SNK Playmore shocked the gaming community this week when a new trailer surfaced for the developer/publisher's arguably most famous intellectual property, "King of Fighters" (KoF). The footage included fmvs and gameplay of the next iteration of the series, "KoF Online," which is planned for an early 2010 release. As a reminder, "King of Fighters XII" is still planned for an early July release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Fighting game fans are used to annual titles in the series. From 1994 to 2003, the company released a new KoF each year without fail, but this is something new. The trailer for "Online" indicates the gameplay follows the tried-and-true third-person beat' em up formula: move from point A to point B and brawl your way through countless enemies. Although, the official release from developer Dragonfly notes there's a bit more to the title. "It's a full 3D action game maximized the fun factor of confrontation of gamers 'PVP (Player VS Player) and 'PVE (Player VS Environment) where game play will be covered by game environment."

Neither Dragonfly nor SNK Playmore indicated whether or not the title will be modeled as a hub-based MMO similar to "Dungeon Fighter Online," feature purchasable goods through real money transactions, or if it will be a one time purchase, require a subscription to play, or follow the ever-popular free-to-play route. Based on a couple of factors, I think the last is the most likely.

First of all, Dragonfly specializes in the development of free-to-play titles, including some of the biggest to ever hit the Korean market such as "Karma" and its sequel "Karma 2," "GoldSlam," and "Special Force."

Second, I don't know if you've heard, but the free-to-play business model is hot stuff right now. Companies such as Nexon and ijji -- who have profited on the model for years -- plan to add many more titles to their web portals in the next few years, and Funcom, better known for the MMORPG "Age of Conan," plans to roll out several free-to-play titles.

Additionally, Three Rings Design CEO Daniel James recently confessed that the free-to-play version of the company's title "Puzzle Pirates" generates over four times as much revenue each month than the subscription version.

If YOU owned an IP as successful as "KoF" and wanted to release an online version of the game, wouldn't it make sense to build it using one of the industry's fastest-growing business models? Also, wouldn't it make even more sense to hire a wildly successful company with a history rooted in that model to develop said game? The answer is almost TOO obvious...

Posted by Kyle Stallock
June 17, 2009

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