Can Pay-To-Play Survive The Next Generation?
With the pending announcement of the final next-generation console, many players are concerned about having to upgrade their rigs for the next leap in PC gaming. However, the next-generation is already upon us in many ways as developers are finally realizing that pay-to-play does not necessarily ensure quality and regular subscribers. The free-to-play genre is worth millions more in regular revenue and many games have shown some huge success after ditching the pay-to-play model, but is there still room for a pay-to-play game in modern MMO gaming?
In short, no. The easiest example is Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game launched to a mediocre reception prompting developers Bioware and EA to announce a transition to free-to-play last July before joining the free market in November. A recent announcement showed figures that proved this to be a huge success as the developers announced over a 200% increase in monthly revenue, attracting 1.7 million players since going free.
We often hear of new MMO announcements but most of the time it’s a new free-to-play title. However, the term free doesn’t have the appeal it used to; purely because there are literally hundreds of poor online games that offer very little outside of poor incentive to invest into micro-transactions.
So free-to-play has suffered hits to its reputation thanks to the low-quality releases in recent years and pay-to-play doesn’t always guarantee quality and longevity. As an MMO gamer, do you automatically find yourself ignoring yet another free-to-play MMO announcement? Or do you avoid anything pay-to-play?
Leave a comment
Featured MMORPG / MMO
LATEST MMORPG NEWS
- My.com Thanks Armored Warfare Community For 2015 Contributions December 31, 2015
- Big New Year Celebrations In ARK: Survival Evolved December 31, 2015
- Albion Online Will Not Be Free-To-Play December 31, 2015
- Pathfinder Online New Ownership A Possibility December 31, 2015