Dust 514 is free-to-play, but a top loadout costs $0.24

According to CCP vice-president Morgan Godat, a “very, very top end” loadout in PlayStation 3-exclusive free-to-play shooter Dust 514 will set you back $0.24.

However, the catch is that each time you die you lose the weapons and equipment you were using at the time.

“There’s a thing about Dust, which is every time you die, you lose your items, so we’re talking about relatively small amounts of money,” said Godat. “You can buy 100 copies of this gun, you can buy 100 copies of this suit of armour. We’ve got to make sure we’re pricing things at the right level, because if you die [you lose these things].

“We’re still tuning prices – the costs will change according to the feedback we get on the beta – but I believe when I calculated it last, at its most high-end – if you assume that somebody came in and had to buy, with real-world money, the best gear for a serious throw down – (they already had the skills, which by the way you have to build up and work up to be able to use the equipment) it was like a 24-cent thing,” said Godat.

“That’s assuming every piece of your equipment, including your dropsuit, was purchased with real-world money, and every time you died, it was a 24-cent cost to assemble your entire fit.”

“It’s a little hard to believe that that cost would be something that somebody was reoccurring on a regular basis.”