Ice hockey and more is coming to Rocket League, and this should help developer Psyonix keep its fans playing.
Rocket League got a handful of paid downloadable content in October, but now the studio responsible for the car-soccer game is looking ahead to some free patches that could drastically change the way people play it. The first update, called Mutators, will introduce a number of options to mess with the game’s gravity, car behaviors, and ball shape/size in November. For example, you can turn the ball into a cube, which completely alters the way it bounces and moves. Then in December, Rocket League will get a free ice-hockey Mutator mode, which turns the field into a patch of ice and the ball into a puck. Considering Rocket League already has a lot in common with that sport, this seems like a great fit.
But while these additions are nice, they show that Psyonix has a thoughtful plan to keep gamers engaged — and the more people playing Rocket League, the more people could potentially spend money on paid DLC.
Maximizing sales from microtransactions is important for a game like Rocket League. It has sold well on PC, where it is still among the top 10 best sellers on that platform. But it was also part of Sony’s PlayStation Plus Instant Library, which gave it away “for free” to anyone who subscribes to that premium PlayStation service. While Psyonix clearly made some money from that deal, it was likely planning to give up some of the upfront cash with the expectation that it could generate plenty of revenue from add-ons if it had enough people playing.
And it looks like that plan is working. Rocket League is one of the most played games on PlayStation Network, and if you go to play the game online, you’ll see the Delorean time machine from Back to the Future, which Psyonix sold for $2, in nearly every match you play. And giving away free updates to keep fans coming back week after week means that the studio can keep introducing cosmetic items to help pad outs its revenues.