The success of id Software's Quake Live open beta has been so tremendous that the developer is considering working on a free browser version of Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Quake Live is a free version of id's 1999 Quake III Arena played in a browser and supported by ads.
"The participation in the open beta is 50 percent higher than what we expected," said id Software's Todd Hollenshead. "We didn't know. "I had my concerns. Are people going to show up?". The game was so popular that a massive queue immediately formed after the open beta had been released. The wait was so long that id rewarded the players who remained in the queue with a special achievement that showed an angry face with the words: Position in Queue 501337.
The developer did however have their doubts if people would be interested in playing a nearly ten year old game, even if it was free, said Hollenshead. "There was an enormous response on day one. We were impressed with it." The developer was astonished when over 110,000 accounts had been created in the first six hours of the open beta. The top four countries for sign ups were the U.S, UK, Germany and Poland.
Currently, id Software is fixing all the bugs found within the beta. Their advertising partner, IGA is also busy selling ads for the game which appear on loading screens and as banners on the stats page. Hollenshead continued by saying that after id Software if finished working on Quake Live, they may expand the concept of web- based games to other titles. "Probably, the next thing would be Wolfenstein Enemy Territory," he said. "I think that box games are going to go the way of the buggy whip."
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