GamersFirst just recently re-released the game APB:Reloaded to much critical adversity in the MMO community. It’s original incarnation, the pay-to-play APB didn’t do so well, and it was crushed beneath the grimy boot heels of cheaters and hackers before its community imploded. This reincarnation is free-to-play and has already netted a population of over 3 million users in the first 8 days after launch on the Steam platform.
Kyt Dotson over at GameOgre brings us a review of this rags-to-popular-acclaim story:
The city is overwhelmed with thugs; gangs roam the streets with impunity and endanger the lives of everyday citizens with their criminality. The only answer? Deputize the entire population and give them guns—lots of guns. At least that’s what the mayor of the city thatAPB: Reloaded is set in decided to do in order to get a handle on crime in her city.
Did it work? Well, the jury’s still out on that one—but it does provide the backdrop to explain the faction mechanics in game. Players are given a choice between Enforcers and Criminals. Essentially making APB a glorified game of cops and robbers played out in the virtual realm. Imagine a sort of collision between Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown. Raids, robberies, car theft and driving, and city maps to run around on. As a game, the PvP aspect rules all and the quest mechanics pit cops against robbers in a grueling match for control of the turf.
As a game, APB started as a pay-to-play MMOFPS but after the failure of that model, and a little shifting around of management, it was re-released as APB: Reloaded by K2 subsidiary Reloaded Productions through GamersFirst and Steam unto the unwashed masses as a free-to-play game.
Looking at the box office for this game, it seems to have done extremely well for itself, netting over 3 million registered users in one week. This makes it the second most popular game on Steam this week—the original release of the pay-to-play game only managed to reach 130,000 players. Jumping into the free-to-play market may have saved their title, much like it did for T3Fun’s Hellgate: Global.
Link, via GameOgre
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