Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-7146531-20140131090141/@comment-25467429-20141019155957

SlyCooperFan1 wrote: @TheTLMguy Do you realize that it's not up to him? Do you realize that this is how sequels are made? If no one played Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, there wouldn't be a Sly 2: Band of Thieves. If no one played Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, there wouldn't be an Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. If no one played Air Combat, there wouldn't be an Ace Combat 2. You want a sequel to a game? Play the game, support it, and spread the word. That's how it's always worked, and Kono is just saying that that's what we need to keep Ace Combat alive. If no one plays Infinity, if no one supports the series, Bandai Namco will see no reason to continue making more Ace Combat games. It's not abnormal, Kono is not holding the series hostage, and you have no reason to claim he's blackmailing anyone. This is just how the industry works. Well, what I think TLMguy is getting at is the very idea that you would pin the future of the Ace Combat franchise on what is actually an experiment. This F2P model is a first for the series and a realtively new iteration in the industry as a whole. Pinning the life or death of the series to an experimental venture like this, particularly after they've spent so much time over the last several years on these experimental ventures (making an Xbox exclusive, then leaving Strangereal for Assault Horizon games), makes it hard to swallow.

I would go on to note that it's not really moeny they need, its populairty. Companies don't just amass a mountain of cash and sit on it to make a new game. They get loans, financing, and investments. By showing that the game is popular helps convince studios that it's worth making and that people will spend on it. Spending money helps, but what they really need are large numbers of people downloading and playing the game. Unless everyone playing shells out a ton of moeny on fuel packs, buying up space for additional setups, buying contracts, there's no way the money a person is reasonably spending on this game will significantly offest the cost of continuing to run this game, while still leaving enough to pay for an entire new game. I mean spending the $100 plus that some have apparently spent on multiple tournaments based on their rank at the end of those tournaments. F2P models are more about getting attention than making money. It's to get people to jump in on the thought they can get into a game without paying anything for it. Then, hopefully, they'd become enough of a fan to spend something, and that will carry over to the next release by that studio. In other words, they need more downloads and active players, not the futility of a few fans throwing their life savings at a game in hopes that makes a real difference.