GamesBeat: It sounds like you’re going to introduce a lot of variations on these scenarios.
Howard: We have a variety of versus modes already. Over time — Storm is an example — we’ll continue to add more of them. Players can continue to see some of what they expect and some things that they won’t expect, some new modes that we’re excited to spring on people.
Above: Assisting a player.
GamesBeat: Talk about the challenge of executing on a high-quality fast shooter that people play over broadband. U.S. broadband rates are not the best in the world, right?
Howard: We’ve done a lot of work tuning the networking in the game to be latency-tolerant. Most modern connections are going to be fine. There’s the occasional issue when we have Internet problems in any country in the world, but for most users, we’ve located servers in places where you’re going to see good performance.
GamesBeat: So, it’s not necessarily the kind of game where you’d have to turn off a bunch of features in order to get the best speed?
Howard: Not necessarily, no. … Our official low spec is an Nvidia 8600 chipset. That’s more than five years old. So, many gamers in the U.S. and Europe are on better hardware. They’re going to experience the game in really nice flavors. It’s important to be as broad-based as we can, so we still continue to support that mid spec, but we want to give users Crytek quality, even on machines that aren’t the latest and greatest.
GamesBeat: Have you thought about advertising or subscriptions as a way to also support the game?
Howard: At this point, probably not. Never say never, but the free-to-play model has worked for us in other regions. If users tell us there are other ways they’d like to pay for the game, we’re not against that. That’s exciting for us. We see the core of free to play as putting control back in the player’s hands. We think we have good options today. If options like subscriptions prove to be something players tell us they want, then, that’s a thing we would invest in.
Above: An extraction event in Warface.
GamesBeat: Do you feel like you have a niche in the shooter realm, or are you fighting in a crowded market?
Howard: There are some great shooters out there that we enjoy playing. It’s an established, successful market. But in the free-to-play space, there hasn’t been a breakout title that offered modern military combat in the free-to-play world. What has existed hasn’t been of the highest quality. Crytek wanted to deliver triple-A retail quality in a free-to-play experience. The fact that we’re free to play, the fact that we’re so accessible, the fact that you can get to us through the browser with GFACE, this means we’re going to find an audience.
GamesBeat: What’s the latest with GFACE Web service? Has the interface evolved very much?
Howard: I’d say it’s gotten a lot tighter. It’s about making sure it delivers on its core mission. Focusing GFACE around a set of core services. It manages your friends. It manages launching the game. It manages getting into the environment and making sure those core scenarios are done well. GFACE continues to be an important part of the glue in our self-publishing effort. You’ll continue to see us invest in it. For now, it’s just the thing that makes getting into Warface easy for our players. That’s a great message to start with. We believe GFACE will grow over time, but right now, it just makes getting into Warface easier.
Above: Soldiers in combat.
GamesBeat: Do you think Warface would be doable on consoles or something like a Steam machine?
Howard: That’s an interesting question. Officially, we haven’t considered or commented on anything with the SteamOS side of things. It’s an interesting idea. At a technical level, a number of our developers are quite excited about it. But as a business, we’ve yet to make any decisions.
As far as consoles go, we have announced with Microsoft that the Warface 360 Edition will be coming to the Xbox 360 platform some time next year. That’s an exciting partnership. The core Warface experience coming to the console just continues to extend the brand. Some players are on PC. Some are on console. And we’re glad to reach more and more players either way.
