Sony’s upcoming title ‘The Agency’ will not be looking at a subscription based model, but rather in-game advertising and microtransactions as steady revenue streams.
The Agency presents a unique quandary for SOE – how do you build on-going revenue streams into a title that spans the gap between MMO’s and FPS’s? The first group is used to monthly subscriptions and a rich virtual world. The second group has no experience with subscriptions, and expects plenty of shoot ‘em up, and is less concerned with playing with others, or simply just shooting them.
While SOE is carefully studying the market reaction to it’s free-to-play title Free Realms, which earlier this week released a line a Topps collectible cards as an additional income stream, and noting what does and what does not work for the community as a whole, all the while making a title enjoyable by all.
Edwin Evans-Thirlwell from Kikizo.com gets the ‘Scoop of the Week’ award, with his outstanding interview with SOE’s Senior World Designer Kevin O’Hara. Some highlighted quotes include:
“The Agency is our online persistent shooter,” he says. “We’re not generally using the term MMO, although we do put a lot of MMO abilities that we’ve learned from our other projects into it. We really want to first and foremost be an action shooter as a game, which means first person or third person view, which really brings in the crowd who like that type of visual experience where when you aim and shoot your skill is important.”
“We’re acutely aware that shooter players are not used to playing monthly fees, so I doubt we’ll go for an outright $15 a month, which works on some of our other projects. So we’re checking out Free Realms to see how they’re going to do with their micro-transactions, and we might incorporate some of that. We’ll definitely have some ad revenue models.”
Having a look at various screenshots and trailer for The Agency, all I can say is, I can haz now plz? I personally I’m not a big player of FPS’s, but this one might just drive me over to the dark side. It looks like this super slick spy shooter would be a perfect place to drop the occasional $20, to pick up a silencer, a sniper scope, and oh, just for kicks, let’s toss a bazooka in there. The rich textures and landscapes, including urban environments lend themselves well to un-obtrusive IGA’s.
