Hellgate: London Chat Log

The chat log for the recent IRC chat with Hellgate: London developers is up at IncGamers.

And that has been quite a challenge this year. It’s not like indie games deliberately hide themselves from detection, so much as getting lost in all the noise.

2007 has been – in my mind, at least – a great year for indie RPGs. We had a slew of outstanding releases, as compared to previous years where we had little besides the perennial Jeff Vogel release and a couple of abandoned-half-finished RPG Maker projects to talk about.

Most online games that make you purchase the game before subscribing come with a free month of subscription. Why haven’t you embraced this ideal with Hellgate: London? I think it would be a good idea to do it for this month and extend the founders offer another month, since subscribers don’t yet know what they’re getting for their money. How are we to know that we want to pay 150 dollars for a permanent subscription?

Bill Roper: Most online MMOs don’t let you play for free past that first month. Hellgate: London let’s you play for free as long as you want. If you want to see if you like the game before subscribing, play for free for as long as you like. We don’t limit you like the games you’re noting.

Maybe it would have been simpler if we would have just made a game with no single player or free online play, given players a month ‘free’ with their $50 purchase and then charge $14.95 a month. We tried to give everyone something – free online play, a way to get new content by subscribing, and all while charging a lower monthly fee.

We have extended the Founder’s offer through the end of the year, and if we think it will help people who are on the fence, we can always extend it further. We’re just very focused on getting people the play experience they are asking for on both the free and subscription sides right now.