Since going free to play The Lord of the Rings Online has enjoyed a 400% increase in active playerbase and a 200% increase in monthly revenues. Turbine also announced that the game now generates more money in optional monthly subscriptions than it did back when it was pay to play. I don’t think the game enjoyed the same level of success that Dungeons and Dragons Online did upon re-launching as a free to play game, but that’s mostly because The Lord of the Rings Online was already successful and profitable to begin with whereas Dungeons and Dragons Online had a tiny playerbase that was slowly dwindling away. Needless to say though, Turbine has once again proven that the free to play business model is a viable one. Not everyone is ignoring Turbine’s success with free to play.
Sony Online Entertainment recently made their flagship MMORPG EverQuest 2 free to play. But that’s old news that I’ve talked about in the past. What’s more interesting is that Pirates of the Burning Sea will also be relaunching as a free to play title in the coming months. And yes, it’s official. The company announced that they will be shifting to a free to play game when their latest expansion goes live. Since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play, Electronic Arts has tried their luck in free to play too. Over the last few years EA has released Battlefield Heroes, Lord of Ultima, FIFA Online and Tiger Woods Online as free to play titles, but has been hesitant to convert any of their current pay to play titles such as Dark Age of Camelot of Warhammer Online to free to play, which I think they should seriously consider doing. Both Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online aren’t very popular and are in clear decline. Dark Age of Camelot used to have 30+ servers but has 3 today. Warhammer Online launched with some 35+ servers but its down to 4. They need to do something to revitalize these games and going free to play could work. Free trials for those MMOs just isn’t cutting it.
With Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest 2 now free to play, I think there’s a lot of pressure on Funcom to make Age of Conan Free to Play and on NCSoft to make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play. As more and more pay to play games become free to play, game companies will realize that demanding a monthly fee to access a game is going to get harder and harder. I don’t think World of Warcraft really has to worry, as they’re still the market leader in the space, but smaller less successful MMORPGs like Champions Online and even Star Trek Online will need to eventually begin embracing free to play, as pay to play has been on a decline since Turbine made Dungeons and Dragons Online free to play. Plus, high quality free to play games like Runes of Magic, Fists of Fu and Heroes of Three Kingdoms are also putting pressure on pay to play games to re-consider their business models.
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