The XCOM mobile edition will include almost all PC version content at a “premium” price.
A lot of mobile games these days come packaged with microtransactions, and it’s easy to understand why. iPhone and iPad titles have development costs like any other, but most are usually priced $5 or less, if not free altogether. In such a system, microtransactions are the easiest way for publishers and developers to earn a paycheck, although that won’t be the case for XCOM: Enemy Unknown. After receiving an impressive number of accolades for its challenging story campaign and turn-based combat, 2K Games announced that XCOM would come to life on all iOS platforms. The only question was whether this new version would adopt a traditional mobile pricing system, to which co-creator Jake Solomon gave a strong, emphatic “no”.
“Oh God, please… no,” Solomon said to IGN. “I’m not sure I would be able to sleep at night. My food would taste like ashes in my mouth.” According to Solomon, the full game can be purchased in a single transaction, although he was unable to give a specific number. “We’re going to be offering XCOM at a premium, up-front, fair price. We’re excited to be in this position and excited to see how people respond.”
At the very least, XCOM‘s price tag should be lower than the $50 required for PC versions. If so, mobile gamers will be in for a treat, as almost all content will be ported to iOS. “We got [XCOM] to run pretty quickly, and said ‘wow’,” Solomon said. “But then we had to get to work solving the storage problem – this is a game we originally shipped on DVD. We saved some space by lowering some texture resolutions, but we also reduced the map count. The maps in XCOM are open play spaces – we still have more included than you’ll encounter in a single play through. But we cut them down to get the game down to size.”
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will launch sometime in Summer 2013, while the OSX port is scheduled for April 25. The Slingshot and Elite Soldier DLC will not be included, but Solomon admits the possibility may be revisited later on.
Source: IGN
