The Alphaville Herald

Free Realms Not All That Free

by Alphaville Herald on 04/05/09 at 7:36 am

Creating demand for Station Cash spacebux

by Suzie Skybeam

You'll have to pay to experience the Pro Chef Square Shard

“What is Free Realms? A free online world where you rule!” said that banner on the web site. Recalling similar bold claims from Second Life (“Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined, created and owned by its residents”) my first thought was, what’s the catch? And how much am I going to end up paying for this?

A free account at Free Realms will let you try out the game to see if you like it, but if you do like it, you’ll probably find that you need to pay the $4.99 monthly subscription to progress further through the game. And on top of that, there’s real money trading for items that will make you look cool or help you progress faster.

You do want a magic sword that glows in the dark, don’t you? Of course you do!

In Free Realms, characters can belong to multiple classes, and switch between them according to the task at hand. You can fight monsters as a Ninja, and then switch back to being a Chef when it’s time to cook some provisions for your next adventure. A free account will let you play a good selection of interesting character classes, but some of them – such as Wizard  or Medic – are only accessible from subscription accounts.

As you walk through the virtual world, an icon over the head of a non-player character lets you know that if you were to go and talk to them, you would find out about a quest. Some NPC’s show a slightly different icon with a badge that lets you know they would have had a quest for you if you had a subscription account, but seeing as you’re playing from a free account, you’re right out of luck. Shame about that.

Once your character has advanced a few levels and you’re tackling the slightly more difficult quests, you’ll start winning items that you can only be used from pay accounts.

The Chef class might be initially free to play, but when you’ve won a “Pro Chef Square Shard” and can’t use it, you realize that it’s really only free at the starting levels. You don’t suddenly hit a wall that stops you from making progress, but items that would let you advance faster are inaccessible. If you’re wondering what on Earth a “Pro Chef Square Shard” is, don’t worry – the game mechanics are introduced gradually as you advance in level, so you can start playing without needing to know all of it.

Even if you’re decided that you like the game enough that you’re willing to pay a monthly subscription, you still have to pay extra for some avatar customizations or power-ups that let you advance faster. “Station Cash” costs $5 (U.S.) for 500 points. A cool-looking but useless avatar customization such as a tuxedo will cost you 300 Station Cash (i.e. $3 U.S.). For 200 Station Cash (i.e. $2) you can turn into a wolf for thirty minutes.

It’s a great game, but it is “free” not in the sense of “free beer” or “free speech”, but “no such thing as a free lunch”.