Pay a fee, or don’t!
The upcoming MMO WildStar looks pretty solid. It’s got a good sense of humor, style, and appears to be different enough to fill a certain niche. Today the team at NCSoft has officially announced the game’s business model, answering the long-awaited question of “will WildStar be free-to-play?” The answer is an unsure “kinda?”
All players must first buy the game for $60, which comes with one month of free time. From there, players have two options: pay a monthly fee of $15, or purchase “C.R.E.D.D.” with in-game gold. Each C.R.E.D.D. is worth one month of game time, and the in-game price will fluctuate depending on the economy at the time. It’s all explained here in this FAQ.
The “alternate route” seems nice, though I worry that in order to keep it up, players will have to spend most of their time farming money to keep playing WildStar. I am glad that they’ve decided to go primarily with the subscription model though, since, to me, it shows confidence in their game and respect to their paying customers.
