The Setup
Two of the MMO's I've played have made the transition from subscription based model to Free to Play, or Subscription/Free hybrid. A third is marching into this territory soon, amidst screams of 'failure,' 'inevitable,' and 'sinking ship' among others. The brief rundown:
Lord of the Rings Online - Launching in 2007, it had a great run as a subscription based game, staying that way until 2010 when it transitioned to a hybrid model with an in game store. Considering that it was competing with World of Warcraft as its popularity waxed and peaked, I don't think it has anything to be ashamed of. In fact, in many ways it pioneered the free-to-play model in North America, being the first major subscription based MMO to make the transition in this particular market.
Star Trek Online - Sticking with this game has been a labor of love. Launching prematurely in 2010 over the angst of IP holders at CBS (following the Perpetual Debacle), the game was simply too soon out the gate. It didn't quite make it two years before switching to a hybrid model early this year. The move was unsurprising, as Lotro's playerbase had been greatly reinvigorated with the ftp launch, and Cryptic had always had an in game store within STO, making the transition relatively painless.
The Old Republic - Launching last holiday season, it recently announced it would be making the free to play shift around the game's one year anniversary, give or take, somewhat emulating the hybrid model Lotro pioneered a few years ago.
It's interesting to note that all three of these games are very much 'Themepark' MMO's. From the point of character creation, to the mystical 'end game,' you're locked in a more or less set path that takes you from point a to b to c, etc, until you complete a certain storyline, hit cap, and are then expected to raid/pvp while waiting for the next content update.
Ultimately, this is what forced these games hand in regards to transition to the ftp model.
The Content Bottleneck
Like it or not, the developers can only create new content at so fast a pace. This bottleneck is only magnified when the developer team is a relatively small, homey studio. When you have the economies-of-scale induced dev power as exemplified by Blizzard, this problem is essentially mitigated. While players will still complete and master content at a faster pace than it can be produced, the rate of production is higher from a larger dev team, pulling in more players who appreciate the greater amount of content, funding larger developer teams, etc, creating a positive feedback loop of content/player satisfaction.
When you're a small studio like Cryptic, you simply can't keep up. There aren't enough man hours in the day to produce content fast enough to appease fans. Measures were tried to mitigate the problem (player generated content in the form of the Foundry), and it has perhaps alleviated pains, but not to the degree necessary.
What degree is that? The point at which players stop asking themselves, "What am I paying for?"
The Old Republic, in an almost suicidal manner, placed itself at the heart of that question by creating such thematic, scripted, fully voiced over, and varied story arcs for each and every base class in game. While this is a huge draw in and of itself for many players, the extra development time required to create new content, particularly of the storied variety, is exacerbated. It was a recipe for frustration. If you tout yourself as a story based MMO, but have difficulty updating story on a regular basis, you're in for a headache.
The Inevitable Result
Free to play as a model was the inevitable conclusion of this story. If players feel like they aren't getting their money's worth, they won't pay. But with the ftp/hybrid model, you allow your players to choose to pay an amount they believe fitting for the content they receive. It allows more control on the player's end, and less frustration about having to pay a fixed rate for content you may not be interested in playing.
And as an added benefit, you pull in an entirely new demographic of players: Those who are interested in your game, but don't want to play a monthly subscription fee to play it. They may not bring in as much money as a full blown subscriber, but they can still spend money in the store, which is cash the devs didn't have to play with before. Win-win for all.
So Where Lies the Future?
I think this is the really interesting question. Is the future of all MMO's free to play? I'm not sure sure that's the case. I think it might be better to say, the future of 'Themepark' MMO's is free to play, for the content generation bottleneck cited above. I would be very surprised to see a new 'Themepark' MMO released in the future with a subscription based model. But I don't think the subscription based model has run its course, rather I think the 'Themepark' MMO has had its day.
Name a very strong subscription based MMO that isn't WoW. The first thought that springs to my mind is
EVE Online, very much a sandbox game, one which has actually been slowly but steadily growing the past few years despite its age.
Why is it that people are still playing an aging game with a subscription based model despite all the newer and shinier alternatives out there?
I think the answer is ultimately two things: Emergent Gameplay and Meaningful PvP.
Meaningful PvP is, I think, a big one. When two corporations in EVE go head to head in full scale war, there is going to be loss. Oh boy is there going to be loss. The kind that players won't recover from for months. The kind that players fear, and makes full scale war a dire thing to be considered ever so carefully. The kind that leads to corporations completely dissolving and the state of game politics shifting forever. The single shard model greatly facilitates this, as when a major corporation collapses, it's felt throughout the game.
Yet what happens when you lose a warzone match in themepark game x? You gain a moderate amount of experience and in game currency anyway, and go on your merry way to the next queue. No consequences. Nothing felt long term, significance is minimal to the player, and completely and totally nonexistent to the rest of the in game world. The ramifications to the world around you are effectively none, completely fumbling a fantastic opportunity to create greater world immersion.
The ramifications of meaningful PvP fall under
Emergent Gameplay, that is, gameplay in which the players set their own goals, assign their own personal value to those goals, which makes the game far more engrossing than any roller coaster ride could ever be. The story you create with your guildmates is far more impacting than any story written by a paid developer that will be played by hundreds of thousands of other people. If your guild has risen to the top of the pack on your server (or ideally in your single shard game world), that's something you'll carry with you until the server shuts down. Even if you only peak for a day, it'll be 'written' in the annals of the game's history. And it wasn't scripted for you.
Hope for the Future
These aspects are what give me hope for
TESO. Considering that the entire center region of the continent, Cyrodiil, is open for PvP between three factions already makes it significantly more interesting than many games out there from a PvP perspective. Add to that the fact that whichever of the three factions controls the most land can
crown their own emperor in game!, and you have an interesting, investing, and impacting PvP design, particularly if the dominating faction assumes benefits from control. (As it undoubtedly will.)
Further this with guild politics as various guilds vie for supremacy and the coveted throne within their faction, and you have the recipe for something refreshing, at the very least. It'll be interesting to see if it plays out as pitched. I'm eager.
Paradigm Shift
These facts combined with TES series traditionally sandboxy design, with themepark vignettes to complete as desired, and I think we may be on the precipice of a paradigm shift. As WoW ushered in an era of themepark MMO's that I believe is just now drawing to a close eight years later, I think TESO may usher in an era of Sandbox MMO's, or Sandbox/Themepark hybrids at the very least. I'm not saying TESO is going to be a WoW-killer; I do, however, think it has the potential to make an old model new again by introducing it to a widespread audience that EVE hasn't been able to reach, based on a more hybrid approach to gameplay and the ubiquity of the IP's name.
Only time will tell, but as is the case with all MMO's pre-launch, I'm hoping for the best whilst preparing for the worst.
