A few console titles, like Battlefield 1942 and Counterstrike, have been able to recruit enough people to ensure that there’s a big rumble happening at any time of day. And that’s where the free-to-play business model becomes an attractive proposition. That is, if enough players sign up to have 30 people online whenever someone wants to play. A major feature of the game is the 15-on-15 multiplayer matches, which promise plentiful opportunities for teamwork, interesting group dynamics, and loads of chaotic and exhilarating action. Like a lot of recent online games, characters are class-based each player chooses to play as a warrior, a mage, or a cleric, each with different special attacks and team-support powers. Happy Wars is a gleefully chaotic online free-for-all, in which players storm and defend massive castles, capture statues, and slaughter each other with cartoonish abandon. The developer will pay off development costs by charging players for costume pieces, funny-looking weapons, and in-game items which can be combined for combat bonuses. But for all those with paid-up Gamertags, the game will be fully playable, no money down, from day one.

Microsoft will still get its cut, of course - the game is only free for those who are already paying $60 a year for Xbox Live Gold Membership. The free-to-play model has now branded all three stallions in the console trifecta, with Dust 514 bringing the model to the Playstation 3, and Nintendo building support for free-to-play revenue streams into the Wii U’s online architecture. But that’s about to change with the announcement that the Japanese multiplayer brawler Happy Wars is going free-to-play on Xbox Live. While free-to-play has become important in the PC and mobile gaming spaces, consoles have stuck to the old-fashioned notion of providing software in exchange for money.

Today, the always-fractious PC gaming world has thrown a new business model into the ring: free-to-play, where you get a game for nothing but have to pay to enjoy all the features, see all the levels, or to customize your character. You bought a game, you played the game, and life was good. Once upon a time, the video-game marketplace was simple.

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