Boss Key Productions’ BlueStreak may seem rather innocuous on the surface but it’s created by one of the most controversial – and successful – veterans in the gaming industry, Cliff Bleszinski. Of all the things to shock potential players though, the news that BlueStreak would be a free to play shooter was most intriguing. Would the game support something like, say, micro-transactions?
Bleszinski was asked as much in a recent Reddit AMA and responded that, “Free to Play is one of those genres that means something entirely different depending on the game. For every model that feels like Las Vegas methods (Zynga, Candy Crush) there’s folks who do it right, like League of Legends, or WarFrame.
“I’ve never shipped a Free to Play game before. That’s one of the MANY reasons why we’re going with Nexon, they can provide server structures and a global peek into gamers of all types and guide us into a game that’s more ‘Shut up and take my money’ as opposed to ‘shaking you down for your hard earned cash.’ So we’ll experiment, tweak, tune, and most importantly, build a positive community around the game as we develop it.”
Bleszinski is insistent in making sure that “anyone can just jump in and play your darned game” but wants to avoid a “pay to win scenario”.
“Since this game is a shooter I want that one player who likes the game and doesn’t feel like spending any money to be able to take down the trust fund kid that’s spent a ton of money to have All The Stuff.
“I want to make a skill based game whereas someone who is really, really good is seen as a player with nearly amazing abilities. Sure, once in a while the person who sucks might get lucky with a stray shot and take that person down, but I want to craft a game that has weapons and moves that are easy to learn but to really make them sing takes thousands of hours of play just like a professional athlete would. Anyone can toss a football, but Drew Brees can get it through the tire at X yards every time.”
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