Free Realms: Well, Okay, Not THAT Free
In my book, Free Realms has a few serious strikes against it, but what’s interesting is that none of those strikes has to do with whether this looks like a gorgeous and engaging title to play. I think the MMOsphere has proven that there is a HUGE market out there for tweens-and-youngers and entire families who are looking for persistent world games to play together that don’t involve Barrens chat. Runescape, Wizard 101, Toon Town Online… heck, Hello KITTY Online, the genre is starting to wise up that there’s a buttload of money to be made. And I’d think it’s a safe bet that Sony’s going to clean house with Free Realms.
Going back to my reasons why I’ll be resisting this title is that (1) I can’t imagine having tons of spare time to play it in between everything else I’m doing, (2) it’s Sony, ergo Satan has to be involved somehow and I don’t play for that team, and (3) the Kiddy Factor. The Kiddy Factor is what I’m calling this semi-recent phenomenon where games designed specifically for kids become a huge hit with teens and adults, who play them but have to combat feelings of shame that they’re doing so. It’s an insecurity thing, sure, and if you’re past it, you’re better than I. I had difficulty in Wizard 101 with the whole colorforms Harry Potter cutseyness, even though I liked the underlying game. And I predict that Free Realms might be a bit like that. Plus, the Kiddy Factor includes a whole atmosphere of distrust against us probably-child molester adults, throwing up so many protections against any possible griefing, bad mouthing or innuendo that you end up feeling extremely self-conscious about playing around a whole bunch of kids.
This is why these games should put up adult-only servers (Wizards, I’m still looking at you!), but I digress.
Anyway, it’ll come out, it’ll be a hit, and I’ll probably break down and play Free Realms sooner or later. After all, you can’t beat that FREE price tag, eh?
Well, sort of free. This isn’t a charity on behalf of SOE, of course — they gots to pay the bills somehow, either with subscriptions or RMT, and probably both. Today we heard about their $5/month membership plan, which includes more “jobs” (you switch jobs to switch skill sets, or something like that), more characters per account, new quests and other perks. Now, five bucks isn’t a lot, especially in comparison to $15/month MMORPGs, and I think that’s a direct comparison SOE does NOT want to make. Your expectations for a free or $5/month MMO are naturally lower than a $15/month, so there’s more lenient rationalizing that goes on when you both sign up and play it. It’ll be very interesting to see how well this title will do, but… yeah, I’d go ahead and bet on them. Pretty colors and personal pets, how can they lose?
Oh. Yeah. Satan.
- Posted in: Free Realms
I know what you mean. That $5 is looking like a smart pricepoint, especially since they’re likely hoping that families will sign up (I wonder if they’ll do a family oriented subscription also).
And I agree about the non-kiddy servers. I think there’s got to be a huge market for a pretty, social type of virtual world, but you would want to actually be able to talk to people in it and not have every communication limited to pre-approved emotes.
The sad thing is that if this was a scifi kind of setup (ie. space ships and cute aliens) I’d probably go for it. As it is, I’m curious but I know it’s not really my kind of thing.
I’d love adult-only servers for W101, and what is this Sony = Satan thing? I loved EQ and EQ2, the only SOE games I spent/spend much time on. Don’t remember very much Satan.
Oh it’s not any personal grudge against Sony — just a joke aimed at the sheer hatred some people have for the company.
I pulled out an old copy of MMOG and noticed (for maybe the 5th time) their review of the F2P MMO Swords of the New World. If only I hadn’t just downloaded the client for Runes of Magic last night…then again, that’s why we have 100GB HDDs now, isn’t it