Last year I asked John Smedley if Planetside would be shutting down with Planetside 2 releasing, since Planetside was already dead in the water in terms of population. The response I received was that Sony would rather seek options including transforming Planetside into the free to play model before they shut the servers down, and that there would be more details as to where things were going in 2013. Just a day or so ago, Sony Online Entertainment threw a block grant of six months of game time in Planetside for Planetside 2 players. John Smedley also noted on Twitter:

This also gives us more time to make it f2p. So enjoy starting tmw late morning. And yes I’m sure we will miss flag some people.

Even though I knew that Sony preferred free to play to shutting the game down outright, my reaction to the announcement is still a sound “why?” I understand why Sony would want to take that road, since by their own admission no one plays Planetside anymore and therefore anything is better than nothing. On the other hand, players like myself are fully aware of why Planetside doesn’t have a trial system: because hackers were abusing it and mass-creating accounts. So when Planetside goes free to play, it’s hardly unrealistic to assume that the hackers will simply return in droves to ruin the experience once again.

Will Planetside become a den of aimbots, exploits, and hackers? At first, most assuredly. Afterward, who can say? Part of me wants to say that Sony will address the problem of mass-hacking in Planetside because otherwise the investment required to take the game free to play wouldn’t be worth it. A game like Planetside that is fully player vs player will see its population turn right around and leave if the game is infested with hackers. The hope, of course, is that Planetside will generate enough revenue after the transition that Sony can afford to have some full time staffers on hand to update the systems to battle cheaters at a software level while simultaneously having staff in-game to track down and ban cheaters by hand.

And again, this all comes down to how prepared Sony is to deal with the cheaters who will no doubt show up once the doors open.