After Sony Online Entertainment made the decision to make DC Universe Online free-to-play (FtP) and abandoned their subscription model they have seen a mammoth 700% increase in revenue from what was a struggling game. This begs the question, should MAG follow a similar course and offer the downloadable version of the game for free on the PSN?
There could be many positives to taking this action for Zipper. MAG has been out for nearly two years and with the release of several AAA titles, such as COD and BF, and many other non FPS titles, this has taken a toll on the player base. With numbers so low, Interdiction and Escalation have become unplayable, and queue times for Acquisition and Domination getting longer to the point that you have to wait for the single game in progress to end before there are enough players to start a new one.
If Zipper decided to make MAG FtP, this could open up the game to: 1) a huge audience of players who have grown tired of the stale FPS genre, and 2) grab the players from the Battle Warfare 3 conglomerate when the new game smell starts to wear away. With these boosts in player numbers Zipper could see new sales for DLC packs, and character slots generating them more income. All this can then be reinvested into MAG to create a new patch to the address lag and balancing issues, or a new DLC to bring something fresh to existing players such as a new Dom map or the promised clan battle system that never happened.
With sales of MAG stagnating there isn’t much sales revenue for Zipper to lose out on in the late stages of MAG's life by making it free-to-play. With that said, it's hard to know though whether this may be too late in MAG's life. Would people still be interested in MAG that haven’t tried it before? In addition, with the current issues in the game, is it even in an acceptable to re-release this game to the public? What about the people who paid the full retail price for it only to become free to play? Perhaps some awesome permanent gun or other 'perk?'
Leave a comment below with your thoughts on whether you would like to see MAG become free-to-play, and/or vote on the column to the right ---->
of course, this would be a nice option, and bring new life to an old classic. That being said, it needs the clan vs clan support.
ReplyDeletegreat idea
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something here? MAG is already free to play considering that it was never subscription based.I think that question is phrased wrong and what is really meant is "Should MAG be FREE",as in a free downloadable game via PS Store.
ReplyDeleteHonestly,making MAG a free game would only kill it more UNLESS they opened up more servers to accommodate a larger player base.Adding more players to the server would only worsen an already bad play experience.The last thing this game needs is more lag and general server instability.