Wow, that was hard. My recent WildStar competition earned a flurry of responses, both in the comments and by email. And so many of them were very, very good – it made choosing winners very difficult. But winners had to be chosen, and so here they are. First Place – OxTube I said that submissions…
Tag: free to play
WildStar Competition: Prepare for Free-to-Play!
In case you hadn’t heard the news, WildStar (possibly my favourite MMO at the moment) is going Free-to-Play. A date has been set for this cosmotronic change, with servers being switched over later this month on September 29. If you’ve not tried the sci-fi world since launch, my latest column gives a run-down of the changes….
The High Price of Founding
I have a concern, and it’s about the high price of MMO ‘founders packs.’ For a strong title that’s still early in development, it’s a great way to raise funds and bring in eager gamers to test the game out. But the status of being an early adopter comes with a cost, and it’s usually…
Free to Play: Myth or Miracle?
It’s become almost a perennial tale: an MMO in distress makes the switch to free-to-play and becomes instantly successful. But, without hard numbers, it’s been difficult to appreciate just how much a difference it can make. That has now changed. In a great interview with Daniel Tack at Forbes, Rift Creative Director Bill Fisher revealed…
WildStar: Down to Business
It’s been a while in coming, but the news is finally out: WildStar is going with a hybrid subscription model. We’ll pay once for the box (with a free month thrown in), then pay every month for continued access to the game. The hybrid part comes in through Certificates of Research, Exploration, Destruction and Development,…
“I’ll Wait Till It’s Free”
When I started playing MMOs, it seemed that the genre was split into two camps. Subscription based games were seen as champions of quality, coupled with legendary customer service. By contrast, free to play games were looked down upon with distain, being games for those who preferred to buy their way to victory instead of…
The Declining MMO Market
There’s been a couple of great articles recently about the situation at CCP, publishers of EVE Online. The theory is that the company hasn’t been doing as well as it hoped following the White Wolf Publishing acquisition and has been losing both staff and subscribers ever since. I’d suggest reading Tobold’s summary of the situation…
How Warcraft Will Never End
As Blizzcon rapidly approaches there’s a ton of speculation about what will be announced. Hopes are high for a new World of Warcraft expansion, although details are sketchy about what it may contain. The trademark ‘Mists of Pandaria’ has been suggested as a name following trademark registration, but this was later dismissed as being ‘wildly…
Free to Play: MMO Retirement?
Like many people, I recently heard that Star Trek Online was moving to a free-to-play model. In all honesty I’m not surprised, and like Spinks I think it should have used that model from the outset. Reaction to the news also seems to be positive. Some say that it means that they’ll give the game…