At this week's GDC Online, Turbine's Kate Paiz revealed some impressive numbers for Lord of the Rings Online since its conversion to free-to-play in September. The game has scored over a million new accounts and doubled its monthly revenue. Additionally, peak concurrent player numbers have risen exponentially along with the return of a large number of former subscribers.

Paiz also shared that 20% of LotRO's former players have returned to the game since the switchover, and that the game has seen a 300% increase in peak concurrency, with three times the number of players online simultaneously, and a 400% increase in active players total. 53% of players have used the in-game microtransaction store (which sells everything from mounts and outfits to XP boosts and character slots), and as you can see above, extra storage slots are extremely popular in the store. And even paid subscriptions have increased. Turbine's lesson seems to be that, as Paiz said during the panel, "when you tell people you no longer have to pay for it, they come in droves."

Source: Kotaku.