Next Ridge Racer Drifts Toward Free To Play Model

[Earnest Cavalli]

Next Ridge Racer Drifts Toward Free To Play Model


Free to play games are the way of the future, and not just for MMOs if the upcoming Ridge Racer Driftopia is any indication.

Alongside Tekken, Ridge Racer really defined Namco Bandai during the era of the original PlayStation. While the former franchise has grown into the world's best-selling fighting game franchise, the latter has somewhat fallen off the radar. While Ridge Racer sequels did tidy business during the PlayStation's life span, the series grew increasingly obscure during the PlayStation 2 and 3 eras. 2012's RIDGERACER Unbounded came and went with little fanfare (beyond fans wondering what Namco Bandai was thinking with that baffling naming scheme).

Despite this, Ridge Racer refuses to die, and this morning Namco Bandai announced the next Ridge Racer sequel, a free to play downloadable racer for the PC and PlayStation 3. Dubbed Ridge Racer Driftopia, the title is being developed by Bugbear Entertainment, the same people responsible for Unbounded. It is slated to debut at some point during 2013. As you can see from the announcement trailer embedded above, Driftopia is an arcade-style racer that heavily focuses on drifting, as apparently that's still what the kids are into these days.

While we'll grant that Driftopia looks suitably nice, this move to the free to play model seems somewhat desperate. "Our last Ridge Racer game didn't really sell all that well, so what if we fund the next one with in-game ads and a plethora of DLC?" Namco Bandai seems to be thinking. Then again, the free to play business model has been proven successful by a number of games, so why couldn't it work for an arcade racer?

Further, if it does work for Ridge Racer what's to stop Namco Bandai from launching the next Tekken or Soulcalibur as a free to play fighter subsidized by the sales of character customization equipment? I doubt Tekken lead Katsuhiro Harada would ever allow this to happen - the man is a traditionalist who even opposes the idea of rampant DLC - but it makes for an intriguing/depressing thought exercise, no?

Source: YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mnmeo3aOpzg]


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[synobal]

I hope they have solar powered cars or something because I really don't want to pay for gas for my imaginary car.

 

[Rad Party God]

I have mixed feelings towards these news. On the one hand, awesome!, but on the other... well, let's say that I'm not a fan of playing racing games online. If they can manage the lag and all that technical stuff, then it definitely might be an awesome racer.

 

[diesector21]

Ridge Racer kinda grew a cult following the more it fell into obscurity, and right now Bugbear is alienating the entire RR fanbase with this kind of crap. RR7 was the first PS3 game I got, and I enjoyed it a lot, since (at the time in 2006) it established a visual and auditory atmosphere that other racing games didn't have - it wasn't just about the cars or the driving mechanics, it was the music, radical car designs, and the embodiment of a modern driving utopia. Bugbear tossed that all away in favor in RR:Unbounded, which was pretty much a mediocre Burnout clone. They certainly aren't going to succeed again if they try the same thing here for Driftopia.

I have no idea what caused Namco Bandai to deliver the IP to a third-party. A lot of people (including myself) are clamoring for Ridge Racer 8, as evidenced by the YouTube comments. Even if the hopefully-eventual RR8 won't sell very well, I can guarantee that it will rake in more cash than RRU or Driftopia.

 

[Scrustle]

Meh.

I really like Bugbear as a studio, the Flatout games were great, but Unbounded wasn't brilliant. It was okay, but I lost interest in it very fast, despite the pretty robust track creator. Incidentally, I found you could exploit that to get really easy credits in the game by creating very simple tracks that the A.I simply couldn't drive.

This game looks like it's reusing a LOT of assets from that game though. Same cars, same tracks, same visual style, and same handling model. And that's the most worrying bit. The handling model in that game was okay, but by far the worst part of it was drifting. Felt really bad. A game based around that does not sound like a good idea.

I'm kind of surprised to see this at all though. I thought Bugbear were busy working on their "next car game". That looks like it has a lot of potential. Perhaps a return to their form with Flatout. But then again, seeing how recycled this game looks, they're probably not diverting much resources towards it.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

Next Ridge Racer Drifts Toward Free To Play Model

A F2P Ridge Racer game? Sounds a little odd, but I do love me some Ridge Racer so assuming this new one isn't...

Dubbed Ridge Racer Driftopia, the title is being developed by Bugbear Entertainment, the same people responsible for Unbounded.

... well fuck, any hopes I had for this game just got flung right out the door.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

sorry ridge racer driftopia, I'm sure you are a decent game, but anymore whenever I hear the name ridge racer I can only think of