I can answer some questions now and when I get into work (just got up, release date, woo)!
- There will be a demo up as stated whenever the game goes up, which is this evening I believe
- There will be a free DLC map *soon* - it's already done, just going through the pipeline - and we will continue to support the game via patches/DLC, I can't promise all DLC will be free but we're going to play it by ear
- The Europe version is unfortunately COMING but because we are self-publishing we just didn't have the resources (among other problems) to handle SCEA and SCEE cert simultaneously. We're currently in the process of getting all the various European rating board approvals and as soon as we have a Europe date set we'll let you guys know, all I can say is ASAP.
- To clear up the splitscreen issue, the game is max 4v4 (8 players total) but supports up to 4p splitscreen both locally and online, including ranked matches.
I'll say one thing about the price just from my perspective (not my company's, disclaimer, yadda yadda) and never again since I've read the price debates about Braid on here and I know what dark road that leads down. As a consumer I feel the pull of $9.99 too, but I think the graphical quality/feature set we're offering justifies a higher price point. You may not agree, there's a demo with both local and online play to better inform you about the purchase, I hope it's helpful.
Features we support that I don't usually see in a $9.99 title:
- Full fledged online ranking/matching/party system support with leaderboards, different skill rankings for each bracket (so you can become the top 2v2 player, make a registered team and become the best 3v3 team in the country with your PSN or local friends, etc)
- A really powerful replay saving and editing tool. You can save a replay after each match of the entire match and later re-watch it with full camera controls (free cam, focus lock, slow motion, etc etc etc) and even edit it ingame and upload the new clip directly to YouTube or export the thing to your XMB and do your own video editing in higher quality.
- Unreal Engine 3
- Support for every new Sony feature - YouTube, custom music tracks, Trophies
- We're planning a lot of active community support features like organized tournaments with real prizes, and patch support. We're the #1 fans of this game, we play it every day at the office, and we're most looking forward to just getting online and playing new people. To that end we have full intention of supporting whatever the community asks for within reason.
Anyway, enough price discussion, I'm sure people will have a lot to say about it but going to stay out of it from now on.
To sum up: game and demo available later today, demo has online and local play, free DLC map and Europe versions coming ASAP, hope you like it!
