintendo is not interested" in freemium games, alluding to the same discussion of maintaining the "value" of games that he mentioned at GDC.

"I'm not interested in offering software for free of charge," he said. "That's because I myself am one of the game developers, who in the future wants to make efforts so the value of the software will be appreciated by the consumers." Although freemium games can make money through ads and microtransactions, Iwata expressed concerns about "[destroying] the value of game software."

So, uh, don't expect that Wii U version of Ghost Recon Online to be free-to-play, even though the PC version is.

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