image via Focus Home Interactive
Oh, boy.
This announcement made its way to the wider world yesterday, and I am so hopeful. I love Mordheim. I'd play it all the time if I had the opportunity.
I am also a fan of Blood Bowl. I have the analog board game version, as well as the very good PC-version of the game. (and the older computer game, somewhere.)
So when I read the announcement of the Mordheim PC game, my heart started to palpitate and my wallet started to twitter.
And then I began to worry.
A Mordheim game would be the perfect place for micro-purchase marketing strategies. Have a guy without a decent weapon? Use your warband's gold piece stockpile to buy one (just like the tabletop game!). If you're plum out of gold pieces, why not use some real money? A couple of bucks for a good two-hander.
Lack the patience to earn those levels through hard work and experience? Credit card your way to dominance.
Need a Hired Sword for your next adventure? Skip a meal and make a purchase. The best equipment could be in-game priced in such a way to make game-play-based purchases infeasible, impractical, or impossible. The searching algorithms could be rigged to encourage micro-purchases.
I wouldn't buy a game based on this model. I want to buy my games whole.
But if Mordheim were moved to the computer, faithfully, like the Blood Bowl game, this could be a wondrous thing, indeed.
Why am I so worried that I'll be disappointed?