If there’s one thing the doctors at BioWare must be tired of hearing about it has to be free-to-play. Their highly anticipated MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, hasn’t even been (officially) available on store shelves for a full week and they are already being asked about changing their business model.
Many consider The Old Republic to be the last of the premium, subscription-based MMOs, and the last bastion for the floodgates of free-to-play. Just this year we have seen so many games flounder in the subscription business model arena, and turn to free-to-play only to enjoy a tremendous upsurge of users (i.e. DC Universe Online).
But this is Star Wars: The Old Republic after all, a game that essentially delivers seven KOTOR sequels in one MMO shell. With that in mind, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk feel like the subscription-based MMO model still works for them, and is still viable. It might not be for everyone, but there’s still a place for it.
“You look at the online space in general and it’s fragmenting into all these different areas, but the core still works. The subscription model still works. We know a lot of people say, ‘Oh, everything’s just going free-to-play.’ But that’s just one slice. There’s one slice that’s free-to-play, there’s one slice that’s social, there’s traditional subscription still going.”
In Zeschuk’s mind there is no way that a free-to-play MMO could ever deliver the same type of experience as a subscription-based one. Far less resources and time can be devoted to something that doesn’t generate revenue in the traditional sense, and that’s one of the primary reasons why we may never see The Old Republic go free-to-play.
The cost alone to secure the Star Wars license — and BioWare is no slouch in the story or content department either — certainly ensure that the subscriptions will stay for quite some time. But that doesn’t mean BioWare is against the idea of free-to-play, or as they like to call it play for free. In fact, one of BioWare’s fan favorite IPs might be making a reappearance in this business model.
“We have some other stuff we haven’t announced yet coming from our play-for-free team that I’m really excited about. It’s gonna bring back some IP that people have a lot of fond memories around.”
What that could be we don’t know, but based on BioWare’s library we are sufficiently excited. And if one day The Old Republic does go free-to-play perhaps its greatest competition will also be a BioWare product.
In the case of whether The Old Republic will go free-to-play, is it a matter of if or when? What BioWare property would you like to see re-imagined as a free-to-play MMO?
Star Wars: The Old Republic is out now for the PC.
Source: Joystiq
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usually when the decide to make a game both f2p and p2p s&&& goes crazy, b/c in most cases they cant get the balance right. if they do manage to satisfy those that want to play for free and only pay a couple of buck from time to time for special gear, then i’ll jump on board, but if they make it so that subs get the best stuff all the time, then i’ll just stick with other games.
I have nothing against having bioware getting paid for ToR but at reduced price. For example, Due to the ecomony, having $5 per month, $30 per 6 months and $60 per month. that is a good balance.
Due to the economy if I was getting paid 5$ an hour to update a game I would probably find another job lol. If they ever reduced the price I would probably see them go maybe $12 a month. But $5 that is way to low. Its a steal for the consumer but not for the workers. But honesty I try to make a little extra each month to pay for my gaming hobby’s. When pricing you have to look at so many things including the cost to keep the servers online. I wont lie I ran a Battlefield2 server back in the day and the cost difference was $94 increase to my electric bill.
hopefully you mean $60 per year. still they should base it off the pay to play like xbox live averaging around $50 per year. i bought swtor and now found out i have to pay an extra $30 before the free month kicks in. i dont have that much money to spend all at once
No offense but this article is misinformed and from Wow Fanboys.
They’re quotes from Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk…
They are secretly WoW fanboys! :O!
Nah, just kiddin’. Good article!
The only sad thing about F2P MMO’s is that you still have to pay. You want to play as a Jedi knight well now that cost 2,000 republic credits. How do you get republic credits well you pay them! You got some epic loot well now you have to pay for that epic loot if you really want it that will be 500 credits. You want more then 1 character please pay 1,000 credits for each character. You don’t like the companion you have and want to by a premium companion please pay for it. -.- MMO’s who switch to f2p does the entire micro manage thing. Plus the quality of the game goes down quite a bit. This usually only happens when those P2P games go F2P. There has to be a way for the to get money and that’s the best way. Lock features and make people pay for it. I pray that The old Republic stays P2P with great quality. I personally hate it when MMO’s do the micro manage thing and makes every one pay for things. I would prefer P2P.
As would I. The free-to-play model actually ends up costing the player more in the end just to experience the entire game. I’d rather pay one solid fee per month to experience everything that the game has to offer without a need to worry about whether or not I’m seeing it all.
they won’t reduce the price anytime soon and why should they? yes it’s really expensive and hard to pay for( im only 16 and have to pay for these things myself) but a high quality game like this will always cost and there will always be those willing to pay for it. They could have that price a month and maybe double the users but all that would do is give them twice as much server problems for the same revenue
I’m waiting for “Star Trek Online” to become free to play in January. We will soon find out if BioWare’s pereptions are correct.
Umm STO ‘is’ already F2P, and has been for quite some time now.
Nope.
http://www.startrekonline.com/f2p
I agree with the guy above who said F2P just means you now have to pay for everything you want to do beyond the bare minimum in the game. Have a look at LOTRO for example – as a former Lifetime subscriber with permanent access to all benefits, and with a friend who is just starting a new character on an F2P account, I saw firsthand how diminishing that experience can be. Lack of access to most skirmishes, instances and even entire regions in the original game unless you pay up, usually more than the subscription fee would be.
That being said, there is one big grievance I’ve had with Old Republic already, namely blatant discrimination or just plain incompetence on the part of EA. Apparently people in the “rest of the world” that they deem unworthy, such as eastern Europe where I live, are not allowed to buy the game on Origin. No word on when this will change, if it does at all. I could VPN around this limitation but it feels like they’re straight up giving me the finger, and as much as I’d like to play the game I refuse to put up with this kind of BS. They did it for Battlefield 3 as well, where the release date was staggered and Europeans and others had to wait for no apparent reason.
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ChiantiGLACE is a cheater on Red Dead Redemption for the Playstation 3. This bitch uses a modded PS3 console with an aimbot, a modified controller and a lag switch.
MrREDRUM-GUNZ is a cheater on Red Dead Redemption for the Playstation 3. This punk uses a modded PS3 console with an aimbot and a modified controller. He also plays Battlefield 3 and more then likely cheats on that game as well.
you are all retarded for paying monthly to play video games. lets go back to the day when you bought a game, had all access to the game, and could play as long as you want. And another frustration of mine is that the suggested retail price of games is 39-49$. Not $59.99 for even the crappiest of games. MMOs take from gameplay aspects as well. in order to have the massive social part you end up just clicking and watching your character attack with very little user input other than pushing your hotkey for a skill which auto targets the enemy. So when you play games like Star Wars: The Old Replublic your not even really playing, your watching an animation and moving the character. And for SW:TOR it is nothing different from WoW, Hellgate, Everquest, ETC. They are all the same. so go ahead and stay a subscription model or go F2P because ill stick with the classics and epics that actually take some skill.