Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: anthem, bioware, ea games, Electronic Arts

Anthem Almost Became a Free-To-Play Game From BioWare

Some interesting news came out this week just as we enter the next free demo for Anthem, as the game almost was a free-to-play title from BioWare. According to an interview with Gaming Bolt, Anthem director Jonathan Warner and lead producer Ben Irving discuss how the early planning stages of the game would have made it free for everyone, but voted against it for a number of reasons, including not being able to do free DLC packs and making any add-ons a must-pay scenario for the game to make any profit.

"We discussed a free-to-play model early on," Warner said. "It just wasn't a direction that the company was moving in – BioWare or EA. If you go free-to-play, you still have to have a profitable business or we can't continue to do an amazing live service for all our players," Irving added. "So what would you really be trading if you gave the game away for free? There's all that money you'd have to make to be profitable. And so then you get into the territory of being less player-generous. I think in the triple-A space, people are more comfortable paying the entry fee and then having a great player-generous model with no paid DLC, and optional vanity items that you can earn in-game currency to buy anyway."

If the game had been free-to-play, it would have been one of the few AAA titles to go that direction, but we're guessing players would have ended up paying the full-game price and then some down the road if they wanted the expansions. For now, you can try it for free this weekend as the demo will run until Monday morning.

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