Forgot password
Enter the email address you used when you joined and we'll send you instructions to reset your password.
If you used Apple or Google to create your account, this process will create a password for your existing account.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Reset password instructions sent. If you have an account with us, you will receive an email within a few minutes.
Something went wrong. Try again or contact support if the problem persists.
Category:
News

Blade & Soul Going Free to Play in China – Pondering on a Western Release

The best part of waking up is K-pop in your cup~!
Image of Ashley Shankle
Ashley Shankle
|

Published: Apr 29, 2013 01:09 pm

This article is over 11 years old and may contain outdated information

Tencent Games is taking the reigns on Blade & Soul‘s Chinese localization and release, and unsurprisingly Tencent has decided that the free to play model is the way to go.

Recommended Videos

Along with the standard free to play cash shop, Blade & Soul China will have VIP memberships available. VIP accounts will receive special titles, cosmetic items, and small in-game boosts to their MP recovery, base HP, and base defends. These boosts do not go past 5%.

I can’t decide whether the above sounds good or not, to be honest. Tencent promises that cosmetic items will not have any stat boosts on them, but at the same time it looks like upgrade/enchantment items are to be available in the cash shop. This on its own is nothing surprising or new to MMOs, but it is one of my least favorite cash shop practices.

ArcheAge, B&S and China

Hyung-Tae Kim mentioned Blade & Soul would be seeing an English release in 2014 a couple of weeks ago, which seems like a fairly timely release considering the flood of MMORPGs we’re going to see released this year in North America and Europe.

Another Korean MMO, ArcheAge, is also being localized and published in China as a free to play title by Tencent Games. Both ArcheAge and Blade & Soul are pay to play in Korea and are seeing a F2P conversion when they hit China’s shores.

Are we going to see this same type of payment model switch when they are localized for the English-speaking audience?

Something to consider:

NCSoft owns and will be localizing Blade & Soul for the Western market. Considering the company’s recent history and bad luck with subscription models in North America, it’s very likely the game will be completely free to play once localized.

ArcheAge is not affiliated with NCSoft in any way, but is seeing a free to play release in China and I believe will probably be seeing either a buy to pay or free to play model under Western publisher Trion Worlds.

Trion still runs RIFT as a mostly pay to play title, but they have migrated toward a F2P model with their more recent Defiance. I honestly couldn’t see them localizing a Korean MMORPG with a fully pay to play business model, though buy to play would be ideal.

I guess the long and the short of it is: It is very likely both Blade & Soul and ArcheAge will be released as either B2P or F2P titles in NA/EU.
Post Tag:
china
f2p
free to play
p2p
tencent
tencent games
trion
trion worlds
GameSkinny is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
related content
Author
Image of Ashley Shankle
Ashley Shankle
Ashley's been with GameSkinny since the start, and is a certified loot goblin. Has a crippling Darktide problem, 500 hours on only Ogryn (hidden level over 300). Currently playing Darktide, GTFO, RoRR, Palworld, and Immortal Life.
twitter