Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Looks as though the most recent APB purchase rumour was the true one. Reloaded Productions, owned by GamersFirst, owned by the K2 Network, owned by entropy, has bought it all up, and plans to make it free-to-play during the second half of next year. Whatever they paid, it’s one heck of a bargain for the technology they now own. As dodgy as the game may have been, the customisation tech in there is unparalleled. They plan to redevelop a few aspects, the GamersFirst dude explaining,

“We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we will share more details in the near future. In order to put ‘Gamers First’ we will also actively engage the community in many aspects of all the planned changes.”

Mediocre subscription MMOs don’t die, they just go free-to-play. And so it seems that after the high-profile collapse of Realtime Worlds, following the release of MMO flop APB, the game is looking likely to re-emerge some time toward the end of this year. GI.biz reports that the K2 Network, owners of F2P service GamersFirst, is paying around £1.5 million for the intellectual property. This is currently unconfirmed, and K2 declined to respond to GI’s newshound sniffing, so maybe this could go the way of the Codies rumour from last week, or September’s erroneous Epic gossip. Call me cynical. But if it’s happening, it’ll be a way for fans of the game to re-enter its world, without the completely daft gametime-purchasing system + micro-transactions that accompanied the game’s launch.