14 DAY TRIAL // Bohemia Interactive, developers of the highly acclaimed military shooter series Arma, has offered some details regarding how the company plans to keep the Arma 3 playerbase together.
The Czech developer has shared their development roadmap for Arma 3 a while back, highlighting what's to come over the course of 2014 and 2015, namely several DLC packs and a major expansion.
That could prove to be a problem in the long run, as DLC and expansions tend to fragment the userbase of a specific title over time, especially regarding the multiplayer experience. While single-player modes don't really factor in the equation, the fracture becomes evident when players that do not own certain DLC packs are prevented from joining their friends' matches.
Bohemia Interactive has always maintained that Arma 3 is an open platform, and as such the team behind it has set their sights on coming up with an alternative solution to the userbase fragmentation issue.
The strategy that the company has come up with is somewhat experimental, but it may end up being a real winner in the long run. The company plans to make all Arma 3 downloadable content available to all owners of Arma 3, but to impose several reasonable restrictions to players who have not purchased them.
This will allow players who do not own all Arma 3 DLC to play together with those who do, as well as providing a generous free-trial system for those who are considering purchasing DLC but want to figure out whether it would be worth it.
In addition to this, players will be able to purchase the downloadable content directly from inside the game, which will unlock the restricted content immediately, without having to download additional data or exit the game to apply an update. Of course, gamers will still be able to buy the DLC outside of the game, through the Steam Store.
Bohemia Interactive's experimental solution will offer a great advantage to their players but also to the development team, as they will no longer have to maintain separate data sets and to test every combination of DLC ownership for every game update.
"A key component of our new approach is the idea that, while new content is paid, new features are entirely free. This enables us to grow the platform with significant new gameplay updates for everyone who owns Arma 3, while offering up great extra content for those players who want to experience it and support our ongoing development," Joris-Jan Van 't Land, Arma 3 project lead, explained.
Players who want to try out the new DLC approach that the company is proposing can check out the first paid DLC released for the game, Arma 3 Karts, a fun side-step from all the military sandbox action.
