Lord of the Rings Online Free to Play a Big Success

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.

The Lord of the Rings Online is Worth Checking Out

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.

EverQuest 2 is Free to Play! Awesome

Sony Online Entertainment announced yesterday that their flag ship MMORPG EverQuest II would be going free to play. Well not entirely, but basically. As is, The free to play version – called EverQuest II: Extended will be separate from the current pay to play service, but offer most of the same content. EQ: Extended will offer the base EQ2 game and five expansion packs. Only 8 or so races and classes will be available, but the rest can be purchased for a small one time fee. Since all of the classes are balanced, it’s not really a big deal. Come to think of it, Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine offers the same level of “free to play”, as certain classes and races in it also need to be purchased.

So now that EverQuest II is going free to play, what’s next? If EverQuest 2 becomes a big success, there’s no doubt in my mind that Sony Online Entertainment’s other games, including Vanguard, Star Wars Galaxies and Pirates of the Burning Sea will go free to play. I Think Sony has actually seen first hand that free to play can work, as Free Realms, their first experiment with free to play, has been a big success. Maybe not in terms of revenues, as I don’t know how successful free realms is, but in terms of volume, the game has some 4+ million users. To put that into perspective – games like Allods Online from gPotato and Eudemons Online from TQ Digital have less than 4 million users each. So in terms of users, Free Realms is doing good.

If the free to play version of EverQuest II does well, there’s no doubt in my mind that other tier 2 pay to play MMORPGs like Age of Conan from Funcom and Eve Online from CCP will go free to play. Warhammer Online and Lineage 2 will also likely follow. I’ve played the free trials for all of these games and they’re really good. I just don’t want to pay for them! Unfortunately, all of this depends on how successful EverQuest II is. If the free to play version is a flop, it would be terrible for the industry. With top notch games like EQ2 and The Lord of the Rings Online going free to play though, I think it’s safe to say that “free to play” is indeed the future. At least for the time being.

I’ve always wanted to get into EverQuest 2, but I didn’t want to pay for it – so I’m very excited about this announcement! I can’t wait until the free to play open beta begins on August 12. I hope to see you all in game!