DC Universe Gets a Boost of 1 Million New Players

The free-to-play model seems to be working for SOE.

“In just one week alone, 1 million new players have joined DCUO with a 50/50 split between PC and PS3," said Lorin Jameson, Executive Director of Development, SOE Austin. While no numbers were given for the player base before the switch, 1 million players is quite a large number. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XI boasts a player base that hovers around that mark, for example. Jameson went on to compare DCUO to Free Realms and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, two games that have done very well for SOE.

"Our business model philosophy of Free to Play Your Way makes DCUO accessible to every type of player so they can choose to play the game in a way that suits them best,” said Jameson. “ We have a lot of exciting things coming up for players to enjoy in the game and are thrilled at the initial enthusiasm for the game's free-to-play transition."

DC Universe F2P Just Too Popular, Server Down

Someone better call Queen Latifah,because DC Universe players are bringing down the house. Literally!The US & EU servers are in a state of limbo, going up and downas players flood in to see Superman break Bane’s back, or viceversa. In response, Deadmeat has posted an announcement on the DCUniverse forums:

'As folks have seen we have hadsome major issues today keeping our US Servers up and running. Weare working very hard to correct the problem and we will be keepingthe servers down until we can deploy new software to help us fix theissues. The response to our new Free to Play model has beenoverwhelming (literally) and we are very excited about all the newplayers in the game. We are working hard to make sure DC UniverseOnline is the best experience possible.'

Hopefully Sony can get this fixed ina manner that does not involve the ritualistic sacrifice of whoeversuggested merging servers right before a free to play transition. Orthe sacrifice of a blogger who questions the viability of saidsacrifice.

DC Universe Online registers 120,000 new players

If the early returns are anyindication, DC Universe Online's free-to-play conversion is lookingpretty successful. Sony Online Entertainment boss John Smedleyrecently tweeted that the superhero MMO picked up 120,000 new playerregistrations since its Tuesday evening cutover.

Smedley also said that concurrentusers swelled 400% during the same time period. The one downside tothe title's newfound popularity is the login queues. Earlier thisyear SOE consolidated all of the game's launch-day shards down to afew "megaservers" and PC Gamer reports that login queuesare paying the price as a flood of F2P tire-kickers descends onGotham City and Metropolis en masse.

Source: PC Gamer