Sony Online Entertainment has announced that its kid-orientated virtual world Free Realms has entered closed beta, and is now accepting early registration for its open beta, set to begin in early April.
Free Realms is a "whimsical" virtual world where gamers can explore, compete, raise pets and socialize within a "family-friendly" environment, and offers a variety of gameplay possibilities including exploration, combat, race car driving, pet raising, mini-games and social networking.
The title is to be a free-to-play, and to launch and streams from within the browser.
A lot has happened in gaming, especially free-to-play gaming, over the last decade. Nobody could predict just how prevalent it’s become, and how some of the biggest games on the planet – League of Legends, Fortnite: Battle Royale, World of Tanks, and more – are all free-to-play.
PSU looks at the emergence of free-to-play games and how it relates to PS3 and PS4.
The Koalition: "Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) hosts an annual event to celebrate their massive stable of free-to-play MMO games, as well as an opportunity for them to finally shed some more light on the next Everquest game. SOE’s library of current offerings includes: DC Universe™ Online, Dragon’s Prophet™, EverQuest®, EverQuest® II, Free Realms®, PlanetSide®2 (review here,) PoxNora®, Star Wars®: Clone Wars Adventures™ and Vanguard® Saga of Heroes. With so many games on their roster, it’s no surprise that they host an annual event to celebrate the games and gamers. The event is being held at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on Aug. 1 – Aug. 4, 2013."
I signed up at the first of the year when PS blog annouced that they are accepting applications for beta. Hopefully I can get in... and good luck to everyone else as well.