For Lord of the Rings Online, it was three-fold. Dungeons & Dragons Online said that revenues increased 5-fold when they want free-to-play. Removing the subscription enables many players to try the game AND enables those people who love the game to buy things that they value in it. The people who love your game (or any media property) want to spend lots of money on it just like, for example, the way a committed football fan spends lots of money on his favourite team. What fewer people realised is that it was also a barrier to revenue.

Why are so many subscription-based MMOs moving to this model? What effect does it have for their business?īecause it is so much better as a business model.Įveryone knows that subscriptions are a barrier to adoption: you have to persuade people to get over the hurdle of committing to a regular monthly payment.

There are many other variants – as many as developers can think of and players will buy.

Short-term power-ups (“I get 10% more experience for the next hour”).status (“Hey, look at me everyone, I’ve got the optical monocle thing”).If you want to join our guild, go and buy some purple and green gear”) aesthetics (“everyone in our guild wears purple and green.time-for-money (you can wait until tomorrow for this crop to grow/training to complete/sword to be repaired or you can buy it now).A limited percentage of players (generally somewhere between 1% and 20%) choose to spend on things within the game. They can experience the world, level up, socialise and have fun without paying any money. Free-to-play games enable players to play the game, for ever, for free.

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