Infographic
Yesterday’s big news in the Star Wars: The Old Republic community was that the game will be going free to play in November 2012. I did some research into how long it took for some more than average and some not so average MMORPGs to go free to play in the past. Results of my research can be seen in the above “comic”. For a game that aspired to be the next big thing in MMORPG space and always said it will be a subscription based game this is the biggest strategy change you could think of. It is also one of the fastest conversions to a F2P model in the MMORPG space. I think the only other MMO from a major publisher that converted to F2P in less than a year is DC Universe Online by SOE (and they even did it after 11 months).
DC Universe Online.
You should find the exact dates these went free to play, and graph them against their start dates… I’m betting you would find some very interesting trend lines.
I think it’s a stretch to look at these numbers and infer anything about the quality of any of these games. Instead, consider the fact that SW:TOR is the most recently released of all of these games, and question whether F2P being the new standard for MMOs has anything to do with this.
Has SW:TOR been mismanaged? Definitely. Is it a piece of garbage? Far from it.
Hardly worthy of derision, this. It really is a question of being managed into the dirt. Also, the dev energy going into QoL or geargrinding/PvP instead of anything story-related–the single biggest selling point of the game.
now lets see one with with time taken to go F2P vs number of subscribers.
I think the more noatable thing is SWTOR is going F2P while having more subscribers then any of those games every had. (with the exception of WoW)
It really is just proof that the subscription model is dying.
I vowed never to Pay-To-Play however since November I have been. I for one am glad free-to-play is becoming the norm. I dont mind purchasing a game initially if it is F2P all the time after that then i get to pay for the item/content I want.