Evolve Gets Way, WAY More Popular

Evolve has gone free-to-play, as you've no doubt heard, and it's done rather good for itself since the change. While the lack of microtransactions means the game isn't making any money right now, fans are flocking to the asymmetrical multiplayer experience with gusto. How Turtle Rock plans on adding the micropayments and implement a new source of income for themselves is still a source of mystery right now (new maps for cash? Keys for cash? A tip jar?), but at least for the time being, they plan on celebrating every milestone this previously-dead game can reach... and boy howdy, did it reach a heck of a milestone just the other day.

Namely, the game--which, I remind you, at one point was chugging along with less than 200 active players--has just surpassed a million new players in less than a week.

To celebrate, if you decide to get an account and download the game before the 18th, you'll get a free skin for the hunter, Blood Eagle. And new skins are always nice, right?

While it's hard to pull any definitive 'lessons' from this until the Open Beta ends and we actually see how the microtransaction version of the game runs, there are still two things we can learn from this. The first is that even a great game idea (arena-based PvP monster hunter) can be killed by bad marketing and planning, and the second is that people can forgive that at the drop of a hat if they see something worth their time.

Turtle Rock has certainly made Evolve worth a lot of people's time. So they've got their golden goose back--let's just hope they don't start eyeballing the cutlery.