Electronic Arts’ Chief Operating Officer, Peter Moore, has admitted that the upcoming shift of Star Wars: The Old Republic from a subscription-based service to a free-to-play experience reflects the changing times in the games industry.
Sadly, while things went well at first, the number of subscribers slowly dwindled, so EA, after organizing multiple free trial periods, announced a few months ago that The Old Republic would be transitioning into a free-to-play model this fall.
This change, while dramatic, is just a consequence of the market, according to Peter Moor, who told Eurogamer that, while The Old Republic was being developed, the subscription model still made sense.
"It sold well," he said about the game. "When we embarked on this massive project, which is to bring the huge world of Star Wars and that universe and those characters to the world of MMO, the world of gaming was in a different place. That was a world we felt good about there, that the business model was focused around subscription."
Sadly, when it was time to release the game, players were already tired of paying subscriptions and engaged more in free-to-play experiences.
"Fast forward to where we are today and it's very clear the world has moved on and as such we need to move on. So rather than crying about spilt milk, the team said, we're going to evolve this into a hybrid model. You can still pay your $15 a month and have all you can eat, everything you want about Star Wars."
Electronic Arts is betting big on free-to-play experiences, as it’s already running plenty of successful online games, from NFS World to Battlefield Play4Free and much more, so you can bet that it knows how to extract a profit from The Old Republic.
Via: Star Wars: The Old Republics Shift to Free-to-Play Reflects Industry Changes
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