Earlier reports of a possible sell-off of APB by Realtime Worlds have been confirmed as Reloaded Studios has picked up the title. A subsidiary of GamersFirst, Reloaded is a part of the K2 network. The studio plans to give the game another shot in 2011 under a free-to-play model with microtransactions being the main source of income.
"We are obviously very happy to have concluded the sale but at the same time very much regret the loss of jobs as a result of the closure of Realtime Worlds," said Paul Dounis of Begbies Traynor. "As a consequence of the IPR asset sale all outstanding wages and holiday pay claims will be met in full. GamersFirst is a pioneer in the free-to-play space, thus it will be re-launched as a free-to-play model game rather than the previous retail model. People who previously bought the game can now look forward to playing it again once it's back on line."
"The acquisition of APB is an important complement to our main Free2Play third-party publishing business," says Joshua Hong, CEO of GamersFirst. "We believe in putting our gamers first by encouraging the community to tell us what they like or dislike and incorporate that feedback into our on-going evolutionary development process. The core principle is to completely eliminate any economic barrier for our gamers to try a game."
Bjorn Book-Larsson, CTO and COO of GamersFirst, will lead the game development efforts, and he talked about how his team will change APB in the months ahead.
"APB was a game that had several exceptional features and some brilliant ideas, even though it was plagued by some initial balance and monetization issues," he said. "We want to take all the unique features of this title, such as its unparalleled character, weapon and car customization systems, and convert the game to a true free-to-play game. We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we hope to share more details in the near future. In order to put 'Gamers First' we will also actively engage the community in many aspects of all the planned changes."
