"Lord of the Rings Online's revenue tripled since going F2P"
"DC Universe Online revenue up 700% after free-to-play switch"
According to a pair of 'tweets' by Sony Online Entertainment's
John Smedley,
EverQuest II has shown impressive growth since going free to play in early December.
" We are seeing some amazing growth in EQ2. 40% increase in daily logins since going f2p. 300% increase in new players.
And 200% increase in Item sales. Plus we have added a lot of new subs. All during the time that some really good competition hit the market. "
The developers, and sometimes more importantly the SOE
Executives, have seen the future of MMO-X gaming and it isn't subscription no matter how you slice it.
It took a long string of failed MMO-X games trying to run subscriptions competing against games like WoW before people began to realize that you can't beat WoW. The only thing that will kill WoW, is WoW itself, it is the Rome of videogames. Like Rome it is already starting to fall apart from within, bleeding subscribers at record rates. If the king of all subscription games is slipping and dozens have failed to match its success why would PS2 limited itself to subscription in the face of the proven modern success of F2P and F2P-after box copy games?