Realtime Worlds Creative Director, Dave Jones sat down with Videogamer.com for an interview. In the interview, Mr. Jones states he expects APB to last a good five to ten years. They intend to do this by drawing on the kinds of gameplay that kept Counter Strike players coming back for years and years (even until now) and by coupling that with the social aspects an FPS game like Counter Strike just couldn't do.

“That’s ultimately the goal,” he told us when asked if he saw APB being around for five or ten years.

However, Jones, who created Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown, said that he believed fans will stick around not for the same reasons as MMORPGs, but for reasons akin to Valve’s enduring online FPS Counter-Strike.

“The method I looked at, the kind of ideas I looked at was more like Counter-Strike,” he said. “There is a game which kept people playing for years and years and years, but from a very, very different perspective - just a great, great, great core combat game. I want more of what Counter-Strike did coupled with the social stuff that Counter-Strike didn't do. You couldn't even have a clan in Counter-Strike for heaven's sake. People used to improvise by adding it to the end of their names. They had to try and organise when to meet up, try and form groups, they effectively ran their own server then and invited players to it - all that stuff Counter-Strike players were doing, they had to try and do off their own back.

Read the full interview over at Videogamer.com.

Very wishful thinking if you ask me.  This will be one of those games that many will play for a month or so and move on.  Once the novelty wears off they will have a hard time keeping a decent playerbase.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Very wishful thinking if you ask me.  This will be one of those games that many will play for a month or so and move on.  Once the novelty wears off they will have a hard time keeping a decent playerbase.

I  don't think I could dissagree more with your reponse. I believe they are able and will provide a gaming experience that will pull players from many genres and hold them. The developers on their team are very capable and have plenty of experience and knowledge, which helps them shape the game accordingly. 

 Obviously 10 years is stretching it quite a bit, but if they are able to release constant updates and improvements, there is no reason why APB cannot hold it's players for years. The game is shaping up to be what planetside and other games akin to this genre could never achieve.

From what i've seen at different forums, people have really high expectations of this. If APB really can and will deliver it will last for really quite some time and have a solid playerbase.

I'll probably try this game but I can't see myself playing for more than a month or two.

I'm much more interested in hearing about the other game they are developing. The one that is so ambitious they had to delay it. That intrigues me.