Justice Online open beta gameplay videos, new hybrid business model

NetEase's Justice Online has just started its Chinese open beta today and there are a few gameplay videos making the rounds already. We picked a few of them showing character creation for male and female, as well as a couple more featuring story gameplay and combat, among other things.

Steparu is the author of these videos, which are good enough to see that Justice Online looks good, sometimes stunning, but it isn't too dissimilar to another Wuxia MMORPG, Moonlight Blade from Tencent. However, Justice features an alternate isometric perspective, as we told you a few months ago, so everyone should be pleased. Maybe this is the option that Lost Ark desperately needs.

Justice Online comes with an interesting twist on the free-to-play business model, and I'm pretty sure that this should have been implemented a few years ago in more games, not just a few exceptions such as WildStar (C.R.E.D.D.). This hybrid business model works like this: you can play Justice Online for free up until level 34, and from then on you can either buy a subscription, pay for in-game hours or purchase these with in-game currency. It's all a matter of being fair with the prices, but as a replacement for the traditional monthly subscription, this could be a proper solution for the near future. Players who don't have much time to play won't waste their hard-earned dollars, and will only pay for the hours that they actually know they will play. Please know that this is a rough description of what we currently know of the Justice Online business model and there could be some inaccuracy to it.

This hybrid business model just needs some fine-tuning and full respect from the publishers towards the players – imagine that they charge crazy prices for a couple of hours of gameplay – and it could be a winner.