In case you didn’t hear – The Lord of the Rings Online from Turbine relaunched as a free to play MMORPG. This happened about a month ago and anyone can go ahead and download the game today and play it for free. Turbine has had a great of success with free to play, as their other MMORPG – Dungeons and Dragons Online made a ton of money as a free to play MMORPG. In fact, Dungeons and Dragons Online was a failing MMO, as it had very few subscribers and was bleeding red ink for Turbine. Only after making the game free to play did Turbine turn a profit out of Dungeons and Dragons Online. The Lord of the Rings Online going free to play is a bit more interesting in my opinion. Pay to play MMORPGs have gone free to play in the past – think Archlord, RF Online and FusionFall with newer MMORPGs like Pirates of the Burning Sea from Sony Online Entertainment going free to play soon. Pirates of the Burning Sea announced it would drop its subscription in the near future back in August. I suspect other pay to play MMOs will release MMO news saying they’ll go free to play in the future.
Okay, enough talking about other MMORPGs though. What makes Lord of the Rings Online unique as a pay to play MMORPG gone free to play is that Lord of the Rings Online was a success. The game was making plenty of money for Turbine and the company didn’t make it free to play in a desperate move – the same way they did for Dungeons and Dragons Online. Archlord and RF Online went free to play because they were utter failures as pay to play games with no subscribers. Lord of the Rings Online was plenty profitable for years. Turbine made it free to play because they think that they can make more profit as a free to play game than as a pay to play one. Now this is interesting. In the past only failed games went free to play, so with Turbine’s latest move with Lord of the Rings Online, hopefully other game publishers and developers will do the same thing. Maybe NCSoft could make City of Heroes and Lineage 2 free to play? Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Electronic Arts made Warhammer Online free to play – as they’ve already launched NUMEROUS free to play games in the last year. They developed and launched Battlefield Heroes, FIFA Online, Tiger Woods Online AND Need for Speed World as free to play MMOs. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to ANYONE if EA made Warhammer Online free to play.
Since Lord of the Rings Online went free to play in August, the game’s playerbase has spiked. We haven’t heard too many official announcements from Turbine yet about LOTRO, so we won’t know if the game is a success yet or not. I’ve personally played LOTRO and I absolutely love it. Why? Because it has that certain pay to play feel to it. The visuals are great, the quests are in perfect English, the MMO plot makes sense and the MMO music is great too. All of these little details add up to make The Lord of the Rings Online of the best free to play MMORPGs available. Obviously top tier f2p games like Runes of Magic and Fiesta Online shouldn’t be ignored either, but I think Lord of the Rings Online is raising the bar for free to play.
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