The eagle-eyed community over at MMORPG.com today discovered an update in the Steam’s database entry for WildStar, suggesting a possible move away from the current subscription model to a more user-friendly free-to-play stance. The database entry lists WildStar as a “Free on Demand” type for billing, which is also the same tag applied to other free-to-play titles such as ArcheAge.
Following the discovery and a post on the MMORPG website an apparent employee of Carbine Studios took to the WildStar Subreddit to verify the information discovered on the Steam Database, and later messaged the Reddit moderators to verify his position in the company, which was accepted.
[quote cite=”God_of_EDM”]Hello everyone! As has oft been discussed around here, Wildstar is going to be changing its business model in August(tentatively of course, patch stuff etc) to a Hybridized Free to Play model. Now thankfully it is not going Pay to Win, I suppose you could call it “Freemium” in a way as a lot of the stuff that the paid accounts will get is buffs to experience/rep/renown etc gain and character slots and the like, no direct power buffs or anything like that.
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He went on to confirm that microtransactions will be gently introduced as time moves on, with the developers promising to listen to the thoughts and concerns of the WildStar community. Furthermore he explained the reasoning behind the grim mood at Carbine Studios, with as many as 5 employees leaving every week for over a month. Will a change in the financial model for WildStar reignite the passion of the developers or is this the first true sign of the all too familiar decline plaguing the subscription model games of today?
I’ll give it a shot, for sure. I’m certain I’m not the only one who will. Wish them the best! .