11th December 2003, 1:15 PM
Hmm... there were some early pay-to-play PC networks, but they all failed eventually... enough games were free that the pay ones couldn't make it. Some did last several years, though, so they had some success...
Uh, there's a MM sci-fi RTS that's pay-to-play and whose name escapes me, I think that's somewhat successful (not mass-market, but enough to stay in operation...)... but on PC at this point pretty much just MM games are pay-to-play. There are just so many that are free that companies can't justify making you pay for others...
X-Box Live is in the tradition of things like Kali, MPlayer, Heat.net, etc -- those old pay online services I mentioned. Those all lasted a while but were killed by the free ones, or had to go free... we'll see if that model succeeds this time around on consoles where the person controlling the online system can control whether games use it or not a lot more. :)
Uh, there's a MM sci-fi RTS that's pay-to-play and whose name escapes me, I think that's somewhat successful (not mass-market, but enough to stay in operation...)... but on PC at this point pretty much just MM games are pay-to-play. There are just so many that are free that companies can't justify making you pay for others...
X-Box Live is in the tradition of things like Kali, MPlayer, Heat.net, etc -- those old pay online services I mentioned. Those all lasted a while but were killed by the free ones, or had to go free... we'll see if that model succeeds this time around on consoles where the person controlling the online system can control whether games use it or not a lot more. :)
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