Free trials: Is something up?

So scanning through the masses of information that is available on the MMORPG market at the moment my attention was grabbed by 2 bits of news that seemed a bit out of place. Apparently both Champions Online and Fallen Earth are offering free trials to people at the moment, as well as this both of them are doing so to let people try the halloween events that they have decided to run. Im personally quite suprised that two new games seem to be offering these teasers so early, and I personally think it could be down to one of two things:

1. Both games have had launches that would not exactly be described as a massive fanfare releases. Champions had a whole furor before it was even released because of the Retail Box + Subscription + Item mall which left a lot of people angry. Fallen Earth just seems to have taken a background seat in general, although this is not exactly a bad thing. Now before anyone takes it personally, I am not entirely against either of these 2 games although Champions Online with is pseudo-win-buy mode doesn’t exactly fit in with my impression of a well rounded MMO.

Fallen Earth: Trialing it up

2. Both games have decided that in order to compete effectively in the market they need to keep their efforts up. Us MMO players have had our hands burnt several times in the past by games which promised the universe, yet delivered a single planet, and even then managed to screw shit up so bad that 3/4 of the population ended up dead becuase they didn’t think to add ample water. In this case Champions and Fallen Earth may have been able to grow enough balls to say “Here is our product, judge us and see if we are worthy.” If this does indeed turn out to be the case then thats going to give a good old +reputation from me to both games. It also gives me a far better impression of the game because if the developers are not scared to let a mass of people in to pass judgement, then it means they take pride in their product and feel like it genuinely can compete. In this instance, a game like vanguard, which burnt a lot of fingers took over a year to release a trial, at which point I beleive the developers felt the game was in a good enough place to be showcased.

Either way the trials are there for the taking and its a good idea to give them a try. Fallen Earth trial keys can be obtained from various MMO sites like mmorpg.com or just google for the trial keys. The event itself is called “Days of the Dead.”

The Champions Online free trial information can be located here: http://www.champions-online.com/bloodmoon_weekend?source=newsletter1 seems to just be a case of signup and wait. Id say downloading the game in preperation is a good idea as well or something.