Anyone who reads this can probably guess where this is going. When I say 'free online games,' what comes to mind? For most people of my generation, up until last year it meant that you were hopping online to find a nice flash version of Tetris, or to set up a bookmark for your mother to play Bejeweled. There was a bit of innovation when I was in high school, the free browser based MMO, Kings of Chaos, Astro Empires, that kind of thing. These things weren't so much games as they were an opportunity for someone who actually spent money on it to trounce those who didn't.
No, what I really mean as far as free online games are games that, five years ago, we would have paid $15 a month to play them and been happy to do it. We all know this model, it's WoW, it's Age of Conan, it is whatever MMO came out at all for the last 15 years. All games of the type have followed the strategy, but lately, it seems like something new has been born. I am far too late to be ground breaking on this subject, but it's phenomenal to see this in action. These game that we used to pay a subscription for are now entirely free, at least to a point.
Many of you know what I'm talking about, up to level 25, you can play WoW for free (with limitations)! You can play a truncated version of D&D Online for free (with limited class and race selections!)! These are models that represent what is really the first wave of mostly free to play games, you can get most of the game experience, but you can't really get the whole thing without putting some cash down.
Which leads me to my point, in past six months or a year, there have been some games that have totally flipped this. So many of the Cryptic Studios titles have taken the new route of being entirely free, you get the whole experience! No caveat, no asterisk, the games are free! Of course there are some limitations, but they don't bog you down.
In the past two days, I've been playing a game that I played for a while when it came out, Star Trek Online. I really had fun with it when it was released, but I was in school, didn't have a lot of time to dedicate and so on. I had fun but could not justify the cost. About 6 months later, I bought another month of it and took part in exactly one microtransaction.
For those of you unfamiliar with that term, let me break it down for you. In the old days, you would buy a game, you would play that game and think to yourself how much fun it would be to have something in the game that wasn't. Your only hope was that there was a mod or a patch that would give it to you, in Doom 3 it was the flashlight duct-taped to the gun mod, in Fallout New Vegas, it's the new Sawyer mod that makes everything way more difficult. These days, the developers are making these kinds of additions, some of the stuff you were able to get by without, but really wished you had. These additions are made available at a fraction of the cost of the actual game, but can add some serious content.
In my case, I was a sucker for the Star Trek movies and bought the Excelsior class vessel, which I still love and still have access to even though I no longer have to pay for the game. The new age of the MMO has made some interesting developments, but let me get to my point.
As I have surveyed so many different ways to utilize this new method of play, free with microtransactions, I believe I've seen the group and the game that has struck the best balance. Riot Games and League of Legends. Let me explain, LoL was born from a custom map from Warcraft 3, not really important. Quickly put, it's an RTS in which you really only control one character and maybe his or her pets. The game has a rotation of 'champions' that you can play for free each week. As you play, you accrue the in-game currency, influence points (IP), which can be used for a myriad of purposes, but I think the best uses are to permanently unlock any champion in the game for play at any time. Alternatively, you can purchase Riot Points (RP) with real world currency and use it toward the same end and more. You can do some things with RP you can't with IP, you can buy new skins for your unlocked champions, for instance.
The thing that I admire most about it, though, is that you can play this game and actually be competitive without ever dropping a cent on it! It may be quicker to drop 20 bucks on an RP card, but you don't HAVE to if you don't want to. That champions you unlock are just as effective if you buy them with one than the other.
I suppose, getting to the end of this, there isn't really a point to the whole diatribe, but you know what? I like the trend, I don't have to spend money to play it and it isn't piracy, it's just fun at a low-to-reasonable price. What could be better? If anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to share them.
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