Id Software may introduce a pay "premium" service for browser-based shooter Quake Live, depending on how the community reacts to the full release.
Speaking in the latest issue of PC Zone, John Carmack said that the project is still "very much an experiment", and id will be waiting to see how things go "marketing wise".
"In the beginning Quake Live will be completely ad-supported, it's not out of the question that eventually we'll have some kind of a premium service," said Carmack.
"But we don't know what it's going to be yet, and we're certainly going out with the completely free-to-play model. As the community grows and we start seeing what people actually want to get out of it we may offer some other things there.
"There could be a huge possible range of successes that we could see on here," he added, "and if [Quake Live] does well we could end up keeping people on here indefinitely, growing the community, polishing things up, adding new content. As long as it can be supportable like that."
At the moment plans for Quake Live involve a fully ad-supported business model, with billboards and posters displaying various real-world advertisements.
Get the entire interview in issue 198 of PC Zone, in shops tomorrow.
We can only hope that the results of their experiment are positive (for gamers and developers) and the rest of the industry pays attention.
Granted, there are other free to play games out there, but none as high profile as Quake Live, which I guess would be something else that would be factored into the equation.
Glad that they are going with free to play from the start, rather than premium then free to play
@Pherik - 100% agreed. The free to play model is still in it's infancy in the North American market, and you're right on the money...let's hope it's a positive experience all the way around, and that the rest of the industry pays attention.
Granted, there are plenty of microtransaciton based titles out there, but sadly, none of them have the high profile that Quake does. EA's Battlefield Heroes is another one to watch closely. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that both publishers can do it right!
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