Saturday, August 13, 2011
Siveon
In the past couple of years we have seen a lot of MMORPGs going from P2P(pay to play) to F2P(free to play) mainly due to subscription decline as a way to regain some players while maintaining profit from the online shops.
Most of this games were not made from unknown indy companies but from well established IPs and we are going to briefly talk about each one of them.
Dungeons and Dragons Online launched on February 28, 2006 and remained a p2p MMORPG with a $14.99 monthly fee up until September 9, 2009. Since going free to play Dungeons and Dragons Online has more players than ever. Plus, the game’s publisher("Turbin") is reporting record revenues from the game.
RF Online or Rising Force Online, launched on November 21, 2006 with a $14.99 monthly fee. The game was both developed and published by CCR International but only went free to play in late 2008.
The Chronicles of Spellborn launched on April 23, 2009 as a p2p MMORPG with a subscription of $14.99 / month. The game’s developers went bankrupt in June 2009, the game’s publisher in North America announced that they would redevelop the game as a free to play title. Since going free to play – TCoS has opened up to many more players.
Lord of the Rings Online launched on April 24, 2007 after several expansions re-launched as F2P on September 8, 2010. Since their transition to a mixture of subscription/F2P model Executive Producer Kate Paiz announced that they have doubled both revenue and player-base.
Age of Conan launched on May 20, 2008 was made F2P recently in a new expansion named Unchained on July 1st, 2011. On the first month since they gone F2P their player-base was increased by 300,000 accounts.
It is clear from past experiences that the Free to Play model is a success, increasing both revenue and the player-base it is becoming more and more common now-a-days.
I dislike F2P games because allowing players to buy item/buffs at a shop ruins immersion, any sense of accomplishment and the overall fun i have in the game, as a PvP(player vs player) lover i feel that the game is ruined once the "wining condition" becomes "who wasted more money".
What do you think?
9 comments:
I'm too poor to play all these crazy games xD xD
i don't play either :l
but i've seen my brother play Dungeons and Dragons and it seems nice!
I think there's a way to make a game "free-2-play" without ruining fun with a cash shop that effectively makes the game "pay-2-win". TF2 is a good example of this.
It's interesting to see MMO's growing like this. Thanks!
AGE OF CONAN IS FEE TO PLAY?!?!
thank you for this info!
Cash shops ruins a lot of supposedly F2P games, I'm hoping this trend spreads fast =D
Nice post, I've played most of these MMOs lol
this is great
yea f2p but you can buy whatever you want ingame with cash - _-
I only like what Guild wars achieved as a f2p sort of, not much from the list is to my liking imo
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