As reported on TheMittani.com
Infinite Game Publishing (IGP) announced Tuesday that they raked in over $5 million USD from pre-orders for Mechwarrior Online. Since July gamers have been able to pay either $30, $60, or $120 dollars to lock in benefits ranging from early beta access to special ‘founder’s mechs’ that include a special bonus to c-bills earned per round, as well as premium time and MWO’s equivalent of gold.
Despite the $60 dollar ‘elite’ package being the obvious sweet spot in terms of bang for your buck the $120 ‘legendary’ package was surprisingly popular. Many gamers who grew up playing the original MechWarrior games were more than happy to dish out extra to support their childhood nostalgia. This effect was made even more evident by the lack of any solid information for the vast majority of the duration of the offer due to an ironclad NDA that was only lifted recently.
Fans of the series can rejoice that Piranha Games will have ample funding to continue developing and supporting the game for the foreseeable future, assuming they don’t blow the money on Canadian hookers and meth.
Currently the game is still in closed beta. A disastrous patch upgraded the version of the crysis engine MWO runs and managed to introduce widespread performance issues and server instability. They seem to have gotten it under control but I would hazard a guess of a date of around the end of the month for release, meth and hookers notwithstanding.