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Codemasters says that its new RaceNet service has been designed as a free service from the ground up. But the publisher won’t rule out investigating premium-based models in the future.
In immediate terms, Codemasters is hoping to gather fans under the banner of RaceNet. To this end, the lack of a service charge will justify itself, says Ian Smith, associate producer on DiRT Showdown.
“At this stage, we’re not in a position to comment about that [premium models],” said Smith, speaking at Namco’s Gamers Day in Las Vegas.
“I think at the moment we believe that the service being free justifies itself, because we want people to engage with our content. It can only benefit us for people to join up to our service and for us to be able to keep them involved in our games. Our games will come across much better if there’s an active community of people who are playing them online, engaging with them, adding to the community in some way. That’s going to help us develop in the future what we do in the longer life-cycle of the titles.
“That’s not to say that at some point in time we might not investigate the premium aspect of it. But at the moment, we’re launching it as a free service.”
Smith added that the unifying nature of RaceNet will help Codemasters to reach fans who might be unaware of some of their franchises.
“I think there’s enough reward for us to make people aware of the fact that we also make the F1 game,” he said. The US audience is maybe more DiRT-centric, and they maybe don’t have too much visibility of the F1 content.
“If we can let them know that’s there, and it’s a game that’s done to Codemasters standards and they’re going to have a fun experience with it, then that’s benefit enough for us, I think. That’s how we’re launching it anyway.”
RaceNet launches in conjunction with the DiRT Showdown demo on May 1. For more information about the service, which allows users to carry a single profile across all of Codemasters’ racing titles, click here.
