14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Ironclad Games, best known for creating the very successful Sins of a Solar Empire space-based strategy game and its expansions, has announced that it is entering the free-to-play genre with its upcoming Sins of a Dark Age.
But the developers have made it clear that they are not simply using the hugely popular business gaming trend just so that they can make money.
Blair Fraser, who is one of the three Ironclad co-founders, spoke to Gamasutra about the free-to-play business model and revealed that the team played quite a lot of games that use the concept, including Zynga stuff, in order to see whether they could use it for their next game.
He says, “The number one thing that we didn't want was to be selling in-game power, especially in strategy games. Strategy games should be your skill, your brain, your tactical and strategic thought against someone else's, or against the enemy AI's strategies.”
The team believes that players should never be able to win by simply paying the developers for a special power or unit and Ironclad will never use Sins of a Dark Age to simply make money.
Blair added, “You need the volume, the Blizzard-level number of people to make that 'get-in-the-game' experience as short as possible. If you don't have that critical mass, that whole premise is going to fall flat on its face. The best way to get that volume was to give the game away, and hope that people are willing to support the work that you're doing, and that they are interested in additional content.”
For Sins of a Dark Age gamers will be able to pay in order to get access to new heroes, new commanders, more factions and cosmetic options.
The game will mix traditional real-time strategy elements with role-playing and some concepts from the Massive Online Battle Arena space.