Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter

It's not hard to see that offering high-quality games through the cloud has its pitfalls, not the least of which is getting customers to pay. Square Enix may have licked that last problem through its new Coreonline web gaming service. Players can still pony up for the full-priced games or even single levels if they want unfettered access, but the cleverness comes through Coreonline's parking meter approach to ad-supported free play: the more ads you watch and the longer they run, the longer you'll get to play without spending a single coin. As our colleagues at Joystiq found out, however, the current level of OS support is inconsistent. Windows gamers can use Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer to start playing, but their Mac-owning friends have to lean on Chrome for some games and can't even consider running the marquee title, Hitman: Blood Money. Square Enix's library of eligible games will start expanding in October; while there's no guarantee the Final Fantasy series or many other dream games will make it to the roster, Coreonline's approach might just be viable enough to spare us a few raids on the bargain bins.

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Square Enix Coreonline offers top-tier games on the web for free -- if you feed the ad meter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.