So, with this latest talk about “Tera Online” going free-to-play, it seems like the age-old question about whether games should have subscriptions or not is on a lot of peoples’ minds. And, perhaps this makes sense: After all, several big ticket MMORPGs lately were originally released as pay-to-play games, yet a year or less after their respective launches they were already making the transition to a free-to-play model. In some cases, the transition was made in a smart manner, like with “The Secret World” adopting the payment style used in “Guild Wars 2,” yet for others the transition pissed more people off than simply keeping the game as a pay-to-play title. Many people were highly upset when “Star Wars: The Old Republic” went free-to-play because the model that was adopted was horrible, greedy, and made no sense.
Yet, some games so far seem to be doing just fine. ”EVE Online” still has a sturdy following, “World of Warcraft” is doing well despite a bit of a diminished following (which is negligible when you consider how many people play the game), and “RIFT” is doing relatively well as it approaches its two-year anniversary.
Recently, Luke Karmali of IGN did a piece regarding the status of pay-to-play games, and I definitely think it is worth a quick read.
As always, your comments are welcome! ^.^
I think the future of sub based MMOs depends on how unique the experience is. To many of the ‘new’ batch of games feel like older games. We need different experiences out side of “WOW, with a STORY!” (I’m looking at you SWTOR.) We’ll see how it works out – I’m looking forward to trying games like Elder Scrolls Online, Wild Star, FFXIV: ARR, Otherland and others. That brings up another issue that World of Warcraft and EVE didn’t face when they first launched: A glutted market. Between all the F2p options and the Sub options, there are a ton of games to choose from. These aren’t crappy games either, there are really good options to choose from now, inlduing games like Everquest and Everquest II That doesn’t even include the online games that aren’t MMOs or are only marginally MMOs. That is the biggest issue, I think. A marketplace with to many options.
Agreed…that’s the beauty of competition. It always leads to it being cheaper for us…
Google began it all. They proved that you can make billions of dollars by charging nothing. There are many, many ways for software/internet based companies to make profits without a monthly fee.
Of course if you can charge someone and get away with it, that’s the easiest route. But that’s not going to work anymore for new franchises that want to make a profit. That’s why only the original, old MMO’s charge (due to their faithful fanbase) while the newest ones can’t do it.
Bottom line is as long as there are quality F2P games, new franchises will *never* get away with charging a monthly fee unless they can bring something to the table that is clearly worth it.
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One exception lately seems to be RIFT. Even though it has been out for two years Trion Worlds can still get away with charging a monthly fee for it. Honestly, I didn’t think the game was all that different from WoW, and the whole “dynamic event” system has nothing on that used in Guild Wars 2, but then again, maybe Rift’s success was the very thing that it said it wasn’t: a Wow-clone, but different. Maybe enough people that were looking for something different, but not *too* different, ended up getting the game and sticking with it.
Regardless, I think for the most part you and Warren are right. The established games have their hold where they are, but given the climate of the market most others won’t be able to get away with charging for their games.