Rumors from early today began about the possibility that All Points Bulletin: Reload would not be a free download and instead would be sold at retail stores. GamersFirst Senior Vice President of Marketing, Rahul Sandil, issued the following statement this afternoon:
Given that APB Reloaded has been the most talked about online game this summer and its unprecedented growth in open beta players, it has become very attractive to large institutions in the game distribution business. In just 6 weeks of open beta the game has attracted over 600,000 users and over a quarter million fans on the game’s fan page on Facebook. As a result of this success, we’ve been approached by retail partners to launch the title on retail shelves. Although we are evaluating our options, we have not picked a potential partner as of now. GamersFirst is also committed to the Free2Play model and any retail strategy will be guided by those principles.
So it appears that they are contemplating the idea, but have made no deals yet. One thing can be certain, players are going to be pissed if they have to shell out $50 for a free to play MMORPG.
My guess us that if it costs anything, you will be getting credits, or items that could be bought in the in game store.