The Old Republic Will Be the Last Subscription MMO

[Greg Tito]

The Old Republic Will Be the Last Subscription MMO

Rival designer John Smedley thinks all major MMOs will be free to play after The Old Republic.

In 2004, World of Warcraft blew the pants off everyone's sales expectations after it quickly grew to more than 12 million subscribers in just a few years, breaking the previous record set by EverQuest who once boasted a paying audience of almost 1 million. Sony Online Entertainment's library of MMOs now includes EQ and EQ2 that charge a monthly subscription, but CEO John Smedley is busy converting all his games to a free to play model. He firmly believes that charging up front or a monthly fee is a barrier to entry that most people will not penetrate, and he has the market research of Lord of the Rings Online, many Asian MMOS, and his own Free Realms to back up that claim. In fact, Smedley thinks that BioWare's The Old Republic will be the last major MMO to use the subscription model because the Star Wars license will carry at least 2 million customers.

"There's another large juggernaut coming out soon in Star Wars: The Old Republic from EA/Bioware," Smedley wrote in an op-ed piece for Games Industry.biz. "That's a game that I think has a legitimate shot at a 2 million subscription user base and I believe they will stick with the subscription method. In my opinion, this is going to be the last large scale MMO to use the traditional subscription business model."

Well, it's at least nice to see that Smedley isn't bitter for LucasArts pulling the Star Wars license from Galaxies, which will close its servers in December. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111549-SOE-Bids-Fond-Farewell-to-Star-Wars-Galaxies]

After carefully observing the Asian market in Korea, China and the emerging audience in Japan, as well as seeing the successful transformations of LOTRO and Champions Online, Smedley can read the writing on the wall. "The world is moving on from this model and over time people aren't going to accept this method," he said. "I'm sure I'm going to hear a lot about this statement. But I am positive I'm right."

Smedley is putting his money where his mouth is by converting an EQ2 server to free to play, and recently announcing that Planetside 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/112936-Shoot-People-For-Free-In-Planetside-2] and the PS3/PC action MMO DC Universe Online would now also follow that model.

Even World of Warcraft seems to be With Firefall's Mark Kern vehemently fighting for free to play for his shooter MMO [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111348-WoW-Goes-Free-Forever-Except-Not], and it looks like Smedley might be right.

TOR will likely be the last subscription-based MMO.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-09-19-the-free-future-editorial?page=1]

Permalink

 

[LJJ1991]

I agree wholeheartedly. I've played the three P2P MMO's (WoW, EVE, Runescape) and think they're all great, but they are all starting to move towards F2P. I've played tons of different F2P MMO's, most pretty mediocre (meaning I started and stopped playing within three or four hours), but lately they've been getting really good (some of which I still play today). However, The Old Republic is on my list. I will be playing it and I fully believe it's going to be extrememly successful, but yes, the P2P MMO era is disappearing, which is a good thing, in my opinion.

 

[Aerowaves]

Guild Wars offered excellent value for money without a subscription and could suck you in for hours and hours if you liked that sort of thing. Guild Wars 2 is looking like it could be even better.

I think the subscription model will lose out to competition if the GW2 experiment and others like it are successful enough; while WoW has the advantage of having millions committed to a huge and established game and TOR has the whole Bioware and Star Wars/KOTOR thing going for it to give it a boost, it'll be tremendously difficult for a subscription-based MMO to launch without completely redefining the genre (I'm thinking Matrix or Gamer-style projection).

We can only hope our new machine overlords will be kind and diligent in their game-balancing while they use our bodies for fuel.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

As long as companies still offer subs alongside F2P I'm happy.

There's still some of us who like to have an upfront cost - hence why I still sub to LOTRO.

I'm always worried with F2P games that I'm going to end up spending more than I would with a sub - it's very easy for microtransactions to add up considerably without extreme care - I'd rather not have to be keeping an eye on such things and just get on with playing the game, which a sub model allows.

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

The current crop of western F2P MMOs are hardly F2P. I like Everquest 2's free model but honestly if you want to be "serious" about playing it, a subscription is the best choice. Asian imports don't give you the option to subscribe but in western games that do, the F2P option is really just there to say "please subscribe".

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Smedley is a fool. If he's right on this account, it'll be purely by chance.

Almost every design decision he's been involved in has doomed something to failure - and with F2P games being the ONLY form of MMO - you've just re-locked the market into stasis - which is what killed it last time.

Do you remember, Smedley, what happened when you took Vanguard off EQ? Do you remember shattering the playerbase? NGE? Frogloks? How many times you had to patch every last update? How you shattered the crafting system? How DCUO is already going FTP? How NCSoft/Cryptic are still beating you, despite far less resources?

How about designing games with players in mind instead of profits, and then when you've got a good base, they won't mind paying a little extra? Makes a lot more sense than locking content permanently away from people because they would rather buy something from one shop over another.

 

[generousX]

This guy is wrong. TERA online is coming out next year, after SWTOR, and is going to be p2p.

"Like other MMORPG titles, TERA will use a monthly subscription model with a retail box. Cost, fee structure, and payment methods are not yet finalized."

http://www.tera-online.com/content/faq

There will probably be others too.

 

[ZeoAssassin]

so long as i don't start to see Pepsi ads in the in-game cities (loading screens are still ok) ill be happy. F2P has become quite the successful model nowadays, monthly fees are simple starting to become obsolete.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Subscriptions eh? There went any interest I had in checking out this game. I mean, it's an MMO, so I was sketchy at first. But now I just don't care anymore. Maybe the next Star Wars game will be worth paying attention to.

 

[GeorgW]

Wait, do we even have confirmation that TOR will be pay to play?
But yeah, pay to play is going away and that's probably a good thing. Is it good if it disappears? Hell no. Is is good if it's only for the games that truly deserve it? Hell yes!

 

[Baldr]

Project Titan will be subscription based, so that assessment is already false. F2P games often lack a lot of stuff and to even be compared to subscription games, a player would have to pay more to be on par. So in the long run this will only hurt gamers.

 

[octafish]

The West needs to get rid of the monthly subscription rip off and instead switch focus to the time based subscription that is still strong in the East. Would you rather pay to play over a calendar month where you might have internet outages, work, school family, and other distractions or would you rather pay for the time you spend in the game? Or even offer the chance for both options. Monthly subscriptions are just as much a rip-off as micro-transactions. Lets face it F2P offers casual MMO players a chance to get their money's worth while only playing a couple of hours a week, if publishers only go after the "hardcore" market they are cutting themselves off from a very profitable income stream. I myself have never gotten into MMO's apart from dabbling in the F2P ones because I have a life and don't have much time to game. Monthly subscriptions are just a waste of my money.

 

[Rorigon]

I hate Smedley, and I feel sick saying it, but....

The man is right.

The era of the subscription-based MMO is winding down. "the last subscription MMO" is obviously hyperbole, but I agree with the sentiment behind it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't think SWTOR will even be a subscription based MMO for long. Maybe first 2 years at most.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I stopped reading at John Smedley.

 

[lolmynamewastaken]

why couldn't this have happened one MMO ago? i really want this game, but balls to paying monthly for it.

 

[robert01]

The only reason I think this might be true is because there isn't that many P2P mmo's being release anymore. TERA might be P2P, but I'm not sure if it is or not.