Free-to-play RTS AirMech Arena coming to Xbox 360
The free-to-play RTS AirMech is coming to Xbox 360, as "AirMech Arena." It will hit this summer.
Carbon Games' free-to-play RTS AirMech is coming to Xbox 360, rebranded slightly as AirMech Arena. Ubisoft has signed on to publish the game, which will come this summer and feature regular updates with new mechs, maps, and events afterwards.
AirMech centers on players in giant robots fending off waves of enemies to protect their fortresses. AirMech Arena will feature a single-player component, along with multiplayer co-op and competitive play for teams of two to three players. Ubisoft cites this as a way to expand its console portfolio, while exploring more of the free-to-play market.
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Shacknews
replySteve Watts posted a new article, Free-to-play RTS AirMech Arena coming to Xbox 360.
The free-to-play RTS AirMech is coming to Xbox 360, as "AirMech Arena." It will hit this summer.-
I'm going to try to drum up some chatter here, because the PC version is a fun little game and a Shacker is behind it (paging uberartist). I've only ever gotten as far as a bunch of AI matches, so my opinion is whatever, but the game feels really good and seems like it could a great team versus thing. Cool, I just wanted to give it the thread a little love.
Try it free on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/206500/
or get the whole game for $20, a fair take on the free-to-play model:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/206500/-
I agree with this post. AirMech is a lot of fun!
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So many typos though. I really need to take more time with my Shack posts.
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Thanks! Finally we can set a release date--we wanted to sync up the PC and console initial 1.0 release of the game.
Feedback is always welcome (thanks man) since we're trying to do the impossible--spin F2P into something that self-respecting gamers want to play.
Personally I'm sad to see demos go away and the rise of Early Access, where instead of getting to play betas for free (cue "back in my day") now you have to pay to get into betas...
I think F2P done right is a return of demos and the shareware days. I still remember getting that floppy demo of Doom and just being blown away that it was free and I could send the devs directly $20 to get a whole game of it. So yeah, we want to bring that back. :)-
F2P messaging must be so hard given how many ways there are to do it. Even now I couldn't tell you the difference between the $10 starter pack and $20 pack.
Seems like you guys have a pretty strong community going though.-
Right, the $20 thing is AirMech Prime--for people who don't care for the grind. Which is totally cool--myself I'd rather just buy a game (take Starcraft 2) for $20. I think of the F2P side of the game as a demo, though if you play long enough then you can theoretically get it all.
We're not F2P experts at all, in fact we have no idea what we are doing. :) But the thought process is that if you have a job and CAN pay for something, you're likely to run the numbers in your head and realize your time is valuable, fork over the $20, and have all the toys in your toybox.
For those who can't or won't pay, they can just play for free, no big deal. They wouldn't have played your game at all if you had a paywall up, or they'd be pirating it and not playing with everyone else, so this keeps everyone together.
As a game developer it makes me happy. :) Though in the end still very very few people pay. Our theory could be wrong, and maybe people won't pay if they don't have to, since they assume all F2P games are evil.
I sleep well at night because the ONLY person who every had a complaint after buying Prime said it gave him "too much stuff" and he wanted it removed so he could grind and unlock it all. Wut?-
Any plans to release on Xbone?
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No official comment yet. Xbox 360 has the largest active playerbase of any console, previous or next-gen, so that might give a clue to our plans. Follow the players! :)
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Is that the Herzog Zwei-inspired game that ran in Chrome?
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Yes, we started with Native Client since it made the Android/iOS port easy. We have an in-progress version of that, it will be released a bit later.
The ultimate goal is to have AirMech on every platform that there is interest. Technically we could probably get the game running on 3DS if there was enough demand. :)
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For awhile there (and correct me if I'm wrong, uber) there was solid controller support in game, but the menus required a mouse. It was a bummer but I fired it up the other day and seemed to be able to get by with just a controller.
Also in game, playing with a controller is awesome.-
Ingame has always had solid support for the 360 pad--still my preferred way to play. Menu support was lagging for controller because we kept adding/changing things. A big part of the console work was just making all new menus.
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The menus will also work for the PC build, though a few features are not there (chat) because of what is expected for the console way of interacting with others. We'll bring the best of both together for the final PC UI.
I've already seen a lot of things I like from Heroes of the Storm that I intend to borrow as well. ;)
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