Free to play is here to stay! A fearless prediction about the future of MMO gaming.

1. Free to Play is the
Future of MMO Gaming
Like or not, the signs are clear on this one thing: when it comes to massively multiplayer online
(MMO) games, free to play is the way to go for 99 percent of new and existing titles. Sure, for the top
MMOs like World of Warcraft (WoW) or Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) pay to play can work
but that is because they are based on popular franchises and have
multimillion dollar budgets. Games like those two presumably have
the luxury of a long game development cycle that can last for as long
as five years but most companies simply do not have the resources to
compete with these giant franchises.
Not too long ago the most common pricing plan for MMOs was pay to
play. Players had to buy the game and then pay a monthly membership
fee to play it. Some still use this revenue model but more and more
MMOs are switching to a hybrid business model.
What are these hybrid models?
Totally free to play (f2p) games are obviously quite rare, if not
impossible to find outside of beta testing. The “free to play” titles
today are actually hybrid pricing games, also called “freemium,”
which is combination of the words free and premium. Most f2p MMOs and massively multiplayer
online role-playing games (MMORPGs, the most popular type of MMO) can be downloaded for free
and players can play them for free as long as they want. However, some content is premium, in other
words players must pay to access them. The most common types are:
Cash Shop – also called item shop, this is a store within the game where items can be bought for real
money. Many cash shop items are cosmetic ones that are used to customize the in-game characters of
players such as hair dye or clothes. Others are useful goods like extra bags for more inventory space or
teleport runes that save you time by letting you magically appear exactly where you want instead of
having to run there.
Expansions – in this hybrid payment model, free
players can access the areas and content designated
for them but some places and quests are locked.
Players will need to buy expansions to access this
premium content.
Premium Membership – in other MMORPG games,
players are divided into free players and members.
Members must pay a flat monthly fee to access
premium content. This is different from expansions
because normally expansions are a one-time fee while
memberships are paid every month.

2. All of these different types are called free to play although some insist that the proper term for hybrid
models is freemium.
Now, why exactly is f2p the future of MMO gaming if pay to play was the norm in the recent past?
Recent events have paved the way for the growth of f2p as game companies slowly learned that giving
away their game for free can paradoxically increase their revenues. A good example is The Lord of the
Rings Online (LOTRO) which struggled to acquire enough subscribers when it was a pay to play game.
When they switched over to the freemium model, LOTRO got a three hundred percent increase in
revenue as well as a huge increase in users.
Worldwide, free-to-play is actually the most widely used business revenue model and industry veterans
such as Sony Entertainment Online SEO John Smedley have gone on record that they believe that the
traditional monthly subscription MMORPG gaming is on its way out. Why? Because free-to-play just
has so many advantages like:
No upfront cost of buying the game – this has been a significant barrier for most new players who are
understandably reluctant to fork out their cash right away without even knowing if they want to play it
or not.
No monthly subscriptions – the classic game Everquest asked the players who were quitting the game
why they were leaving and 40 percent of them answered that it was because of the recurring
subscription. This clearly indicates that the monthly payments are a barrier that stops more players
from joining or continuing their participation.
Players on other platforms – while most MMOs are played on computers, multi-platform games that
can be played in a variety of devices such as consoles, mobile phones, smart phones, tablets, etc. have
become popular and players who use non-computer devices are not used to paying subscriptions.
Worldwide appeal – since many Western games are trying to make a leap into the Asian markets with
their potentially enormous playerbase, they would have to use the f2p model since that is what is the
norm in that part of the world.
In a nutshell, freemium is just a much easier way for players to access a game which means it will
probably make more money and game companies have now taken note of that fact.
So what does this all mean for MMO players? In the near future it is likely that in the top tier, big
budget MMORPG titles will increasingly adopt the freemium hybrid business model. Players will be
able to access most releases for free while the developers will make more money by attracting a larger
number of users. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved.
The future is here: the best free MMORPGs 2012. Do you know which f2p MMO has over 5 million
players worldwide? Visit the Top 5 Free MMORPG 2012 Games list to find out the answer.
Also, right now the World of Warcraft is dominating the Western market but did you know that there
are many WoW clones that people can play for free? Check out this list of f2p games like WoW.