Article by FTG Contributor Forrest Larson
Earlier this week, Firefly Studios, the makers behind the Stronghold series and Space Colony (A pretty obscure favorite of mine) announced today that their free-to-play MMO, titled Stronghold Kingdoms, will be released on Amazon’s new Free-to-Play store. The store also launches with titles such as Super Monday Night Combat, World of Tanks, and Runescape. The thing that makes the Amazon store different than, say, Steam or any other sort of F2P storefront, is that you can buy bonuses directly from Amazon’s store, have them link it it up with your account, and you have the goods immediately.
Stronghold Kingdoms is a MMORTS (Massivily Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy) game similar to StarCraft, but with a ton of people. In SHK, it’s important to work together with your fellow town villagers to build up a parish. It looks pretty fun, but the more important story is the growth of free-to-play games. With the iPhone, Facebook, and games such as these as startling examples, decent games are no longer needing a $300 console. Don’t get me wrong though, console games are considered of a much greater quality than these, but this is awfully reminiscent of the early days of gaming. Simple games were made for the NES, Commodore 64, systems like that, so one only wonders when these types of games will hit the next level.
Stronghold Kingdoms is available right now, for free, through multiple sites, but you receive $10 of in game credit if you play through Amazon.
Source – PR
