Over the past year or so we have seen many popular and subscription based games switch over to free-to-play/hybrid business model.
Games such as LotRO saw revenues increase after switching F2P and the recently switched over DCUO saw its player base increase over 1,000%. With numbers like this it makes you wonder what games are going to make the switch next. Well, one thing is for sure: it won?t be RIFT.
Scott Hartsman confirmed that Trion has ?absolutely no plans whatsoever? to make the switch to F2P. Some of the reasons include a strong business and a growing game that they are happy with. He also brought up interesting points about the F2P model such as that while it may bring large amounts of users it changes how the MMO studio fundamentally approaches the game. You basically have one player subsidizing the play of potentially dozens if not hundreds of other users. Thus your game has to have the ability to make huge sums of money from relatively small numbers of people. While keeping that in mind you don?t want to hold your breath of your waiting to play RIFT free of charge.
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