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 earn it the hard way. They also had a tinge of underhandedness, as if developers were looking for increasingly ingenious ways to crack open customer wallets.
Over the last five years, I’d argue that our perceptions have changed. Guild Wars 1 and 2 introduced the “buy the box” model, delivering a high quality game while still using the subscription free microtransaction model. We’ve also seen several MMOs transition from being subscription based to free-to-play and becoming successful as a result. Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online and EverQuest 2 are all positive examples of this change in model.
This year, a new trend emerged. After reading a number of blogs I’ve seen the same phrase repeated again and again. “It’s a great MMO, but I’ll wait until it goes free to play before I play it.” We now expect subscription based games to fail and eventually switch to a free-to-play-model.