What would your opinion on Planetary Annihilation as a free-to-play game be? I know (many of us) are after already chipping in some money so we might feel short changed but when I think of multiplayer games I'm generally pretty pleased they have a thriving community. If it takes some sort of free to play element to achieve that I don't care. Even if you take into account what we paid 2.2 million isn't much money. I heard in a Chris Taylor interview the other day Supreme Commander cost 11.5 million to develop. And some people have the gall to complain we're only getting one race! RTS games generally struggle to build a playerbase, outside the established franchises like Command & Conquor and Star Craft. SupCom 1 and 2 are barely more active than TA at this point. There's been a trend recently for FPS games to try take on CoD and Battlefield by being free to play ala Planetside 2 and Tribes. Maybe it's worth a shot? Let the game be free to play with 10 maps/solar systems. Let the people who paid get more map selection and other non-game balance related extras like custom commanders or maybe larger player limits. So long as it's not pay-to-win or there's some stupid player leveling mechanic I'm good.
F2P works for MMOs, it's a terrible model for RTSs. Neutrino has also explicitly stated he doesn't want to make PA F2P, so on this one our opinions are a little bit redundant.
As someone who's donated too much money, I personally wouldn't mind it. However, since the 15-20 dollar tiers give "The finished game" as a reward, I highly doubt it'll be released as f2p.
This is something that has been discussed before and has not been favourably received by the community. Additionally the existence of a pre-order site and it being confirmed to be sold upon release means it has been confirmed to not be a free to play game, at least not for a good while. I seem to get the impression that it is not going to be priced at the level that most triple A games are that have a massive development budget to earn back (something which Uber are not working with) and so the entry requirements to the game would not be so onerous as to prevent people from playing it. I would also like to say that it is important to sell a game and acquire an audience/community based on the games merits and gameplay rather than "because it is free" I see the "expand audience" argument used a lot as a reason for having a free to play model and I dont think this is a valid argument. If a game is good it will get an audience, independent of cost. PA has an existing community in the fans of the Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation series so it is not like it doesn't have a core audience to kick it off, the game also has the advantage of mostly being paid off already so almost everything they earn from release will be profit (excluding any amount that was over their budget and maintenance overheads) To have a free to play model that would enable Uber to have an income from this game would also require there to be a micro transaction service implemented, something which would take up initial development time that would be better spent on the game itself. This is an idea which has also not been met well. Were it to purchase new units or abilities it would affect balance and receive criticisms of being pay2win, and if they were cosmetic then it would begin to work against one of the core design goals which is to make the game as easily readable as possible from a game play perspective. This is the reason for the simplified stylised aesthetic common in all of the design so far and having Team Fortress 2 style cosmetic additions would detract from this design ethos. And having maps and player features restricted to people who pay would simply create a divide in your community between those who paid and those who didn't. This is not a good idea as you want a unified community. [Edit]: Cant believe I didn't think of this earlier, regarding one of your points Given the game is going to be using a procedural generator for solar systems and planets this as a part of a free to play model is more or less invalid.
