In the news slow week before E3, MMORPG.com Star Wars: The Old Republic columnist Eric Barnett sets his mind to wandering about what might happen if Bioware were to take two routes that seem to be popular among developers recently: moving to a Free 2 Play model and ignoring the IP's niche in favor of a larger audience.
Due to the abundant lack of news this week in The Old Republic universe (aside from a new chapter in the Blood of the Empire comic), I'd like to play the role of chaos theorist. We've seen the F2P market creeping up on us for some time now, and it seems that many companies are starting to become the little spoon in its bed. With more companies trying to copy the "Golden Formula" of MMOs we have seen a major lull in retention and heck, over all fun. I have found myself re-subbing many old accounts just to see if I could rekindle some sort of spark, only to cancel them a few days later. Have certain games caused a ripple effect that has made studio heads worry more about quarterly revenue numbers, than the actual fun factor of their games? This week, let's take a look at how these "popular" design tactics could both positively and negatively effect The Old Republic.
Neither of these two scenarios is likely to actually turn out to be the case, but leading up to E3 where there's nothing much to talk about, it can be fun to think about.
Read The Butterfly Effect.
