Jael Irish
Smash Apprentice
SOE Declaration: Infantry Online Free Starting June 26
Infantry Online, one of my favorite online games of all-time, is finally free to play again. When I first played it in the 10th and 11th grade (2000-2002), the game was in open beta and didn’t require a subscription. There were a ton of gamers who played and the game was thriving. However, once Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) said that the game would become pay to play (P2P), everyone stopped playing and the community around the game, for the most part, died.
Since Infantry went P2P, SOE has suffered greatly by supporting a game nobody thought was worth $7 a month. Of course, SOE tried to rationalize a subscription fee by including two other games in the package. Cosmic Rift and Tanarus, one a space shooter and the other a tank shooter, were fun games, but weren’t enough to persuade gamers to cough up the money. Because of SOE’s decision, an alternative to Infantry Online and the SOE subscription free arose called Free Infantry. I wrote an article about Free Infantry a while back. The game was exactly the same as Infantry Online, but it was being developed by old community members that used to play Infantry Online. It also had a larger community than SOE’s official version of the game, which is really sad.
However, SOE moderators made an announcement on March 23, 2007 explaining that all three of the SOE Pass games (Infantry, Cosmic Rift, and Tanarus) will be free to play starting on June 26! Check out the official post by SOE moderator sp33dy_g here:
Hello All, It’s been a few months in the making but finally… it is my great pleasure to make the following announcement:Starting June 26th, the Station Pass games, Infantry, Cosmic Rift, and Tanarus, will be completely free. Yes, 100% (no money needed, no small print, no exceptions, etc) free!In order to make this transition, as of May 26th, billing will be turned off to prevent anyone else from subscribing and to allow everyone’s paid time to be completed. Since some accounts will expire before the end of the month and before the games are set to free, guest accounts will have to be used for that transitional period. My apologies for any inconvenience this transitional period may cause, but there’s no way around it, and well, I think some may say the end result makes it worth it.
Additionally, as some of you may have already guessed from my not overly cryptic posts, we’re busy at work documenting the Infantry & Cosmic Rift map editors which we will make publicly available soon after we make the switch to free.
tl;dr
Its free again! I just found out...bit old but not to many people are playing like the old days.
Infantry Online, one of my favorite online games of all-time, is finally free to play again. When I first played it in the 10th and 11th grade (2000-2002), the game was in open beta and didn’t require a subscription. There were a ton of gamers who played and the game was thriving. However, once Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) said that the game would become pay to play (P2P), everyone stopped playing and the community around the game, for the most part, died.
Since Infantry went P2P, SOE has suffered greatly by supporting a game nobody thought was worth $7 a month. Of course, SOE tried to rationalize a subscription fee by including two other games in the package. Cosmic Rift and Tanarus, one a space shooter and the other a tank shooter, were fun games, but weren’t enough to persuade gamers to cough up the money. Because of SOE’s decision, an alternative to Infantry Online and the SOE subscription free arose called Free Infantry. I wrote an article about Free Infantry a while back. The game was exactly the same as Infantry Online, but it was being developed by old community members that used to play Infantry Online. It also had a larger community than SOE’s official version of the game, which is really sad.
However, SOE moderators made an announcement on March 23, 2007 explaining that all three of the SOE Pass games (Infantry, Cosmic Rift, and Tanarus) will be free to play starting on June 26! Check out the official post by SOE moderator sp33dy_g here:
Hello All, It’s been a few months in the making but finally… it is my great pleasure to make the following announcement:Starting June 26th, the Station Pass games, Infantry, Cosmic Rift, and Tanarus, will be completely free. Yes, 100% (no money needed, no small print, no exceptions, etc) free!In order to make this transition, as of May 26th, billing will be turned off to prevent anyone else from subscribing and to allow everyone’s paid time to be completed. Since some accounts will expire before the end of the month and before the games are set to free, guest accounts will have to be used for that transitional period. My apologies for any inconvenience this transitional period may cause, but there’s no way around it, and well, I think some may say the end result makes it worth it.
Additionally, as some of you may have already guessed from my not overly cryptic posts, we’re busy at work documenting the Infantry & Cosmic Rift map editors which we will make publicly available soon after we make the switch to free.
tl;dr
Its free again! I just found out...bit old but not to many people are playing like the old days.
