Hawken dev wants to be vanguard of core F2P gaming

The publisher and developer of Hawken want to be the vanguard of hardcore gaming in the free-to-play space, Meteor Entertainment’s Mark Long has said.

Speaking in an interview with Develop, the Meteor CEO insisted the upcoming shooter would not be ‘pay-to-win’, and said he was angered by tactics used by some other developers to encourage player spending in games.

“Some of the things you see developers and publishers doing with mobile and social free-to-play really pisses me off,” said Long.

“We want to be the vanguard of hardcore and core gaming, so we don’t want to go anywhere near that kind of thing. We don’t want it to become pay-to-win, and we will never exploit our players.”

Adhesive Games co-founder and Hawken lead animator Chris Lalli also added that he felt ‘pay-to-win’ was the new dirty word in gaming, and was developing the shooter to ensure it could create a supportive community and keep everyone happy.

“Pay-to-win is the new dirty word in gaming, and rightfully so,” said Lalli.

“We want to avoid that kind of design at all costs. So our model is inspired by free-to-play games that do things correctly, and that have supportive communities.

“We do have items that can only be obtained through real currency, but those are strictly visual or aesthetic flourishes. Things like paint schemes or thruster effects that don’t impact skill level or gameplay in any way. Non-paying players will still have access to a wide variety of visual components as well, so we think everyone will be happy.”

You can read the full interview with Mark Long and Chris Lalli discussing the development of Hawken and their lofty ambitions for the title here.