Gas Powered Games’ head Chris Taylor has decided to take a stand - a stand against traditionally-priced retail games. Taylor’s team is working on the free-to-play Age of Empires Online and he believes the freemium model is the future. AoE Online was originally in development at Robot Entertainment, but Gas Powered Games took over at Microsoft Games Studios’ behest.
"When I have this experience, where I can get a 'freemium' game that's incredible, huge with arguably hundreds of hours of free gameplay, why would I go to the store and spend $50 in the old model?" Taylor said to Eurogamer. "I'm so done with that. It's fair to say I'm done dropping that kind of money. I want this in everything. Take any favorite game of mine.”
Taylor is emphatic on this point, adding that gamers want to play for free and spend when the mood strikes them.
"To me it's the future. Absolutely it's the future. If I had to make any prognostications about the gaming industry, that's the easiest one I will have made in 10 years. This model is coming. It's here to stay. It's good on every level,” he predicted. “It's happening elsewhere, too. It's what's going to make our industry really, truly dominate as a form of entertainment."
Taylor is confident that Age of Empires Online will revitalize the RTS genre. Other contenders include the recently-released Starcraft II, Trion’s End of Nations MMO, and the new Command & Conquer in development at EA’s RTS-centric Victory Games.
“This is what RTS gaming has become: Age of Empires Online," Taylor stated. "It is online, it has community, friends, but that is the beginning. It means when the game goes out, you don't get a hump and you go down. When the game comes out it goes up infinitely. It means every month or so you see cool new things, rather than six months, a year, or maybe never. It's a continuous rhythm.”
Age of Empires Online is currently in open beta, with a retail and digital release planned for Fall.
