The Chronicles of Spellborn to be re-developed as free to play, bankruptcy issues loom

Announcing that they're going F2P in 2010 is a terrible idea. They can't possibly expect that people will pay to play a game that's losing support and will have 0 new content. I can see this going from F2P to dead by 2010 from this move.

A shame, but not a surprise.

The game showed some promise and as someone who played it shortly after launch, i probably would have subscribed if i wasnt also playing other games, and i dont sub to more than one as a rule. They really alienated their fans though with the ridiculos IP Block, which is why i dont see this as a surprise, they really have only got themselves to blame for this, it wasnt the payment model that let them down, the first countries it launched in all loved it, but there wasnt the population there to support the game, server merges have quickly followed and they've lised the IP block but its too late, everyone has already left. Over in acclaim terriotry they held such a long and open beta that no one felt any excitement for the game by the time it was released as they had already played it.

@ScytheNoire

"You will never see Blizzard claim subscriber numbers, but instead they'll use words like accounts or players."

Oh you mean like this from Blizzard:

"World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules."

You mean like the term subscriber used here?:
http://eu.blizzard.com/en/press/080122.html

Quick quote:
"World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America ..."

You ever get tired of being wrong? ;)

Myros

This is sad.
A small bunch of indie developers working not on a new type of MMO.
I liked their new combat system and the spinning deck.

I just found the lack of player interaction and depth to the world that sort of turned me off.

I love it when people tackle new ideas, but i hate it when people turn them down just because they don't like it.

It takes guts to bring out new ideas, and they should be rewarded not bankrupted.

If it keeps people in work, a few players happy, and they can find enough people to buy clothing sets and so on - and keep buying them (hello crafted items, how much?) Great, seriously, go for it and long may it last. But free is only really fit for the lower rungs, it's like aiming to for the lowest pass mark on an examine. If you can't sell it give it away. Don't pretend that it's the subs model fault that your game doesn't attract enough interest.

Compare the price of a months sub to the cost of say a DVD, or a trip to the cinema, let alone a night out in the bars, it's the potential for a months entertainment versus a few hours. Yes the game might be bad but so might the film. Relativly it's nothing and if you can't afford it then playing games it the least of your concerns, you probably can't afford the graphics cards to play them anyway (Been there myself :) )

Personally I say: Stop trying to sell the client!!! Make truly risk free trials. EVE has been forced to take that approach and has done well out of it. Not many people keep playing but not many can moan because it's not as though it cost you anything to find out. And make it no credit card needed as well. Again, if you can't keep enough people hooked after three weeks or so you're games just wrong in the first place.

Free to play is the equivalent of living on Welfare, a sad necessity that requires warm hearted sympathy and does the job of keeping people alive but is certainly nothing to boast about or an 'ideal' model. If you really think making games from the start that need to beg spare change is a good thing god help us.

This should be pay to play. As in, you would need to pay me to play this.

None of this is very surprising.

The deal with Acclaim effectively destroyed any possibilities of a successful launch for this game.

Believe it or not, this game actually had a very solid community before release, a LOT of us were eagerly awaiting a game like this and Spellborn definitely showed some potential, but as soon as they announced the whole Frogster/Mindscape/Acclaim division (with different servers and different launch dates), people just started disbanding, never to return.

R.I.P. Spellborn.

I tried the game for a few levels, it seemed like there were some good ideas but the production was not funded well enough. And by well enough I mean AAA level, there are so many running mmos right now that are pretty decent that unless you are BETTER than almost all of them you are just going to get a very small slice of the disaffected-hardcore pie.

Personally I think the 'bubble' of poorly-funded released-too-early mediocre mmos needs to pop. Game execs need to learn the hard way that half-assing a dnd clone timesink will only lose you money so they will stop cranking them out and a more sustainable ecosystem can develop. I can understand thinking MMO = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ five years ago but you would have to be blind to not see failure as an option now.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This game should have been in development for at least another year. There was no content. It was a rush-job. They got greedy and opened the game for subscriptions to "continue development" but we all know now that they were just in it for the quick $$$ that a launch would produce. 25,000 subs for three months was all they needed to RETIRE. Now they're halting development, putting it into the wringer and they're going to MILK IT FOR ALL ITS WORTH before they put it six feet under.

And its REALLY unfortunate too, because this game had some potential.

It's unbelievable what GREED can do to a company and the brightest of ideas.

@CindyL

"FFXI backstab as a thief, Aion backstap as an assasin..... Both rogues..."

I never played FFXI, so can't comment on it, but in Aion you can't backstab a mob, unless you stun it first or somebody else is tanking it, cause as soon as you aggro it will keep facing you, no matter how much you turn around

I really like COS graphics...those alone almost had me hooked. That and the music video they had a while back that included game footage. I watched it develop a bit before really knowing anything about the game mechanics, or story. When I learned how the game was played, its "style" and its storyline (involving only two races) I felt my desire to play dwindle rapidly. Then I learned it was PVP oriented, and had Mega guilds (houses)... Man I am so tired of guilds and pvp, that dropped it to its knees for me.
When it finally released, I barely gathered enough interest to log in. BUT I did, it was ...different. In good ways and bad. The graphics were indeed very pretty but at the end of my play session... I could already tell I wouldn't be back.
Shame that so much potential was lost in favor of trying to be unique and "original" in a way that just felt awkward and unnecessary.
Sadly and truthfully, if this had been a WOW clone, it may have lived much longer and I would have probably stayed. But it was too unique, and not in ways that worked for me.

A lot of people have misconceptions of the F2P model.

I would say 70% of the people who play F2P games don't buy stuff at all. Maybe 25% buy stuff occasionally.

But the games are designed such that the 5% hardcores who pay heaps end up footing the bill for the other 95%.

And this 5% will spend obscene amounts of money on these games.

So basically they become godlike and untouchable and the other 95% end up being their fodder.

Why would anyone play such a game you ask? Basically if I had the money, there's no limit to how I can deck my toon out. I can level twice as fast as anyone else, hit 5 times harder, run 20% faster, etc etc. The success of the F2P model shows very clearly that people will pay for stuff like that and pay heaps at that.

If I was a freebie why would I play then? Because there is enough of us around that the game doesn't become unbalanced all the time. Which means only for that 5% of the time you run into these big spenders, you get squished. Rest of the time, everyone's on the same playing field.

It's a model that works.

a bit off but continuing the Subscription thing it is not dead at all, i actually think that Micro-Trans games have worse quality because the companies profits are not stable. they don't know what their income will be so its not viable to a business where You have alot of debt, and monthly upkeeping of servers. i will say that Runescape's (yes i know how dare i mention the name) Free option is a viable option because you grab attention and then get the player to pay premium service. but they get to get captured into the game because they have more than 7-14 days to play, and arnt forced to pay. but the game quality is kept up because the new content is made for your P2P, and some trickles down to the F2P. Eureka! a viable plan... so subscription is not dead, and paying $10 so i can wear a fancy dress is not cool. just my 2 cent, keep it or throw it down the
stormdrain...
P.S. no im not A runescape fanboi... i just like their busines model