Adult Swim has returned to a paid distribution model

In 2013, the company had no paid releases. In this – everything is somewhat different. Just yesterday, Castle Doombad was released on the App Store. It has a price tag of $2.99. Why is Adult Swim no longer “about free-to-play”?

Castle Doombad is a simple tower defense in which the player acts as an evil genius who imprisoned the princess. Knights are trying to free the blond heir to the throne, and they need to fix obstacles.

To play the project, you need to pay $ 2.99 for it (or 99 rubles in the Russian store). Why did the publishers of Giant Boulder of Death and Robot Unicorn Attack 2 decide to take such a step in the year of the winning free-to-play?

“As for this game – we discussed it within the team, discussed it with Apple – it seems to us that there are many fans of the tower defense genre who are willing to spend a few dollars on a great project,” Jeff Olsen, vice president of Adult Swim Digital, told GamesBeat.

“Personally, I’ve played Fieldrunners a lot. This is the game that I really like, I played it more than any other game on my smartphone, but I didn’t always want to spend money in it,” he added.

However, this is not the main reason. According to Jeff, the transition to free-to-play of those projects where the gameplay is based on the need to pass a level with a limited number of resources can ruin everything.

Strangely, IAPs are still present in the game. They allow you to improve traps faster. According to Adult Swim, it all comes down to balance again. While an ordinary player can safely go through the entire game without spending on in-game purchases, those who play worse will be glad to have the opportunity to purchase them.

“Every game is special, but if we are talking about tower defense games, it seems to us that the premium distribution model is best suited for them,” Olsen stressed.

From the editorial office:

Perhaps Adult Swim was based immediately on the experience of Plants vs. Zombies 2, which could not break into the box office top, and from classic representatives of the genre, among which there are really no free-2-play projects. But, as it seems to us, this is the way to nowhere. Instead of experimenting with a genre that has not changed much since the release of the first Anomaly three years ago, they claim that such projects cannot digest the free distribution model.   

What do you think?