All Points Bulletin pricing structure

The Game Room
1

Inspired by the tread on LOTRO going free to play. I was wondering on Dopers views on the pricing structure of the upcoming APB.

Alongside the regular $9.99 monthly sub (with discounts for 3 and 6 month bulk buys), you can purchase 20 hours of playtime for $6.99.

Part of me likes this. I like the idea of purchasing a block of gaming playtime as opposed to a gaming play period. But $6.99 for 20 hours, when a month costs $9.99? That works out at 42 minutes a day on a 28 day cycle.

Personally, if it was $4.99 for those 20 hours I would jump at it. I like the idea of having a certain amount of playing time, as opposed to forking over a tenner whether I have time to play the game this month or not.

Also when you purchase the game you get 50 hours of playtime. I’m not entirely sure about this. My personal approach with a new MMO is to try out the starting levels with as many of the character classes as I can. I expect I will be easily able to do this in the 50 hours, but I really like Warhammer Onlines approach where they let you pay for free up to level 10.

I am interested in hearing all your opinions. Also if any of you happen to (cough)know(cough) any beta testers, their opinions on the game itself would be much appreciated.

2

It’s very boring. You got two zones, and a social zone. After a while, everything repeats. Also, it installs Punkbuster and doesn’t uninstall it when you uninstall the game. Punkbuster is a good thing, except the version they use runs constantly, even if the game isn’t.

The driving is sloppy and wooden. The shooting is RPG style, burning off HP, while requiring FPS aim. There is going to be a day one massive patch.

But the customization of your paper doll is amazing. They expect people to pay large amounts of real money for that.

3

There are better games out there that do the same thing without any kind of fee after the initial box sale. Minus the customization, but i don’t want to pay to play dress up.

4

Thanks for the info. It seems a shame that this new look at pricing is being trialed on such a mediocre sounding game. It will be all the harder to determine if it’s a successful way to market or not.