Red 5 Studios is a collection of former Blizzard and ex-World of Warcraft folks that has spent the past three years working on potentially the hottest MMO you’ve never heard of.  Their level of secrecy and stealth has become almost legendary.  So when an unexpected change in management surfaced last month, Red 5 Studios started showing up on the radar again.  Christian Nutt from Gamasutra sat down and talked to the now Board Chairman and CCO Mark Kern, and now CEO Michael Weingartner about the new management switch, and more importantly, just what are those Red 5’s working on, and where do microtransactions fit into the picture?

Red 5 has set out to be a global company from the get go, with just over 100 staff member currently working on the current project with two-thirds based in America, one-third in China.  Weingartner makes it very clear that the Chinese branch is not just an outsource, but integral to the company, as they include a number of artists and engineers.

And while Kern wouldn’t let any cats out of the bag, he did drop a hint of an upcoming announcement that will give the world just enough of a teaser to show what’s under the hood of this gaming stallion that’s been lurking in the stables for the past three years.

Nutt did ask the vital question of ‘what and how does Red 5 plan on making some money with this title?’ and while his response is expected, his insight to East v. West is quite interesting.

It’s very interesting to watch how these models work, because I don’t think there’s any one answer. I think you have to look at the type of game that you’re making, and even the market that you’re in.

For example, in Asia, there are very few subscription-based games left, aside from WoW and Lineage, for example. And just culturally, there’s a very different expectation there for how you monetize these games. So, we’re paying a lot of attention to that.

On the other hand, in the West, you have an expectation of a level playing field, and if there are going to be things like microtransactions, they shouldn’t affect that balance. We’re very cognizant of that as well.

That said, there are plenty of companies paving the way for the idea of a microtransaction basis, especially in the console world, where you have a lot of downloadable content.

It’s going to be an interesting future out there. We haven’t selected a business model yet. You can expect it to be competitive with what other triple-A games are doing out there, but it’s a very fluid situation right now.

Kern also continues with a highly relevant statement about the current economy and how it factors into game development, monetization models and pricing:

What’s interesting is maybe even asking ourselves, “Hey, how does the economy figure into this? What about the current financial situation that all these homes are going through? Are games really immune, or are people going to be saying, ‘Listen, I don’t want to pay a huge monthly fee. I want some other way to pay for my game?’” That’s another factor that we have to pay attention to.

Weingartner also adds:

Which all ties back to the whole design process of the game. And we’ve been very careful in the design process to accommodate the revenue model.

Given the resumes of both head cheeses at Red 5, along with their ability to successfully fly under the radar with development, they could very well be on to something outstanding.  Whether they’ll choose a subscription or microtransactions monetization module is yet to be seen, but clearly both Weingartner and Kern are very well aware of the up sides of both paths.  It should be a very interesting development to watch just how and the reasoning behind the selected model will unfold.

Stay tuned…..

Related articles

• Former WoW Developes Still Won’t Tell Us What They’re Working On [Mmo]