I told you yesterday that Real Racing 3 will be released on February 28 in the App Store, and then like the title will be available for free for iDevice owners. Those from EA Games "embrace" the freemium model in the hope of generating more profit from these games, and the user experience will be affected. Those from Toucharcade had the opportunity to test the title and although we will be able to download the game for free from the App Store, unfortunately we will have to pay at certain times, and below I will explain exactly how the mechanism works.
There are two types of currency in the game, the dollars you earn by racing and the gold coins you receive by purchasing in-app purchases or by reaching certain objectives. You use the dollars to buy new cars, to repair existing cars, or to make the necessary upgrades. You use the gold coins to remove the time limits imposed by the developers. More precisely, when your car is damaged during a race, you will have to wait a few minutes for repairs, the time period varying depending on the broken part and the multitude of components that need to be repaired.
Also for certain periods of time you will have to wait when you want to install an upgrade in the car, or when you want to unlock and buy a new car. Gold money removes time periods, but each timer requires the payment of a certain amount of money, so in the middle it is a fairly large investment to finish the game. The time periods set for these tasks are reasonable, but they will disturb the continuous flow of the gameplay, so many will be tempted to purchase gold coins instead of waiting.
To be honest, I would have preferred to pay €6 and have the freedom to do whatever I want, but the freemium model generates more money, and the system of in-app purchases is a bit harder to exploit, especially if everything works synced with EA Games servers.
