The Old Republic's Potential Free-to-Play Turn Should Signal the End of MMO Subscriptions

1Up:

We all know MMOs, and most games in general, as Crytek demonstrates, are moving in the direction of free-to-play. MMOs are moving there especially quickly as publishers are finding that World of Warcraft's continued success has no correlation with the ability of other games to attract and maintain a sizable subscriber base. Star Wars: The Old Republic started out strongly and then pretty quickly saw a drop of 400,000 users (roughly 23 percent). And while we don't know for sure where it currently sits, one BioWare staffer has suggested TOR going free-to-play is something being explored.

[ATi_Elite]

WRONG!

Only the end of subscriptions for the not so great Star Wars The Old Republic!

games like World of Warcraft and Eve Online are still subscription based cause they have so much Value and quality and keeping a "like-minded" gaming community makes those titles fun!

With the proper updates and change to gameplay Tera could still be subscription base but only time will tell.

SW:TOR should have been F2P in the first place cause it offered nothing of value to warrant $15 a month. Oh my bad "Great Voice Acting" but that's about it!

SW:Tor is losing subs faster than the speed of the Millennium Falcon cause the game is just not worth $15 a month.

Less voice acting and more quality and content would of been better.

[Persistantthug]

The article says that WoW and EVE are doing fine.

But what they are saying is that for the most part, future MMO's will have a hard time maintaining themselves with monthly fees.

I agree. Because for the most part, with all of the free to play games out there, it's getting harder to justify paying a monthly subscription.

The legacy games can continue on though.

[ATi_Elite]

Rift is subscription based and it is actually doing very Good! It came out before SW:Tor and is maintaining a healthy Sub base.

Some games just have the proper content to have a Subscript and some don't.

[DeadlyFire]

Well if you make a great MMO. Like WoW or EVE online then you will have a profitable Subscription based game for years to come.

There are a small number of unmentioned MMOs with subscriptions that are still alive out there today that many don't hear much about, but still have been going on for years.

Even if SW Tor doesn't keep a high subscription rate. It could still keep subscriptions until they get to that red line(500,000 mark) or under it.

The one positive/negative thing about Free to Play is that it will keep player count high as new players will always jump right into the game without worry of paying a dime.