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I believe that sometime between the release of Star Wars Episode I and II, a die-hard fan who has more of a connection to the forces of nature than the rest of us, stood amonst his Star Wars paraphernalia, flung his head skyward and bellowed out a mighty curse upon the franchise.
"A POX UPON YOU AND YOUR HOUSE!" he shouted, the wood paneling of his apartment shuddering with the animalistic power of his rage. That pox then became a boil, and festered still as Episode III was shoved upon us like a Penn State Coach in steamy shower. It festered until its very form was not unlike a bubbling crude of xenamorphic blood that ate through everything in its path.
It festers still, and has obviously made its way to SWTOR.
Today, in an investor call with Electronic Arts, it's been revealed that subscribers for the Bioware Star Wars MMO have dropped below 1 million. And while no actual subscriber number was given, EA said that it was still "well over" 500,000...still, a paultry number for a Star Wars game developed in what was, at one time, a hugely successful business model.
Electronic Arts has also announced, in what I'm sure is related news, that SWTOR will be going free-to-play up to level 50 this November. While not abandoning the subscription model entirely, those playing freely will still be subject to "certain restrictions".
"Unlimited game access, including new higher-level game content and new features, will be made available through individual purchases or through a subscription option," EA has explained.
To slowly work into the model, SWTOR will be going on sale in August for $15.99 that will include one month of free play. That means the non-paying customer will have to take a month off from the game from the time the free month ends to when the free-to-play model completely kicks in.
Electronic Arts is also trying to give something back to subcribers by implementing what they call Cartel Coins which "grants access to special in-game items" and "can be used for the purchase of great in-game items through the Cartel Market" according to the SWTOR website. A chart showing some of these rewards, and how the coins will be awarded, can be found here.
Overall though, this really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We've been saying for months that SWTOR would have to enter into a free-to-play model to be viable in the long run, and many other gaming voices have been saying the same. Whether this will actually pull in new subscribers, and bring back subs, remains to be seen. But as people flock toward other forms of online experience and emergent narrative becomes the next big thing -think DayZ and Minecraft- this might just be the last, long gasp for a gaming experience that had a good, long run.
Comments
11 years, 8 months ago
It doesn't really come as a surprise to me, really. Now there are plenty of high quality online games that people can play for free, why should people choose to pay monthly now? And as you said, with more Minecraft-esque online communities with constant updates, consumers realize they don't have to put up with monthly subscriptions to enjoy a healthy online community.
11 years, 8 months ago
[obligatory TORtanic joke]
11 years, 8 months ago
Great beginning narrative, Joseph. and it is true that people are realizing that there's no reason to spend money for a decent online game experience. Perhaps the next big-budget online game will realize the trends and plan accordingly if they expect to make a profit and a large player base.
11 years, 8 months ago
EA just loves to hit the panic button....a lot. They don't seem to realize that no sub based game has ever soared to 12 million subs over night. Hell, SWToR was the second sub based MMO to ever reach over one million subs but, of course, because EA execs don't understand the MMO market, they decide to throw the game under the bus and put more focus onto Battlefield. MMO players in today's market never stick to one MMO for too long because of just how many there are in the market. SWToR needed constant content updates to stay in business but instead we got fluff. Back when the game launched, players were promised a new planet every month....and we have 2 new ones that aren't even explorable; one is raid only, and the other is WarZone and raid only. In a game where the main focus is to roll alts, new leveling areas should have been the primary focus.
EA launched this game too soon. The announcement for SWToR was made 8 hours after Blizzard announced Diablo 3 would get a 2012 release. We constantly heard from the devs "the game will be released when it is ready" and I doubt the game was ready 8 hours after Blizzard's announcement. And now that EA shot SWToR in the foot at launch, they're going to just leave it in the gutter to fend for itself. The freemium model SWToR is going for certainly has made other MMOs jump in population and income, but also resulted in the communities for those games becoming worse and, actually, less sociable. Even worse is the fact SWToR won't be able to see the benefits of this move really until early 2013 which means current players get shafted with no real content updates.
11 years, 8 months ago
MMOs and subscriptions are not ingredients to success anymore. In fact, MMO is probably the most high risk genre to get make a game for, since tons of resources have to be put in and usually companies want a high ROI for it. Of course, there are exceptions...mainly Minecraft. I'm not counting DayZ as that is an Arma II mod.
I think we will see fewer and fewer MMOs being created in the future and those which are created will not last long.