The level of unpredictability that this causes, and the risk of losing such individuals, seriously hamstrings MMO developers when it comes to taking risks on new, varied content. Carsten Van Husen, CEO of Gameforge, the publisher responsible for handling TERA and Aion in Europe, confirms the vast majority of profit in free-to-play titles comes from an inordinately small number of people. That’s not to say it always outweighs the risks that come with F2P games, however. This feedback is absolutely invaluable during an age that now more than ever sets significant store on instant gratification. But while changing to F2P means planning for the future does become harder, it also opens the door to a much faster-paced breed of feedback that, if analysed and reacted to appropriately, enables developers to get the most bang for their buck. Subscription fees enable developers to forecast how many players they have for the foreseeable future and what their income is likely to be, which in turn enables the studio to create content patches safe in the knowledge that there will be people around to play them. It wasn’t a fluke, by the sounds of things, with Harsten echoing that not only did Rift’s revenue stream more than triple, but it’s sustaining at a higher level too. The example often held aloft by those arguing for transition is The Lord of the Rings Online, which Turbine reported had its revenue triple following the decision to remove the subscription fee. Hartsman, who oversaw Trion Worlds take first Rift and more recently Defiance over to the free-to-play model, confirms what many people have long argued: making these changes in an intelligent way can indeed lead to massive jumps in revenue. In essence, the removal of subscription fees allows you to maximise the number of evangelists you have for your title. When they travel in packs like this, you need the lowest barriers possible in order to get the biggest success.” They want to play games with their friends. What we’re seeing these days is as more people are coming online and more people are playing, people travel in packs. “When you’re in a subscription game, the barrier was you had to get one person to subscribe to the game and then they’d play, make friends and stick around. “Back when online games were young, people would go online and make online game friends in their games,” he explains. To that end I spoke to Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman and Gameforge CEO Carsten Van Husen - two gentlemen with a wealth of experience in both MMOs and F2P conversions - to find out whether ditching the sub fee really is the right path for an MMO to take, or if it’s a fallacy that such a move can change the game’s fortunes.
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But as Star Wars: The Old Republic’s first crack at its free-to-play conversion shows us, such a change is far from straightforward. Steering toward the issue in a recent interview with creative director Paul Sage I was told “no comment”, so unfortunately I’ve no more official insight than you guys. The truth is, I don’t know if ESO will ditch its sub fee. When it eventually was confirmed that, yes, the game would require a monthly subscription, the debate seemed to intensify rather than lessen, and has continued to do so ever since launch in the face of console delays and a mixed reaction to endgame design. Huge swathes of people proclaimed ESO was dead in the water if it launched requiring a monthly fee, while a smaller subset quietly countered that such a move was needed for the title to succeed.
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From the moment it was announced the next entry in The Elder Scrolls series would be an MMO, the prospect of the game demanding a subscription fee has been an intensely debated topic.
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