List: What ways in making the game free do you feel like City of Heroes Freedom will actually make the game better? The new content and our dedication to our fans are just two of the reasons we feel players will continue to enjoy City of Heroes content for years to come and consider upgrading to VIP subscribers! And for new players, the more than seven years of content we’re making available to them for free through Freedom is just a taste of the content that’s to come.

Our passionate fans have been with us through thick and thin, and this new business model provides them with options on how they choose to experience the best super hero game on the market. But certainly as a publisher we recognize that the MMO space has evolved from only a year or two ago.įor City of Heroes, our primary focus has been and always will be, our fans. Ross Borden: Well first of all, every MMO is unique and we don’t believe that “one size fits all” so I can’t generalize for all of NCsoft. list: Do you feel that many NCsoft properties will look towards “freemium” as a primary option from launch? From our own recent successes, we know that it takes an extraordinary amount of planning and work to pull it off well. And it wasn’t a quick fix or flip of a switch for City of Heroes. It wasn’t until we had more data roughly a year and a half ago that we felt comfortable making the decision to change. We had our first internal discussions about City of Heroes offering a free to play component back in 2007 or 2008, but to be honest it represented too much of a risk at the time because MMO customers had not accepted it yet. Ross Borden: Free-to-play online games have been around in the West for several years now but it wasn’t until more recently that we started to see the first subscription-based massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) change their business models or announce upcoming free to play MMOs. We talked with Ross Borden Senior VP of Brand & Business Strategy at NCsoft about the new City of Heroes Freedom, promoted in part by this Ayzenberg Group produced trailer! list: What are you general thoughts on the free-to-play trend which is currently sweeping through the industry. Now, so-called freemium games are starting to rise from the ashes of previously subscription-only MMORPGs, one of which is City of Heroes. While free-to-play has been the primary business model in Asia for online games the past several years, the West has started to catch up rapidly.

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