How will you pay for The Secret World?

By Oli Welsh Published 10 March, 2011

Funcom looking at all options.

Funcom is considering all business models for its forthcoming contemporary dark fantasy MMO The Secret World, and has hinted that it may launch with more than one payment option.

Creative director Ragnar Tornquist told Eurogamer at last week's Game Developers Conference that the Norwegian studio is "not going to be locked into one model specifically".

Tornquist told media at GDC that the game was currently in alpha and would begin its first internal beta in two months. He would not say when closed or open public beta testing may begin.

Since Turbine's relaunch of Dungeons & Dragons Online in 2009, several previously subscription-only MMOs have found greater success by launching in free-to-play versions or offering the sale of content and services instead of game time, including The Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest II and Champions Online.

"We haven't announced a business model yet... we're definitely looking at all models. I have to be political about this, I'm not in PR!" Tornquist said, choosing his words carefully.

"But obviously we are going to make this game as successful to everybody as possible, and compare it to the other games out there. So we're not locked into one model, or we're not going to be locked into one model specifically. But we'll talk more about that later on."

The decision will need to be made in conjunction with Funcom's publisher for the game, EA Partners, Tornquist pointed out.

"But yeah, in my view, of course we could have a lot of different options that we could have at launch," he said.

The Secret World is an open-world, massively multiplayer RPG with a contemporary dark fantasy theme. Players join one of three secret societies – the Dragon, Templars and Illuminati – to battle an occult conspiracy threatening the modern-day real world. An intricate story and completely free-form character progression, with no levels, are its hallmarks.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Katanax #1 1 year ago

    *really* liking the art style for this. Shame it's not coming to PS3! Anyone know why?

  • Eraysor #2 1 year ago

    I am praying that this game will be good; the world needs a Cthulhu MMO badly!

  • tomjoadsghost #3 1 year ago

    I wont be paying for it (too old and unsociable for MMO-anything), but i *will* be paying for Dreamfall chapters so please don't go out of business.

  • Hunam #4 1 year ago

    I hope they do what I wish SOE had done with DC Universe, subs for actiony MMO's is kinda pointless, instead charge the cost as a normal game and then stick new content out each month for a nominal fee. So every few months release a new zone or dungeon pack or something. Or do what Guild Wars did, just make 3 full size games one a year all on the same game, then expansions for high level content.

  • Atropos #5 1 year ago

    That looks... cool. Huh. might have to put this on the list now...

  • medicineboy #6 1 year ago

    Funcom's Anarchy Online was the first and last MMORPG that I ever played. I got it at the start of my school summer when I was 14. Nicked me dad's credit card and proceeded to fully kill my social life over the course of three months. It was a good, social MMO with an original storyline and an excellent community. I was always pants at PvP and was crap at working out the in's and out's of classes (what gun or buff's to use, that kind of thing) so I set up a lottery commission with the help of a few other low level players.
    After a few dry runs of it, people started to become really interested. We had a website set up that would announce the numbers and there was about three different lotteries for people depending on their level. One week, I held all the money in my account and the announcement was gonna be made that saturday, there must have been over 15m credits in my account which was a HUGE sum for level 20 players (well, it was in them days). Anyway, as soon as dad checked his credit card statement he marched upstairs, where I would be sitting at the computer invariably and made me cancel my the account right then and there. Up to that point in my life I have never been so angry and upset, all that hard work, all them hours of getting the website up and convincing people it was legit! I mean, I wasn't quite this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc
    but I was really, really ticked.
    After that I couldn't bring myself to ever go back to it, I had to cancel my account with all the credits sitting in it and I remember checking on the website a week later and seeing messages left to my "colleagues" demanding repayment and calling it all a scam. I felt awful for them but I knew explaining would really make things any better and would just make me look like an idiot teenager instead of some scam artist, which is probably better (for me anyway). Ah well.

    Anyhoo, this looks good. Anyone wanna set up a lottery?
    Edited by medicineboy at 10/03/11 @ 14:00

  • Drygore #7 1 year ago

    @medicineboy

    Hehe, nice story :-)

  • Ferral #8 1 year ago

    I would like to see something similar to Guild Wars with this one. Buy the game and no monthly subs but a store where you can buy stuff like extra quest packs etc

  • digitalash #9 1 year ago

    This is the only MMO I'm even vaguely interested in.

    In other news, I'd like to declare a five-year moratorium on the term "dark fantasy".

  • nooneyouknow #10 1 year ago

    Guild Wars

    Definately the best payment method available for an MMO... I'm pretty sure I even spent more money buying all the new titles than I ever did subscribing to other MMOs, and there were a few!

  • levitate #11 1 year ago

    Anarchy Online was my first proper MMO and I loved playing it. But I don't think I'll ever go back to anything made by Funcom, especially after the AoC debacle, I do hope this does well though.