SOE releases free-to-play game for $20

Sony Online Entertainment just recently launched an early access version of their upcoming online zombie survival game, H1Z1. The game obviously takes inspiration from titles like DayZ and WarZ, attempting to create a persistent online world in a zombie apocalypse setting, which is something I'm personally totally OK with, as the original concept behind DayZ is great but has still never really been perfected yet, so I'm all for bringing more competition into this genre until somebody gets it right. Zombie settings in video games of course are hardly something new, but the way in which DayZ brought it to life was really unique because players would actually have to scavenge for food and supplies to survive, and when you die, there is a real sense of permanence to it because you lose all your gear, so getting into a shootout with other players or being chased down by zombies would create some incredibly tense and fun moments.

But of course, Sony only saw dollar signs and had to fuck everything up. Now how did they manage to do this you might ask? Well, H1Z1 is supposed to be a free-to-play game that would be supported through microtransactions. OK, fair enough. Lots of free-to-play games use this model. They gotta make money through it somehow, so as long as it's not pay-to-win, it's all fine, right? Well not really, because even though the game is supposedly "free-to-play", this early access version actually costs $20 upfront. $20 for an incomplete free-to-play game! You can't actually start playing the game until you pay $20. Since when did a free-to-play game cost money upfront?! Is this seriously what the industry has come to at this point? We've gone from developers cutting content out of the game and making us pay separately for day one DLC or disc-locked DLC, to releasing buggy incomplete games that serve as unofficial public beta tests until the developers can patch them up months later, to now just straight up openly telling players "Yeah, we know the game is incomplete, but we're going to release it anyway AND make you pay for it even though it's supposed to be free-to-play." Brilliant Sony! Just brilliant.

Brilliant!

So this just in guys, I guess World of Warcraft is "free-to-play" now! Let's all head on over to WoW, because it's only $15 a month, and after that for the next 30 days, the game is "free-to-play"! Isn't free-to-play just great guys? No, no. Just stop it. You don't just get to change the definition of free-to-play to whatever the hell you want so you can use it as a friendly buzzword to lure in more players. Your game isn't free-to-play if you have to pay $20 for it.

But OK, let's just backtrack a little bit and try to give SOE the benefit of the doubt here. This is after all supposed to be the early access version of the game, and when H1Z1 actually goes live with its full game release, they will probably make it be free-to-play then. But that still doesn't make any sense. Because typically the way the early access model is supposed to work--at least if you're following a good early access model like Minecraft--is that you pay less for supporting the game early into its development because you're technically getting an incomplete product, so it's a reward to dedicated fans who supported it early on that they get to have the game at a cheaper price, and as time goes on with the game's development, the pricing gets more expensive towards its release date. Here they have it completely backwards. You're paying $20 for a game that will eventually just be free-to-play anyway. You don't save any money, and you don't even get a complete game.

But then again, let's still try to give Sony the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're having trouble getting funding for the game, so this early access model that they're using is their answer to that, but that just raises more questions. Have we forgotten who is producing this title? Sony Online Entertainment. This is not some fresh upstart indie developer hurting for cash. This is a long-established tried-and-true big game publisher. What the hell do they need funding for? So their CEO can make a swimming pool out of dollar bills? They're not an indie developer. They're not struggling for money. Why is Sony even using the early access model in any form? Is this some hugely risky never-been-done-before project? "I don't know guys, the zombie apocalypse setting has never been done before. I've never seen zombies in video games; we're taking a pretty big risk here." Yeah, I'm sure that's what went down when Sony was contemplating development of this game. They have absolutely no reason to be doing this. You have the money, so fund your own damn game Sony, and release it when it's actually ready. Early access is a model that should be used for indie developers looking to seek extra funding to finish development, not big-name publishers that already have the means and resources available to fund their projects.

But OK again, I'm still trying to give Sony the benefit of the doubt here. It does say on their Steam page that they're trying to be as transparent with the game's development as possible, so part of achieving this level of transparency that they're seeking involves getting player feedback in the middle of development so that they can make improvements based on what the players want. OK, that's a noble goal. That's respectable. But then why do you still charge $20?! You don't need to charge $20 if you're just looking for player input with your game. In fact you'd probably get more player input if the game were actually free. It doesn't matter what angle you come at this from. Sony has no excuse for charging $20 for early access.

But it gets worse. So on top of the fact that you have to pay $20 for an incomplete game that is supposed to be free-to-play, from what I hear, it turns out that the microtransaction model is in fact pay-to-win after all, as players who fork over the extra cash get huge advantages over players that don't, and it's practically a necessity to get by in the game. So even after you pay your initial $20, you're still stuck needing to keep paying more in order to accomplish anything in the game. Bravo Sony, you've really set a new standard that even EA would be jealous of.

Yep, better skip this game.

This is really sad and stupid because if Sony would just put their due diligence into properly funding and developing the game, the concept behind it is actually really solid, and it would easily sell and make plenty of money for them without pissing off their customers. This isn't even a controversial or ground-breaking new concept that players might avoid because it's just too strange and unique. This is zombie survival; zombies are one of the most common overused video game tropes in the world. DayZ has already proven to be quite profitable even in its incomplete form. All Sony had to do was just polish it up and offer us a more complete game, and they would effortlessly beat even DayZ's sales figures. There's no need for all this early access and pay-to-win nonsense.