14 DAY TRIAL // Trion Worlds has just announced that its massively multiplayer online role-playing game of the shooting variety, Defiance, will be launching with a new business model this summer, becoming a free-to-play game.
The title was originally sold as a retail product, and had a tie in with the SyFy channel's homonymic TV show. The way it should have played out was that the world inside the game would be affected by what happened in the series and vice-versa.
Unfortunately, the show wasn't all that good, and the game wasn't all that good either, and it ended up flopping, despite its potential. But now that the TV show has been resurrected, Trion Worlds has decided to step up their game and try their hand at getting people to play their MMO by transitioning to the free-to-play model.
The change will go live starting June 4, when players all across the globe will be able to create a Defiance account and play the game for free, coinciding with the premiere of the second season of the Defiance TV show.
The June 4 date is good for the PC version of Defiance, and PlayStation 3 players will get the same treatment starting July 15, with Xbox 360 owners apparently having to wait a little bit longer.
For now, Trion Worlds is discussing the details of Defiance's eventual free-to-play release with Microsoft, and there is no word on how much longer Xbox 360 owners might have to wait.
"We're making this transition because we wanted to bring the Defiance experience to a wider audience," creative lead Trick Dempsey tells GameSpot, no doubt guessing the question on everyone's minds.
"Something that we've learned from the lifetime of the product is that more people playing the game makes a more positive experience because we have focused the game on a massive, co-op, PvE, progression-based experience. And having people walking that path with you is just the coolest thing," he continues.
Furthermore, he assures fans and potential future fans of the game that the transition to the free-to-play model will be done "without tricks or traps," and it might be true, since Trion Worlds has had prior experience transitioning a major MMO to the free-to play-business model, when it applied the same treatment to Rift, two years ago.
If you want to learn more about the upcoming change and the differences between free and paid accounts in Defiance, check out the game's official website.