Michael Bitton: Free-to-Play and SchadenfreudeEA's announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic would be going free-to-play in the Fall has sparked some interesting reactions from gamers around the 'net. In this week's SWTOR column, we're weighing in on the news and explain why we feel the switchover is worthy of praise over doom-n-gloom.
Column By Michael Bitton on August 01, 2012
Column By Michael Bitton on August 01, 2012
Yesterday, BioWare made the ‘dramatic’ announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic would be going free-to-play this fall. The writing has been on the wall on this for a good while now, and I’ve only been yelling about it constantly in this column for the last couple of months, so let me first get this out of the way: it’s about damn time!
The reaction to the news has been mixed. Many gamers have responded well to the announcement and appear to look forward to checking the game out once it goes free-to-play. On the flipside, the self-congratulating and practical foaming-at-the-mouth rush to get one’s “I told you so!” in has been nauseating, to say the least. I realize schadenfreude is pretty popular around these parts, but some of you are reading the wrong signals in this announcement.
To some, it would seem, Star Wars: The Old Republic going free-to-play in less than a year is the ultimate vindication. This news, some would believe, is clear proof that Star Wars: The Old Republic has been an abject failure, validating the various criticisms that have been leveled at the game for some time now.
I disagree wholeheartedly.
Star Wars: The Old Republic hasn’t necessarily experienced a decline in subscribers as sharp as we’ve seen solely due to any particular failure on BioWare’s designers to create a solid MMO but more on Electronic Arts’ failure to recognize (and perhaps significant levels of arrogance) of what is clearly a strong trend away from subscription based MMOs. I know this sounds like I’m using a scapegoat to excuse the game for all the myriad deficiencies of which some of you are clearly convinced, but honestly, EA’s biggest mistake with Star Wars: The Old Republic was a financial one, not necessarily a design one.
I’m not saying this to discount anyone’s criticisms of the game. You’re more than welcome to them. But the reality is that SW:TOR should have never launched as a subscription based game. Even in my excitement for the title prior to launch, I knew this was a huge mistake. Even if SWTOR did well, in my mind at least, there was no way the subscriber base would hold against the pressure of a quality buy-to-play title such as Guild Wars 2, nor the increasing number of other quality free-to-play MMOs on the horizon. It appeared to me that EA was either arrogant or tone deaf to the market trend. It’s Star Wars, after all. It’ll just print money, right?!
Clearly, EA didn’t learn much from the history of Star Wars MMOs. SOE made that money-printing bet with Star Wars Galaxies and the game peaked at 250,000 subscribers before SOE panicked and cannibalized the game’s playerbase in search of fresh new blood. Yes, the Star Wars IP, enough marketing, and BioWare’s history with the Knights of the Old Republic franchise were always going to move a significant amount of boxes, but the underlying issue is the same now as it was 10 years ago: getting people to consistently pay a subscription fee for your game is pretty dang hard.
I’m sure some of the perceived deficiencies in design many like to highlight precipitated the collapse of subscribers to some, maybe even a large extent, but this ultimately would have happened either way. With the exception of World of Warcraft, the subscription MMO is on its deathbed and no game could illustrate that better than Star Wars: The Old Republic. And no, I’m not discounting Trion Worlds’ RIFT. I simply feel RIFT has done as well for Trion has in spite of its business model and not because of it.
So, why is this news actually good news and not worthy of the chants of “I told you so!” we’re seeing around the ‘net? In the simplest terms? Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. To this day, WAR is stubbornly a subscription-based game, one whose population has continued to dwindle. I’ve always thought EA to either be arrogant or stupid in not attempting to relaunch WAR along the lines of The Lord of the Rings Online or DDO. The fact that EA is not waiting until TOR hemorrhages so many subscribers that it’s barely worth saving is actually commendable. Keep in mind, while we’re officially hearing about this news now, this process has clearly been in development for many months now. There’s only so much that can be rushed with a changeover like this, so I’d say EA is reacting in a timely manner.
Keyword: reacting.
Again, that’s the real failure here. A solidly run business is proactive and can read trends well enough to get ahead of the curve. EA failed on this front with SW:TOR, is paying for it dearly, and they’re now in the process of course correcting. Some people just love to watch the world burn, but for those that would’ve liked to be able to justify continuing to play SW:TOR, this is good news. Of course, the same is true for the current subscriber base.
Still, no one can accurately predict how this switchover will ultimately impact the health and future of Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, the precedent set by other titles that have since relaunched in the same manner has been a positive one to say the least. One thing we’ve heard consistently, and something I’ve even heard in my own circles, is that SW:TOR is actually a really fun game to play, many have simply felt that it wasn’t necessarily worth putting $15/month into.
SW:TOR’s endgame Operations (raids) were plowed through with pretty exceptional speed and the game’s open world PvP ended up a travesty to say the least (with still no clear solution in sight), so I wouldn’t fault those who said to themselves, “Well, that was fun, but what do I do now?” It’s a legitimate criticism. Fortunately, one of the main benefits of the free-to-play business model is that it removes that pressure from both developers and players. Players can play whenever they feel like it without worrying about justifying the cost of their subscriptions and game developers don’t have to focus on shoving repetitive and tedious content (*cough*dailies*cough*) into the game to pad it out and maintain subscription numbers.
The ideal result is that the cash shop (along with those who choose to subscribe) brings in enough revenue to justify more frequent and, more importantly, interesting content for players to consume. Dungeons & Dragons Online just received its first expansion in six years of service, no doubt enabled due to the game’s transition to a hybrid title, and other relaunches of similar or identical nature have also reinvigorated their respective games and have often lead to a quicker cadence of meaningful content updates.
While it’s unfortunate that SW:TOR had to go through this downturn before EA figured out the right course of action for the game, I’m more encouraged than ever that the future of Star Wars: The Old Republic is brighter for this announcement than some would seemingly like to believe.
I think it might have been a case of "shit this is not working but it is way to late to change from sub to hybrid before launch" as they did admitt that they completley missed the market. As for WAR it is eaither a contractual thing between mythic and EA or it is not worth saving. Saddly i think it is the later, it would cost to much to convert it for it to be worth it.
As for this news, i am happy as it let's me do all the things i like in the game without paying a subscription.
How did Garrett miss the hat-trick? He sleeping in or something?
@Bigbenz
If by Dumas, you mean Alexandre Dumas, the chap who wrote the Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo, then I will have to correct you. The author's name is Michael, and he's a cool fellow as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas
I wish EA would turn WAR into F2P but they won't because it doesn't have a huge player base like SWTOR to support that model.
EA is going to roll in money just like Turbine did with LOTRO F2P. Very smart move.
[mod edit] Warhammer and SWTOR subscriptions sharply declined in just months because they were both poorly designed, wanna be WoW clones, that were rushed too soon. Developers didn't listen to beta testers in either game and paid the price, so yah "I told you so" is in order. They didn't listen and paid the price, losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers. It's humorous that BW and their hardcore fans try to spin it as if people just don't want to pay a sub as the reason for the game doing so poorly, it's laughable. The game is a niche game and will only retain the harcore SW and Bioware fans. Face it, the game is crap and will never recover to it's original numbers. Mmo fans are tired of mediocrity.
One of the problems with SWTOR is it was mislabeled. If you think of it as a co op game and not an mmo it's good. But as an mmo it fails.
I have to agree with this as well.
TOR was not a failure. The main design of the game was to focus on the story for 8 characters (the classes on each side). They did a fantastic job with the several classes I have played through.
As a MMO of the standard genre of it all, it did not make the mark, however.
Most definately no end game content that was worthwhile to play. And the pvp is mind numbing. They designed an entire planet to be a PvP only WORLD. But that was a bust. Then you had the PvP servers. That was a bust. Why? No incentive, no rewards, and in turn, no risk. Add all that up, and you get a PvE server. Meh.
But the Free to Play model might not be all bad. Star Trek Online did it, and with them pushing out New Chapters on a regular basis, which is awesome. They have bug fixes and new ships, equipment, and bridge officers. All awesome. I might have to redownload that...
DC Universe Online, fun game, awesome graphics and you get Mark Hamill and Gina Torres which is all kinds of win.
Lord of the Rings Online has a huge amount of content. Not just huge, sorry, ginourmous huge. And it is pretty to boot. I wish I would have stuck with this but something about the combat made me, meh.. or it might be how the quests are delivered, or maybe it is just so damn huge that I don't know where to begin.
Dungeons and Dragons Online... FTP and continuing to bring out new areas and classes and races. Decent looking game with great dungeons and "active" combat.
So there a number of FTP games. But yes with Guild Wars 2 coming out, who knows what will happen. MMOs in my mind should have a social aspect to it. It should have housing that you can customize from your exploits, guild gathering locations that everyone can get to quickly, and most of all, it should be allowed to have others visit and give a reason to visit.
You could check out my blog.. it has stuff on there for a Shadowrun MMO and what it should have, but all MMOs should contain these perks. http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/WolfClaws
Will I keep playing TOR? Maybe. I dunno. Once I am done with all of the class quests for all the classes, not sure if there is a reason for me to stick around, until they do something drastic, and engage the Multiplayer part of MMO.
Of course everyone thinks it's a great idea. Gotta reserve some room for those "TOR going F2P" adds that are bound to come. But hey, I'm OK with this. After all it lets me play through class story without paying a dime and that's ultimately the only standout thing worth mentioning in TOR.
Star Wars: The Old Republic hasn’t necessarily experienced a decline in subscribers as sharp as we’ve seen solely due to any particular failure on BioWare’s designers to create a solid MMO but more on Electronic Arts’ failure to recognize (and perhaps significant levels of arrogance) of what is clearly a strong trend away from subscription based MMOs. I know this sounds like I’m using a scapegoat to excuse the game for all the myriad deficiencies of which some of you are clearly convinced, but honestly, EA’s biggest mistake with Star Wars: The Old Republic was a financial one, not necessarily a design one.ri
You hear that, guys? The writer is telling us, as fact, that EA's biggest mistake with their MMO was their subscription model.
[mod edit]
As much as I respect MikeB's opinion, all I will say is this: if the game was better, I would have kept paying the sub.