Battleforge becomes free

EA Phenomic announced last week that their collectible online RTS Battleforge now had a free version, available to anyone intrigued by the game’s concept. The core revenue model of the game will remain the same, centered around a virtual currency you can purchase online (or by redeeming codes in the game boxes, transorfming all those Battleforge dvd case into prepaid cards) and then use to buy booster packs à la Magic the Gathering containing new units for you to choose from for your battles.

A really nice move, but why wait so late?

At its core, Battleforge is a game centered around its multiplayer experience, and especially the PVP side of it. It isn’t the only mode it offers, but it is the mode that will define the game’s lifespan and long-term success. And any game with a very PVP-centric element have to deal with a very difficult notion: reaching and maintaining the ciritical mass. You always need players to be online to be matched against one  another, preferably, players from all kinds of skill levels. And that’s where you can suffer the most, after a while, your beginning players either have evolved into expert users or moved on. And that will make it more difficult for any newcomer to enter and have a nice experience about the game.

By making its game free, EA Phenomic is more likely to get a continuous stream of new users. Hopefully, enough of them to keep an homogeneous base of players… But why so late?

In online games, especially traditional pay to play MMORPGs, it is quite common to see some form of free trial appear some time after the release of the game, that will include a number of days, possibily via limited version of the game that will prevent you to go beyond a certain zone or a certain level, and very likely forbid you to trade with your fellow players as well as publicly communicate to avoid the trial accounts to be used as mules by gold farmers or as advertising broadcasters. It has been accepted in the game community that any game starting its free trial effort, if not entering its twilight,  is leaving its climatic point for sales. We consider this point of view has been untrue for quite a while, and it is still the first comment given whenever a free trial is announced.

Back in the pre-WOW days, it might have been true, the publishers holding on until the latest as possible to get any free trial program to be launched. But as MMOs became more and more mainstream and the rise of free to play offering, the whole paradigm has changed. When promoting your game box and trying to convince players to go through that first expensive barrier of entry, you are now competing with established games, and services offers that are very difficult to get players from. Back in the dawn of time, you would run your beta to let people get a try of the game, and convince them to switch over then… That was your free trial… However, nowadays, a large portion fo the players are not willing to get into your beta: they might not be able to keep their characters (time is a hard currency), they may not want to test the game for you and have to live through those horrible bugs Beta are supposed to be cluttered with, they may just not want to download a big client to just give it a run for 20 minutes, they certainly want the option to have that test run on their own terms, at the time of their choosing…

Free versions are now playing that role and should honestly be in studio’s plan from day 1. Day 1 isn’t launch day… Day 1 is the day you decide to develop the game. It should be part of the service you have designed and have its own set of features crafted. For instance the slimmer your client, the more likely people will actually log in the game. As a reference, World of Warcraft slim client is 1.4MB (and makes you download less than 100MB afterwards). If they consider they can’t afford a bigger client, you probably shouldn’t either.

In the case of Battleforge though, they would have benefited from a clear communication from the beginning on their plans for a free version. Their model, centered around starter packs and booster packs lends itself very easily to a free version. We don’t believe it would have hurt their initial sales and it would have built a correct image as far as their long term model looked like, creating proper expectations both to would-be users and active players. Especially as this free version seems to have specific dedicated features.

In any case, that’s excellent news for the game and its community and hopefully a sign that more games will embrace a free version as an integral part of their service offering.

Tags: Battleforge, EA, free to play

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