CEO of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedly, has just unraveled some interesting news: the extremely popular DC Universe Online has become a smash hit apparently since the introduction of the free-to-play mode on November 1, bringing in a significant amount of players. Seemingly the CEO in question tweeted that the increase was so huge that the growth was 1000% of their pre-F2P concurrent numbers.
He went on to say that their servers are trying their best to cope with the demand and apologized for the instability, saying that the team is reconfiguring the servers for the higher populations. He also explained that they were working on adding more capacity to the servers with staff being hard at work at the offices.
DC Universe Online is a massively popular multiplayer online role-playing game set in the DC Universe. Players can choose a mentor for their character: a hero or a villain (options include Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, The Joker). Their starting location, principal quest rewards and mob loot will be influenced by which character they choose. The starting zones are either Metropolis or Gotham City for both villains and heroes. The shared world space offers primary solo and team player versus environment gaming opportunities in the form of open air missions and instances, although player versus player combat is also possible in this worldspace.
By adding the free-to-play option DC Universe online aligned itself with other smash hit games like Champions Online and City of Heroes. Marvel’s Super Hero Squad Online has been free from its launch, so it seems like the move the company made is a logical one. Now, if you enjoy fighting villains and heroes alike, you have no excuse not to join the world of DC Universe.