A couple months ago a lot of games went free to play that were previously pay to play games, most notably a bunch of games on Steam such as Champions Online, Spiral Knights, and others. I tried out several of them and even came to enjoy Champions enough that I paid for the gold membership anyway just to support the game. I did so, however, against my better judgement, and lately I've been having a lot of second thoughts about putting my money into it because Champions just held their TWO year anniversery.
Two years doesn't seem, to me at least, like an exceedingly long time for an MMO to establish itself, so I find the idea that it went free to be troubling. Games like World of Warcraft have a free model but this came only after many, many years and the game had a well established player base and revenue source. SO I thought about it came came up with this theory.
A star is a ball of hydrogen gas that runs by burning hydrogen into helium. THe majority of its life is spent this way, and MMO's are this way with their paying player base. However, eventually the hydrogen begins to wane, the star becomes calmer as the fuel is largely replaced by helium, and so it is as players either finish up the primary storyline in a game or simply get bored and move on to other games. Then the star, once enough pressure has been added by the lack of fuel to burn, explodes and begins burning the helium inside it with a sudden burst of renewed life, not unlike an MMO going free which results in a massive influx of players and possibly revenue as some new players like myself play to play the game after getting involved.
That's my theory so far on an MMO going free to play. What comes next I can't speculate. In a star, the helium burns until, like the hydrogen, there isn't enough fuel to maintain and the star begins burning oxygen, and then heavier elements, each one burning faster and faster until it collapses or explodes. My concern is that this game that I'm now putting $15 a month into just to play is going to collapse as well and then I'll be out money and an awesome game.
So what do you think? Does an MMO going from Pay to play to Free to play signal the death knell of the game or is that simply the way the MMO industry is shifting in todays times?
Two years doesn't seem, to me at least, like an exceedingly long time for an MMO to establish itself, so I find the idea that it went free to be troubling. Games like World of Warcraft have a free model but this came only after many, many years and the game had a well established player base and revenue source. SO I thought about it came came up with this theory.
A star is a ball of hydrogen gas that runs by burning hydrogen into helium. THe majority of its life is spent this way, and MMO's are this way with their paying player base. However, eventually the hydrogen begins to wane, the star becomes calmer as the fuel is largely replaced by helium, and so it is as players either finish up the primary storyline in a game or simply get bored and move on to other games. Then the star, once enough pressure has been added by the lack of fuel to burn, explodes and begins burning the helium inside it with a sudden burst of renewed life, not unlike an MMO going free which results in a massive influx of players and possibly revenue as some new players like myself play to play the game after getting involved.
That's my theory so far on an MMO going free to play. What comes next I can't speculate. In a star, the helium burns until, like the hydrogen, there isn't enough fuel to maintain and the star begins burning oxygen, and then heavier elements, each one burning faster and faster until it collapses or explodes. My concern is that this game that I'm now putting $15 a month into just to play is going to collapse as well and then I'll be out money and an awesome game.
So what do you think? Does an MMO going from Pay to play to Free to play signal the death knell of the game or is that simply the way the MMO industry is shifting in todays times?
