Free = Kinda Free



John Smedley's talk on "Subscriptions vs Micro-transactions" at the
Leipzig Games Convention this past week brought an interesting tidbit
of news: SOE is considering making its upcoming spy MMOG, The Agency,
free to play. With some hooks, of course. While the game wouldn't be
subscription-based, players would only gain access to certain areas by
paying for them. The folks over at PS3 Fanboy offered up the story:

Smedley acknowledged that consumers are used to the subscription based
model (as is SOE, considering their long history of subscription based
MMOs), but said that they "believe very strongly that this is the
future of MMO gaming, but we also know that it is something that
players have an issue with... There's going to be an aftermarket, and
we want to control it so that players don't get duped into having
something switched out from them."

You can read the rest href="http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/08/23/sony-wants-the-agency-to-be-free-to-play/">here.