CCP's upcoming first person shooter Dust 514 for the PlayStation 3 will not be free to play, and will include a cover charge of around "$10 to $20."
The charge, which has yet to be finalized, will be refunded as in-game currency to players who pick up the title.
"In the beginning you have to pre-buy credits, so you pay something like $10-$20 to enter the game and you get the equivalent number of credits in the game once you do that," said CCP's Hilmar Pétursson. "We call this the 'cover charge'."
"You're really getting the game for free but you have to pre-buy credits in the beginning. We might go fully free-to-play down the line, but in the beginningwe have a cover charge just to manage the initial launch of it."
Pétursson described the game's payment structure as one that follows in the footsteps of its successful game, EVE Online.
"We have always been a big believer in growing up a social network behind the game in a slow and predictable way. Because we have seen that if you don't do that you can end up with a very unstructured experience, where there's no cohesion to the community. By growing it at the beginning we help to make a healthy environment initially."
Further in his interview with GI.biz, he explained why the game is exclusive to the PlayStation 3.
"By going exclusive with either platform allows us to do more innovation. The lowest common denominators would have been so small we couldn't do things that are really interesting," he said of the PC platform.
"Sony was quite motivated in allowing us to do things we requested of them to the point they said 'no one has really asked about that before and we've never thought about it, but why not?' They were very enthusiastic and open to really do something world changing and that's what swayed the decision to go with them."
Dust 514 will launch on the PSN in 2012.
