Comments on: Thoughts: Tribes Ascend.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:47:18 +0000

I also paid £7 for the VIP account; I had enough fun with Tribes that I had no problem throwing a bit of cash the developer’s way. I don’t think much of the game’s long-term prospects, though. I can’t help feeling that this paradigm of ensuring people keep forking out for whatever the current weapon de jour is is poisoning the well a bit, although I suspect that whatever hard data F2P companies gather proves me wrong or they wouldn’t keep using it as a business model.

By: Anton K

Anton K — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:06:23 +0000

I’m enjoying the game quite a bit myself, but I do see your point. I agree that the XP prices are ridiculous and I’m a little worried for how this game will evolve regarding new weapons, etc. Still, I put in the minimum of 9.99$ to get the VIP account and now amass XP pretty quickly. Sure, I spend a few bucks on a free to play game, but it’s a small price to pay for such a gem in my opinion. Great article by the way!

By: hentzau

hentzau — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:56:49 +0000

The thing is free to play games are never going to be acts of altruism. They have to run on this imbalanced model; they can’t survive if there’s no way for them to induce people to spend money. Free to play is therefore a bit of a misnomer because it obfuscates the true intent of the game. It’s free in the same way that supermarket loss-leaders are cheap.

By: jiiiiim

jiiiiim — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:28:37 +0000

I can never decide if I like the F2P model or not. On the plus side, it’s free, on the downside, there’s the potential for massive imbalance. I suppose I can’t really think of a game that runs on F2P that I actually like, apart from TF2. There’s plenty that are successful but god they’re depressing.