Controversial freemium game Real Racing 3 was released in the U.S. App Store tonight, after being tested in several international App Stores. Real Racing 3 is the highly anticipated followup to Real Racing 2, with real cars, photorealistic tracks, and online time shifted multiplayer gameplay.
Unlike earlier games in the series, Real Racing 3 is free to play, with time-based freemium mechanics. Wait times have been implemented for repairs, upgrades, and additional vehicle unlocks, which can be sped up with the purchase of gold coins.
Our sister site TouchArcade has published a review of the game, explaining both the upsides and the downsides of the freemium gameplay.
Real Racing 3 is a weird game to review. On one hand, it's free, and is the absolute best looking game available on the App Store right now. You need to experience the sights and sounds of the game as it is downright jaw-dropping to see what Firemonkeys has accomplished on a technical level. On the other, it feels incredibly strange to take a genre that's typically very hardcore and wrapping it in free to play trimmings with hard timer-based stopping points. The juxtaposition between awesome adrenalin-fueled racing and the "Sorry bro, insert coin or come back later" is very, very odd.
TouchArcade has also released a guide on how to spend conservatively in the game, recommending specific cars, damage mitigation, and strategic repairs.
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Top Rated Comments
I'd pay for it, I'd pay a decent amount for it, like $10 or $15 like RR2 but I'm not going to download it for free because it's such a rotten way to play a game.
Because they make money. Plain and simple. Folks spend tons of money on those games.
Drives me nuts. I loved the earlier model of iOS gaming, where you'd have a limited 'free' or 'lite' version, with maybe one or two levels or something, and then a 'pro' or 'premium' version that was fully loaded. What an awesome experience for the consumer! You can try out the gist of the game for free, and if you like it, pay a reasonable price for a full featured and supported game!
Doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Because freemium sucks.
Somehow, use of "coins" correlated with a fad involving small printed portraits of dead presidents (the most desirable being a portrait of some guy most people thought was president but wasn't). Pretty lousy portraits too, high resolution, but color depth was pretty much limited to green, black, and a crummy off-white. And - get this - you'd get thrown into a small metal box if you so much as tried to get a printer for making your own (friggin' expensive printers too). Pretty popular fad; everyone was obsessed with collecting them, even though there were only about a half-dozen portraits involved, everyone wanted thousands of 'em, even millions.
20th Century was weird. Let's not go back there.