Saving APB

Some things have changed, however, and some things would never have been the way they are now without everything that happened at Realtime Worlds. Having all of the benefits of a boxed-product mentality during initial development meant that more money was available - a simple fact of the relative pay off times of subscription and free-to-play games.

"Free-to-play games can hit their peak revenues 1000 days from launch," Bjorn Book Larsson explained. "Which puts us at the beginning of year four. That's stunning when you work for a traditional publisher. This model is built on creating long-term sustaining gameplay, which is not an easy task.

"Training people, even internal teams, to understand how that works can be a long process, because folks have been conditioned to think in the traditional day one launch pattern."

Because of those budgetary differences, the development process of a free-to-play title is very different from a boxed product. Mike Boniface explains that it's made APB a unique prospect.

"The development process for APB was quite extensive - five years, end-to-end. One of the things about free-to-play is that you have to take 100 per cent of your funding and spend 50 per cent on development and still have 50 per cent in the bank...because your revenues don't peak until up to four years in. So you've got to have that money.

"So raising capital for that, to go out and say, 'it's going to be at least four or five years before you get any return on your investment,' that's going to be difficult. You wouldn't embark in the same way.

We really rely on the experience of GamersFirst. They've had ten years making free to play games. There's not many others you can point to and say that.

Mike Boniface, general manager, Reloaded Productions

"I think if you start off with the idea of going free to play, you would adjust your life cycle accordingly. That's not to say that you wouldn't end up with the same quality of game, it'd just be a different approach."

The approach seems to be paying off, at least for Reloaded and GamersFirst. Bjorn gives me some figures that show nearly five times as many players in the open beta for APB Reloaded than had ever registered for the boxed game.

Of course, those players all paid $50 for that box, but monetising free to play is exactly what GamersFirst specialises in, running several other successful games in the space, including Fallen Earth and War Rock.

The bulk of APB's money is expected to come from people buying premium accounts, which give bonuses to in-game experience, cash and loot drops, and 'peacocks' - the customisation equivalent of social gaming's whales.

Boniface is confident that the monetisation side of the business is in good hands at GamersFirst, and cedes to the company's experience willingly.

"I think we have a really tight relationship," he says of the US firm. "We have video calls most days. We rely on them heavily because we're the development arm. We still need them for everything else: operations, productions etc. Bjorn is very involved in the company and the game.

"We really rely on the experience of GamersFirst, they've had ten years making free to play games. There's not many others you can point to and say that. There are a lot things where we'll say, 'oh, we should try this.' And they'll say, 'no, we tried that ten years ago, it didn't work.'"

With server-side lag eliminated, cheaters shut out and the almost ubiquitous online gremlin of aimbotting well on the way to extinction, APB Reloaded could well become a glorious comeback story. Combine that with a hugely motivated, skilled and engaged team and there seems little that could go wrong.

So if it's all running so smoothly now, what happened at Realtime Worlds? When I ask him the question, Boniface is frank.

"I think there were a lot of issues at Realtime Worlds. Everyone who was part of the management team has to share the responsibility. There are so many theories, between the managers and the staff, that you can't put your finger on it. No one thing is going to collapse a company like that. I think we all share responsibility on the management side."

Now, things are run a little differently.

"Everyone at the company has a valid opinion," he says, smiling. "Everybody who works there feels they can pipe up with an idea. That gives people a sense of ownership."

Managers, take note.