APB to launch in early July
APB, the cop vs robbers MMO from Real Time Worlds, has recieved a launch date - June 29th in the US, July 2nd in Europe. At the same time, the company behind the title have announced the pricing structure for the game, which is quite interesting to say the least.
The game will cost $49.99/£34.99/€49.99, and with that comes 50 game hours. Nope, no "30 first days free" in APB - you can play it for 50 hours. According to the game's updated FAQ-page, you will also get "unlimited time in APB's social districts customising, socialising and trading on the marketplace". Considering how advanced APB's character creator is, that's pretty nice of them - some of us will probably spend quite a lot of time just tweaking our characters to make them look exactly right.
When those 50 hours of "action game play", the FAQ-page states that "you have flexibility to top up your action game time from as little as $6.99 (£5.59, €6.29) for an additional 20 hours, while more frequent players can switch to a 30-day unlimited package for only $9.99 (£7.99, €8.99) with discounts available for 90 and 180 days.
The retail package also contains a bonus 100 RTW points towards your next purchases.
An additional benefit to this evolutionary model is the ability for you to convert your own customisations and rewards to tradable products to give to friends or clan-mates or to place on the Marketplace to earn more RTW points (convertible to game time) or in-game cash."
MMO-vets like myself are probably raising an eyebrow or two at this announcement.
