Are Subscription MMOs Really Dying?

With World of Warcraft’s subscriptions in a steady decline, and with many other games going free to play, is the subscription MMO truly dying?

[Speed-Racer]

not anytime soon.

[HammadTheBeast]

Well WoW is all but dead, as soon as the next big MMO comes out the remaining people will jump ship. No other MMO can work as a subscription model, only reason that WoW has lasted this long is because people have put in thousands of hours, and it's a waste to just let it go.

Other than WoW, the only other successful MMO I see with the model presently is EvE.

[NegativeCreepWA]

FFXI is still up and running.

[mcroddi]

The plain answer is yes. Eventually all will die. Or adopt.

[Str8Chaos74]

Yep, until someone does something fresh with real time combat I am done with MMO's. Everything is the same, cartoon graphics with WOW style gameplay. Pretty stale IMO. I will say though the new Everquest has some interesting ideas.

[Chrono]

Blizzard said Titan won't have subscriptions, so yeah. Almost every pay-to-play MMO changed their business model or closed.

http://www.ign.com/articles...

[bohangirl84]

Whether they are dying or not, I am currently not an MMO player, but it would be interesting to see if some company makes significant changes that could win the hearts and cash of non-MMO players.

[maximus1985]

MMOs that dont have subscriptions arent appreciated or taken seriously by consumers not to mention they dont get supported as much either. example, dc universe fun for a bit but it was a mad house of blandness

[NegativeCreepWA]

A good read on Yoshi P's opinoin on sub fees.
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/m...

[NegativeCreepWA]

I would rather pay a monthly fee, I've realized you can easily spend a years worth sub fees in a month or two on F2P games.

Not only that, F2P games tend to have horrible communities, and the in game economies are pointless, because you can convert real money to gold in nearly all of them.

[3-4-5]

Yea, paying $15 a month for WoW sucked, but the game ALWAYS worked, was constantly updated, had tons of content, good art style, and a huge community which is still going today.

You don't get that with Free games. They are awesome, but always lacking in 2-3 aspects compared to a Pay to Play subscription based MMO.

[Roccetarius]

Which is why i hate the model, compared to a subscription. Companies have seen something in the ''F2P'' model though, something they can drain tons of money from.

[Shoul]

I prefer buy-to-play like Guild Wars 2. Having the monthly sub lingering over my head is hard to get by, especially as a university student. However, if I had plenty of income, then I'd go as far as to say I'd prefer sub, just to avoid pesky cash shops (even though most are fine, you never know when the quality of one could drop).