Free to Play is Here to Stay

Another major main stream video game developer jumped on the MMORPG bandwagon recently.
Ubisoft recently announced that they have 5+ unannounced free to play
MMORPG games in development. Ubisoft already announced one game –
Heroes of Might and Magic which TQ Digital is
publishing for them in Asia, but they have a bunch of other games in
the pipeline. Ubisoft is the fourth major game developer to jump on the
free to play bandwagon. Free to play games like MapleStory from Nexon and Perfect
World from Perfect
World Entertainment have always been big in the East, but they’ve
just recently grown big in the U.S. And the West. Electronic
Arts was the first major Western game developer to begin embracing
the free to play model. Their first game was Battlefield
Heroes but they now publish many more including RayCity, FIFA Online, Battleforge
and Lord of Ultima.
They also announced their intentions to bring all of their major
franchises to F2P. That’s quite a commitment.

In late 2009 Sony even began embracing the genre. Their first free
to play was Free Realms, which
today has over 7 million registered users. The game is largely aimed at
teens, but it’s a lot of fun. Now that Free Realms has been such a big
success, Sony announced that they are working on another casual MMORPG
– Clone Wars
Adventures. Turbine also embraced
the genre last year with Dungeons and
Dragons Online going free to play. Just recently (Early June),
they further embraced the gene by announcing The
Lord of the Rings Online going fully free to play. This bit of news
was released after Turbine was acquired by Warner Brothers. I know Lord
of the Rings Online was a big money maker for Turbine – so it looks
like they’re taking a big gamble with this decision. I predict Lord of
the Rings Online will be much more popular and profitable once it
becomes free to play though. After all, Dungeons and Dragons Online
exploded in popularity only after it went free to play.

With more and more Western developers embracing free to play, I
wonder how long till more the less popular pay to play MMORPGs go free
to play? I bet Warhammer Online
and Champions Online
could make a killing as free to play games, just as Dungeons and
Dragons Online did.