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Two years ago Sony Online Entertainment launched massively multiplayer online first-person shooter PlanetSide 2 on PC - and it's still going strong. It's a game where hundreds of players work together to complete objectives on huge battlefields. Soldiers jump around firing assault rifles as others pilot futuristic helicopters overhead. For PlanetSide 2's battles, big is definitely better. Eurogamer recently tried to work out just how big.PlanetSide 2 is also a free-to-play game. Now, of course, free-to-play doesn't necessarily mean free. F2P almost always means in-game items for sale. This, we all know by now, is how these companies make their money. But for Sony Online Entertainment the trick is to balance having to satisfy the businessmen while satisfying the players. The studio has to keep the lights on. But if PlanetSide 2 were pay-to-win, then, simply, we wouldn't play at all.
And so, creative director Matt Higby tells Eurogamer in a sweeping interview looking back over PlanetSide 2's first two years of existence, SOE is "leaving money on the table". Some things it will sell, some things it will not. Keeping the money rolling as it improves and adds content to the game, manages the loyal and vocal PlanetSide community and develops the long-awaited PlayStation 4 version (how's that getting on, by the way?) has been tough. But, we discover, just a few tweets can make it all seem worthwhile.
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