David Williams explains the benefit of the free-to-play model for FireFall

Red 5 Studio may be new to the block, but if their staff’s success at the previous studios is any indication of what’s to come, then we certainly should have our eyes peeled for this team. Industry veterans Scott Youngblood and James Macauley are two notable members. Youngblood previously worked as Lead Designer of Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2, while Macauley was the Program Manager of Core Software Services Team for Xbox at Microsoft and played an integral role in crafting the Xbox Live Dashboard; these two have an excellent track record.

Firefall is a freemium (also commonly known as free-to-play) game, which is a somewhat new business model that gamers are still adjusting to. This is a bold move for what looks and plays like a visually stunning triple-A title. The greatest part of all? It won’t cost you a penny to hop in and enjoy the fun! When players hear the term free-to-play, their fears of having to buy their way to the top of the scoreboard quickly arise. This free-to-play FPS attempts to alter that notion. Fortunately, the only items players can purchase game come in the form of purely aesthetic or convenience items. Have the money but not the time necessary to wait for that somewhat rare weapon drop? Not a problem; you can purchase it, albeit at a premium cost.


While not the first of its kind as Battlefield Heroes and Team Fortress 2 have already adopted a free-to-play model, FireFall certainly is unique in that it is the first outing from this independent studio. “The free-to-play model is the way of the future,” affirmed Lead Class Designer, David Williams with whom I had the opportunity to speak with at GamesCom. He went on to explain that gamers are often afflicted with one of two scenarios: an abundance of time and not enough funds, or just the opposite. With the free-to-play model, gamers have the ability to cater their playing experience to their needs.

While this model may not work with all games, developer Turbine has seen a plethora of success with their move from premium, monthly based subscriptions of their MMOs, Dungons and Dragons Online, and more recently, Lord of the Rings Online. Another MMO, Age of Conan, saw an immediate population increase of 300,000 and doubled their revenue in the first month when it went free to play in July.

Another benefit of the free-to-play model, at least in the case of FireFall, is the fact that it is nearly infinitely scalable. The Irvine, CA based development team can start small, initially releasing only a handful of maps, before inquiring within the community as to what they would like to see next. “Want more desert style maps? Let’s ask the forums for their thoughts on the matter, and that will be the direction we head in,” stated Williams. The beauty of this model is that it offers the flexibility for gamers to determine the content they want to experience, and ultimately, it allows for direct interaction between the developers and the community.

Be sure to check back later this week when we get our hands on the latest build of FireFall from PAX Prime , which includes the fourth and final class, the Engineer. Fans of team-based, first-person shooters are in for a treat later this year when the FireFall beta begins on the PC. The initial public outing will consist of a closed beta, which starts in September in late August. Interested in being part of the beta? Why not head over to the forums to see if you can land a spot?

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Posted on August 26, 2011 by Dave Voyles in PC, Previews

About Dave Voyles

Dave is based out of Long Island, NY and is currently working on projects using the Unreal Engine. He earned his degree in Communications from SUNY Oneonta and currently doing his MBA in Management of Information Systems. Dave is also Co-Coordinator for the Indie Games Summer Uprising on Xbox Live. You can follow him on Twitter, at @DaveVoyles

  • http://twitter.com/HoderFF Mathieu Devos

    Been patiently waiting for this game to hit the “stores” since January, have become a member of the community and the amount of interaction we’re getting from the devs is just absolutely fantastic. We have devs constantly online on IRC, active on the forums, a CEO who stops by the forums to pop in and give his thoughts,… This is something I’m not use to, but man, it’s nice to see these people also exist :D . 

    I love the fact that they instantly try to push the pvp for e-sport, that means they’re really thinking about balancing the game properly up to the highest kind of play. 

    For the people attending pax: be sure to check out firefall, they have some fun daily missions where you can win free stuff every day, so get your hands on that and check out the open world sandbox pve, the new gamemode, the new pvp map and the 4th battleframe! 

  • http://twitter.com/SoulOfOrigin Maarten V.

    I’m really excited about this game, I’ve been looking at it’s forums every day since I first saw a video of it in March. Like Mathieu already pointed out the devs are really active and friendly on the forums. They answer all your questions. I have never seen this much dev involvement in any other game’s forums. That’s one of the things that makes Firefall awesome (besides the game looking really fun :p

  • Anonymous

    Awesome! Thank for this interesting article! And thank you for coverage on this game! I’m really excited to see what they did with the cash shop items, definitely going to be seeing what interesting designs and color schemes they thought up for the in game equipment… Really excited about the fact this will be free to play since something I find I can’t afford to pay monthly subscriptions on things just to keep playing. Definitely love the route Firefall took in this respect.

  • Anonymous

    This game is going to be so awesome, I’m excited for it!  So jealous of the people who get to play it at PAX Prime.  Then again I played it at PAX East so I can’t be TOO jealous :)

    There are a couple of things you said I want to address though.  The statement: “Have the money but not the time necessary to wait for that somewhat rare
    weapon drop? Not a problem; you can purchase it, albeit at a premium
    cost,” is a little misleading.  You can’t buy weapons directly from the cash shop in Firefall.  You will however most likely be able to buy things that accelerate the rate at which things drop crystite or items in general, so you can increase your chances of getting a drop.  Just want to make sure people don’t get the wrong idea of the cash shop.

    Also, “the fourth and final class, the Engineer,” is incorrect, they’ve said there will be at least one more class after the Engineer before launch.  We don’t have a clue what it’ll be, but I for one am super excited to find out.

    And I just wanna make sure people know that signing up for the forums doesn’t guarantee you a beta spot, it’s just how you register for the chance.  They’ll be picking people at random from those registered on the forums to invite to the beta, and then expanding the beta by giving people already in the beta invites to hand out to their friends (think Gmail invite system).  There’s almost 185k people registered, so the chances of getting into the initial pool of people is going to be pretty small.

  • Anonymous

    Cant wait to try it. I think JB got most of the errors. The graphics are stunning and the music is unique. This might be a game I would call in sick just to play all day long, but I cant do that, or can I?! The free to play model being used should guarentee this game a good, large community and even put the Studios name up there with the “big dogs”. I havent played it yet and its already my favorite game this year.

  • http://twitter.com/LordBaconz Alex Farmer

    I’m surprised more AAA titles don’t do this. If you have no barrier your player base in bound to expand exponentially (if the game is fun). With this model you don’t need every single player to start buying something in order to become profitable just a small portion needs to buy a cosmetic item every now and then and the game will be profitable. While I see the risk in making a game that could flop because the player base actually has to like the game to fork out some cash if you have a good enough game you could easily make more money then a subscription based game. I’m seriously looking forward to this game because it actually looks good, way better then most of the shovelware that has been popping up lately. I hope Firefall and Red5studios succeeds, it could possibly lead to a much better game market.

  • Anonymous

    The free to play move is quite progressive, and being sure that the shop cant give anyone a decisive edge shows they really care about the game and gamers. Other games i have played that force you to buy weapons or items to beable to even keep up is just pure greed. And if Red5 could think of some kind of nice benefit that wouldnt go against their no pay-to-win senario, i would not mind paying a small monthly subscript for a “premium” account. Not sure what kind of benefits it would give, maybe discounts in the pay store or if they could set it up, a test account that lets you log in with the red 5 team and test new content before it is released. not sure what else i could think of.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t think there is any kind of service or benefit they could provided that would be worth sustaining a subscription fee. But i could be wrong and if they could make something that would indeed be interesting.

  • http://twitter.com/DaveVoyles Dave Voyles

    Thanks Bill! I’ll head back over there again today to verify! Very informative though. I’m really excited for this game, especially after playing the hands on at PAX. I’ll have a preview for it later today. Big changes, but all in a great way.

  • http://twitter.com/DaveVoyles Dave Voyles

    They have a huge marketing push, especially at PAX and GamesCom. They have by far the largest setup here.

  • Anonymous

    @Dave Voyles Well it would be there first atempts at marketing since most of the has been from mouth to mouth or small interviews here and there. And at least they kept quiet about the game (for the most part) until it is just a few short months away from launch. I have seen other games advetize years in advance.

    @Uberperson:disqus , the fee does not need to be big or even re-accuring, it could be as little as 5-10$ a month and if they give you a 10-20% discount in the cash shop then it could be well worth it. or a once a year payment of 20ish dollars to be a premium member to have access to “testing” servers where you can play with the red5 crew would be worth it.

  • http://twitter.com/rammstein812 rammstein812

    Very nice article, just two things that you may want to correct, the closed beta is actually starting this Tuesday Augusts 30th and not only the fourth class will be playable but the PVE side of Firefall too.  

  • Anonymous

    I wish I was there to see it. It sounds much fun and i am so total jealous of you =P

  • Anonymous

    wow that is a nice picture. Did you make that yourself? Even with a 20 discount I cannot see myself buying a subscription. I would need more.

  • Anonymous

    Even though Firefall is not the first of F2P shooters, first doesn’t always mean great. The great thing about Firefall is not only does Red 5 brings a game that is a unique concept in itself, but that they have also been spending a great deal of time refining this concept to make it as much as an epic experience as possible until the very moment we will be able to experience this for ourselves.

  • Anonymous

    I agree, they’ve shown a pretty solid build so far, and it only gets better with each media event.

    Very well polished, and they plan on slowly rolling out content based on what the consumers are asking for.What I enjoyed most is that it’s a well done FPS experience, but at the same time they’ve managed to incorporate MMO aspects as well.

  • Anonymous

    Yep! join the firefall forums and you can see a gallery of my work :P As for the subscription, since it is not very likely to happen anyway, there is no real point in arguing it :P Goodluck getting into the beta :D