NARAKA: BLADEPOINT 2-Year Anniversary Press Conference
After two years of time, NARAKA: BLADEPOINT held its annual press conference on July 6th Beijing Time, announcing a significant amount of new content, including heroes, skins, gameplay, and mechanics.
Generally speaking, the "anniversary celebration" of a game is an important milestone, and the developers usually choose to announce some significant new content and changes during this period. For NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, although they released a lot of updates that completely changed the old gameplay, the attention of players in the comment section was drawn to another piece of news:
NARAKA: BLADEPOINT will become a free game on July 14th. And for players who have already purchased the game, they will receive reimbursement in the form of the original price equivalent in-game currency, exclusive hero weapon skins, and ten consecutive treasure chests, etc.
NARAKA: BLADEPOINT switching to Free-to-Play on July 14th
For any game that operates on a buy-to-play model, the decision to transition to "free-to-play" needs to be a carefully considered move. From the perspective of the developers, changing the revenue model will inevitably involve adjustments to the operational strategy. At the player level, it is also a challenge to balance the mindset of existing players and retain the new players who came because of the "free-to-play" option.
Looking at the series of actions and data that the developers have taken in the past year, it becomes clear that the decision to make NARAKA: BLADEPOINT changing to free-to-play is not simply an attempt to compensate for a lack of online players, as some players may understand it. Instead, it is a long-term decision that has been carefully planned and strategically implemented.