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If you know anything about video games, you know that they can be very expensive to make. Many millions of dollars go into big-name games like Call of Duty every year. With this being said, how can a game be free? With this knowledge, most people think that when they see an ad for a free game on the internet that either a) it’s a virus or b) it’s a scam. Actually, most advertised online games are the real deal, even the free ones. How did the game developers get the money to make the game? Well, I’ll tell you of a few ways.

NOTE: fact is, big-name developers want too much money and super high quality graphics so they have to pay like fifty people’s salaries for maybe two years. And people wonder why it’s so expensive to make games. Free to play developers trim these costs so that they can make a profit using the following methods:

In Game Advertising (rare for download games, common for browser games)

One thing that is very common to see in browser games is a little advertisement box on the side of the screen that is kinda just there; it doesn’t obstruct gameplay, but it’s just kinda there. This is a little hard to do in download games, which are usually MMOs. One thing you see rarely are actual advertising signs and banners in game (example: Exteel). Another, which is just a little more common than in-game signs, are CPUs that talk about products and sometimes give out free stuff ralated to what they are advertising.

Out of Game Advertising on Web Site (common)

The majority of websites with video games on them have ads on them, though they are usually heavily blended in with the content and usually not as prominent than on other sites like blogs.

In Game Level/Item/Job Limit for Non Paying Players (common)

Some games that are free to play work like some big-name MMO demos: play as much as you want, but we are going to limit your level, not let you get the cool jobs or loot, and are not going to let you enter clans. These games tend to want subscribers more than anything.

Special Sparkly Things in Game For Real Money (very common for download games, fairly common for browser games)

One of the most common forms of making money off free to play games comes from having the player buy points (there are a lot of points cards for games at drug stores) and spend them in game on super-awesome-special-shiny-stuff. There’s some games that make these things overpowered. There’s other games that make these things overpriced. But some games make a perfect balance between price, power, and look of the real-world-cash bought items and the non-paying items, and those are the games you should support (example: Exteel [seriously, this game did free to play right]).

Business Sponsors (very common for downloadable game tournaments)

Many competitive high-quality games have various sponsors from software and hardware developers such as Razer, especially during tournaments, when high-end name brand hardware is often given out as prizes.

Small Bonuses for Buying The Game (medium rare, usually indie games)

Sometimes when you play a free game by either a single person or a small group of developers you have the option to pay five to twenty dollars in exchange for some extras, usually unrelated to gameplay. For example, free to play Soldat can be bought for fifteen dollars. If you decide to do so you can change the resolution of the game from it’s tiny default, can enable full screen mode, can have slightly better graphics and sound, and can play your own music through the game while playing. No, it isn’t much, but if you still need to do your one good thing for the day it’s a great feeling to know you are directly helping out a single idie developer.

As a user who jumped right from Windows XP to Windows 7 the second a program asked me if it could “make changes to my computer” I raged and instantly turned off the UAC, or User Account Control Center. Turning this off creates almost no security issues; so what if it won’t notify you if a program that you activate makes changes to your computer (if I activivate a program and it asks if it could run and I tell it to it better make changes to my computer, not ask me AGAIN if the program actually does something) or doesn’t notify you if you don’t have an antivirus (that’s my decision to get one, not my computer’s).

Before I tell you how to do this I am obligated to warn you: If you are not good with computers do NOT turn off the UAC. It can be helpful if you use many programs, but are not familiar with what a program should do or aren’t familiar with the telltale signs of viruses are; it allows you a third chance to say “yes, I am sure I want that program to run”.

Default Control Panel Menu:

Turning off the UAC’s confirmation messages to make changes to your computer is actually very simple: just go Start>Control Panel>System and Security>Change User Account Control Settings (under “Action Center”)>move the bar on the left all the way down to the lowest setting.

50-54 Button Control Panel Menu (Not Default)

If you have a menu that you manually changed to a 50-54 button menu (Depending on how much “stuff” you have on your computer), this is how you would go about disabling the notifications: Start>Control Panel>User Accounts>Change User Account Control Settings>move the bar all the way down to “Never notify me when:”

Most of you have noticed that Combat Arms apparently either contains one or two viruses, or will not start or crashes after the new patch. I’ll tell you right up front, there are no viruses, and that it is your security that is making CA not work.

(So you know, I did do my research, and the reason for this is that engine.exe and another .exe file are now “covered” by security that some viruses also use. In other words, this is to protect the game from more hackers.)

The fix? Well, if you have AVG, simply turn off your “Resident Shield” and you are set (you might want to put it back on when you are done playing though). Other security software might have similar set-ups where you can allow it (BTW, ignoring/allowing on AVG does NOT work) or you can turn off that part of the security. Also, “killing” your security may not work either; I have had reports from a Norton user that even when he turns it off it still doesn’t work/crashes. My guess is that it is still running in the background.

My best recommendation would be to get AVG Free (for free, obviously at http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage), after uninstalling your old security of course,and turn off the “Resident Shield” (turn it back on when you are done playing!). I would, though, like to mention that though it is a solid defense against viruses, it is NOT as good as the pay-to-own software that takes up all your CPU and RAM. But, if you like speed, performance, and a good (non-existent) price, this would be perfect for you. (I say this from experience. I, my friends, and my family’s professional [literally] computer expert all use it).

Please comment to this post if you found a go around for other security softwares. Thanks ^-^.

EDIT: This fix apparently only works with the newest version of AVG Free (AVG Free 9), which just came out. Most people have AVG Free 8.5, so this is the perfect time to upgrade, again, for free.

First order of business: WolfTeam has a supposed virus. Let me explain from what i have found: the defense that the game uses against hackers is the same that hackers protect malware with, thus some virus protection thinks it is a virus.

Second, the game review: in ten minutes of gameplay, i can tell you the following…

• 3rd person hack and slash versus first person shooters

And that’s it. I couldn’t stand the confusing controls (i was hoping for standard things, since i like to remap my weapon changes to my wheel) but found things like “super wolf attack” and “cool wolf attack”, which i couldn’t figure of how to preform in game. when you are a wolf, you can climb walls. How? No clue. I know you jump at them but… It seems that unless you master the wolf controls, the gameplay is uneven. This will, though, take a bit more playing to see.

As for graphics, they seem moderately good. Nothing special. Glitches… well, the whole game could be a glitch for all i know…