With the announcement that Star Wars: The Old Republic would be going F2P, many people expressed surprise that it had come so soon. In a new column today, we look at that notion and tear it apart. Check it out!

SWTOR is going F2P this fall. It launched just before Christmas in 2011. That means it will be less than one year since BioWare’s massive investment stormed the sales charts… and then promptly saw its subscription numbers falter. The answer? As is the current trend: make it a hybrid F2P game and drop that pesky purchase and subscription barrier. If you can get players playing your game for free, by the thousands, chances are you can get a few of them to buy something for a small fee once they’re hooked. When I spoke to Jeff Hickman and Matt Bromberg this week, one of the things they were completely open about was that SWTOR should have been F2P all along. But is the conversion coming too soon, too late, or just in time?

Read more of Bill Murphy's F2P: How Soon Is Too Soon?