FreeToPlay Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Battlefield's Ben Cousins all set to release The Drowning on iOS for DeNA

by Mike Schramm (Feb 14th, 2013)

A little while ago, I said here on TUAW that the Ngmoco brand was "effectively done on the App Store," with the company's biggest games finally being shut down at the end of next month. And that hasn't changed at all -- the Ngmoco name just plain isn't being used. Ngmoco's parent company, DeNA, ...

Robert Bowling producing Breach and Clear, coming to iOS

by Mike Schramm (Feb 13th, 2013)

Robert Bowling is the former "creative strategist" at Infinity Ward, the developer studio that original created the enormously popular Call of Duty series over on the major consoles. A little while ago, he left that company (after some turmoil between the founders and publisher Activision) to ...

Daily iPhone App: Summoner Wars is a complicated mix of virtual board and card game

by Mike Schramm (Oct 9th, 2012)

I took a trip down to Tampa Bay, Fla., for my sister's wedding last week, and before I headed for the airport, I loaded up my iPhone and iPad with a few new apps to check out on the way. Honestly, Fieldrunners 2 HD ended up taking most of my gaming time, but Summoner Wars was a very impressive ...

Daily iPhone App: Age of Monsters - Rock Paper Scissors

by Mike Schramm (Oct 24th, 2011)

Jeff Matsuda is the award-winning creator of the cartoon series The Batman, and while his style doesn't appeal to me personally, it is quite distinctive, and can make for some really cool looks. Matsuda has put his skills to work in Age of Monsters - Rock Paper Scissors, in which monsters ...

Bungie details iPad release of Crimson: Steam Pirates, coming next week

by Mike Schramm (Aug 23rd, 2011)

Man, after all the rumors, it almost seems expected: Bungie has finally announced its first original project for the iPad, a game called Crimson: Steam Pirates. It's due out on the iPad next week, and will let you command a steampunk crew across a turn-based battlefield, combining strategy, ...

Valve makes Team Fortress 2 free-to-play

by Mike Schramm (Jun 24th, 2011)

In case you missed it last night, Valve has turned its excellent team-based shooter Team Fortress 2 into an entirely free-to-play experience, so even if you haven't picked up the game yet, you can head over to Steam right now and download and play it completely free, forever. The game was one ...

Pocket Legends offers paid content for free

by Mike Schramm (Apr 19th, 2011)

Pocket Legends, I maintain, is one of iOS' best technical achievements. It's a full-featured MMO, in the style of the legendary World of Warcraft, and it's available to play for free on Apple's App Store. It's huge among a certain audience (and, in fact, I've been told that audience is even ...

GDC 2011: Nexon goes kart riding on the iPhone

by Mike Schramm (Mar 7th, 2011)

Nexon is a South Korea-based publisher that's basically helped create and define the idea of free-to-play, microtransaction-based MMOs around the world. While microtransactions have become popular in all kinds of game genres in the last few years (including in quite a few apps on the iPhone), ...

Ngmoco releases We City

by Mike Schramm (Sep 23rd, 2010)

Ngmoco has introduced its third title in the "We" series. We City arrives after We Rule and We Farm as the same kind of social simulation game. This time around, players will be building and creating their own cities, but other than the setting and the graphics, not too much has changed. Just like ...