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Savage 2 is Free, but Why?

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Yesterday S2 Games announced that Savage 2: A Tortured Soul for the PC is now freeware. We ask: what gives?

Of course, a little free gaming is nothing to complain about. But when developers and publishers throw out those free titles like bait on the hook, cautious games sensing something fishy have to question the motives behind such offers. Are the games crap? Will they lock up our PCs to the point that they become weapons of mass destruction and set the house ablaze?   Is this some ploy to track software pirates?

So when S2 Games announced yesterday that Savage 2: Tortured Soul is now considered freeware, curious minds just had to know, thus we fired an email over to S2 Games for clarification. "Savage 2 is nearing the end of it's one year support," said S2 Games' Shawn Tooley. "We felt that giving away the game for free and selling Prime accounts that would allow access to stats, game replays, clans, extra inventory slots, etc would be a great way to continue to monetize the product. "

And while the official website sports the words "100% FREE" in bold red letters, gamers will quickly discover that a Prime account will cost a one-time fee of $9.99 for those looking for the fore-mentioned additional inventory slots, access to player statistics, the ability to download captured replays of all matches and more (wait, didn't he just say that?) . Gamers must create an account (either Free or Prime) in order to download the client, and will need a 2.2GHz Pentium 4, 1GB of RAM and a DirectX 9. 0 compliant graphics card at the very minimum.

Released early this year, Savage 2: A Tortured Soul combines real-time strategy with the action of a first-person shooter, and character-building elements of a role-playing game. Building upon the first installment's Real Time Strategy Shooter gameplay elements, Savage 2 adds squad-based features and character-leveling abilities. Gamerankings.com gives Savage 2 an average ratio score of 77 percent, whereas Metacritic.com gives the game an overall score of 75 out of 100.

S2 Games also announced that a Mac OS X client is also available for all Apple games, now accompany the Linux, Linux 64 bit and PC versions. The download for the Windows client weighs in around 979MB.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hemelskonijn 11 December 2008 19:35
    Savage was released as freeware to after some time and i think this might have something to do with the many supported BSD and linux distributions.
    By releasing it as free software they wont get more windows people to play games but they will however get more linux people to play the game since there is a serious lack of good games on linux they might win some hearts and sell some more new releases if and when they come.

    To be honest i bought the first savage just because it runs great on linux and i like to fill some hours with games during my work specially on those slow day's (not to many but still).
    After i bought it i found out it was a fairly nice game :D
    Reply
  • Dekasav 11 December 2008 23:57
    S2 has reminded me why they're my favorite devloping company. I feel like sending them $50.

    Not only have they made 2 games that have merged genres (Savage 1& 2), but they made them both free after ~1 year.


    S2, you win. I wish I gave awards....
    Reply
  • 13 December 2008 11:07
    Savage2 went to free because it sucked so bad it couldn't get anyone else interested in the game. I am a beta subscriber and even a playable beta was 6 months behind their expected date - and I don't think they have an enticing product even still. S2 did make a great game in the original Savage but has since released the code and while I doubt it contains malware it will behoove you to become the friend of someone on the server and help pay for their servers. The code to make you better, faster, stronger depend on your keeping up with the coders who are, practically, now anonymous. So, donate, (a good idea anyway, were it not such a corrupt game) - and pwn newcomers and oldies who believe in fairplay.
    Reply
  • hemelskonijn 14 December 2008 01:13
    Savage 2 has been released about a yesr ago so bitching about faulthy and of the tracks beta's shows more about you than it does about S2
    Reply
  • 14 December 2008 02:37
    As an S2 player, I was dissapointed that they went 'freeware'. I think the game is just fine as it is, especially with the revised melee system that made it easier for newbies to get started.

    That said, a one-time fee of $10 won't break your bank, considering games these days cost $60.
    Reply
  • 11 May 2011 02:53
    I play savage2, and I can't see bad remarks about the game. You can play as commander or as normal unit. In most cases you'll play as unit since you'd have to be elected as commander. If you are beginner leave commanding to experienced players, and another reason is that in my opinion playing as soldier is way better (commanding can be stressful and is full of parallel tasks). Combat system is actually quite good. I don't want to explain it here since it would take a while. Graphic is on decent level. So I can't mark this game as "bad", or as in previous post: "it sucks". I enjoy playing it, and I do play it 2 hours a day, 2-3-4 rounds of game depending whether your finish earlier or have a really good fight. On average one round lasts about 30 mins. This is not an RPG game, so whenever you start, you start same as everyone else. Exception are people with runes (they paid for them), but I can't notice which player has runes and which not. Also game is very balanced on terms of player skills with unique ranking of skill factor, which accurately shows the skill of a player. My SF is 99, so I would be like little above-normal player. But there are people with sf over 200 which play amazingly. As one said: They simply dance through the battlefield. I wrote too much already, as you can see my impression of the game is very good (for a free game excellent), so what's the catch? WHY IS IT FREEE?

    Simple:
    --As free account you can play indefinitely, true, but you won't get the most important thing- Demons. As free player you can summon demons only ones, just to try them. They cost souls (which are earned by killing other players). I already summoned all 3 kinds of free demons, so I can't summon them more so I am going to buy the upgraded account but payment options doesn't suite my country yet so I have to wait. It doesn't affect my play too much, but I have to admit, it is better with demons XD
    -- Second thing is that with upgraded account you can have 6 items equipped at the same time, while in free only 4. It is useful to have more place for armor and potions at the same time, but I manage somehow.
    -- Clans, etc. small formalities come with upgraded account.

    --NOTE: runes are sold separately, and do not last life time, also kinda expensive so not attractive to be bought.

    Basically, download the game, play it. If you like it enough to need demons, then upgrade account. That's it, no hidden tricks, directly from my perspective, player's perspective.

    Thanks for reading,
    Nickname in the game: ZliMomo
    Reply