APB inspires mixed emotions within the games industry. Some people get misty-eyed and reminisce about what might have been. Some people get angry about the the fact the game never achieved its full potential. To many the game is simply a vague memory, of a title from years back, which wasn’t very good. The games media has, by and large, ignored it entirely and pretended it’s not really there.
Yet times have changed. The years when a game had a shelf life measured in weeks or months have gone. Downloadable content, digital distribution and persistent online games have given many games a life cycle of many years.
APB Reloaded was originally released at the end of 2011 and hit Steam, Valve’s massive digital distribution platform shortly afterwards. The game has just celebrated its first anniversary on Steam and announced that APB Reloaded has been in the Top 5 free-to-play games since then, beating titles such as Lord Of The Rings, Star Trek and DC Universe.
In the coming weeks, the Reloaded team is promising that APB Reloaded will introduce a Settling the Score update, which introduces an improved District instancing mechanic, a new scoring system that balances arrests, kills and mission objectives, and new way for players to choose their own spawn point after death.
The company’s also hinted that an all-new APB experience may be revealed in coming months.
Hmm…
Congratulations to the Reloaded team on a year in the Top 5. Here’s to another one. We wonder if the rest of the games industry will look upon this as evidence of success, or remain steadfast in their indifference?
I won’t lie, this surprises me. Greatly.