Fallen Earth to go Free to Play

An exclusive announcement on Massively has indicated that Fallen Earth – whose hardware will be transitioning to GamersFirst’s care – will be going to a free-to-play model, while maintaining the original development team.

The game will offer a fully free to play model, and three subscription levels which offer reward points and perks. Subscription players will earn more experience than regular players, and VIPs can share their bonuses with their party. All players will be able to enjoy the same content for free.

No date for the change has been set yet, but we might expect to see it as soon as this year. GamersFirst also publishes APB Reloaded.

Fallen Earth Gameplay Screenshot

Source:

GAMERSFIRST ACQUIRES FALLEN EARTH

Fallen Earth Team Joins Reloaded Productions to Support Continued Development of Post-Apocalyptic MMO

Irvine, Calif and Cary, NC, June 16, 2011 – A leading publisher of Free2Play® massively multiplayer online games, GamersFirst (www.gamersfirst.com) announced today the acquisition of the highly acclaimed post-apocalyptic third-person action MMO Fallen Earth from Fallen Earth, LLC. The current 12-person creative team behind Fallen Earth, headed by Lead Game Designer Marie “Aro Sei” Croall, will join GamersFirst’s development studio Reloaded Productions to lead the transition of Fallen Earth to a hybrid Free2Play game with an ongoing membership system.

Going forward GamersFirst will provide all publishing services, backend development and technical operations while Croall’s team will continue their work on the upcoming Alpha County expansion.

“When talks began with GamersFirst, we were hoping to find a way to continue supporting our dystopian wastelanders who roam our truly unique MMO,” said Marie Croall, lead designer for Reloaded Productions. “By joining the Reloaded Productions team and becoming part of the GamersFirst family we can now continue delivering an uncompromising game experience for our die-hard fans. Even better, the backing of an established global publisher also means we will share our game with millions of new players across the planet.”

The Fallen Earth team is joined by GamersFirst veterans Tracy Spaight, executive designer, and Joseph Willmon, associate game director, to integrate the award-winning MMO into the broader GamersFirst universe. Spaight and Willmon bring years of Free2Play publishing and development expertise to an already stellar Fallen Earth crew.

Once transitioned to Free2Play, Fallen Earth will give free players completely unrestricted permanent access to every zone and instance in the game. Several types of services, items and conveniences will continue being sold in the Fallen Earth store. Subscriptions will be replaced by a tiered membership system that caters to players of all levels of engagement, and each membership will include reward points that can be used to obtain store items for free on a monthly basis.

Current subscribers who maintain their subscriptions through the estimated five month transition period will collect significant rewards when the game completes the transition, projected for Q4 of this year. “Veteran Rewards” will include lifetime upgrades to a premium tier membership for the price of an existing subscription, as well as unique veteran-only items, the value of which will be determined by the number of months the player subscribed between June 2011 and the completion of the transition.

“Anyone who played Fallen Earth knows just how rich and engaging its game world is, and we feel extremely lucky to bring this game into our family of free MMO games,” said Joe Rush, vice president of game operations for GamersFirst. “This acquisition gives Fallen Earth instant economies of scale as part of the GamersFirst family, and by sharing our many years of revenue generation strategies and publishing expertise we expect the Fallen Earth franchise to continue growing for years to come.”

“Fallen Earth has a number of unique and innovative game features, and we felt it was important to incorporate this outstanding creative team into Reloaded Productions’ staff,” said Bjorn Book-Larsson, COO of GamersFirst and head of Reloaded Productions. “It was important to retain what made Fallen Earth popular and unique, and we are therefore thrilled to have this particular band of passionate game creators joining our growing global studio team.”

Fallen Earth is a post-apocalyptic MMO set near the Grand Canyon in 2156. A hybrid first person shooter and role-playing game, Fallen Earth features real-time twitch-based combat, six factions, a classless advancement system and a powerful crafting system in which players can make 95 percent of in-game items. With 1000 square kilometers of territory to explore, Fallen Earth players can experience an unparalleled game world while completing more than 5,500 game missions, including the ability to capture towns and territory.