Free MMORPG's

Star Trek online has been FTP for weeks now.......tried it, and it is fun so far...

 

Fallen Earth is now free to play, and can be downloaded from Steam.

 

Just wondering, how do those companies who have free MMORPG make money? There has to be a better reason for them to keep offering the game for free to play instead of cancelling them outright.

 

Microtransactions. They have a store in-game that offfers things like cosmetic stuff for your character, additional quests and story stuff, extra inventory space, mounts, XP shortcuts, etc. Really anything you can imagine.

The way I've heard it explained, the way they make money, is the "80-15-5" business model. I'm just paraphrasing, so those might not be the correct numbers, but it's just an example so it doesn't matter. Anyway, basically 80% of the people who play the game will never purchase anything, and they probably won't play very often, so there's very little bandwidth cost to the developer. 15% of the people playing will buy some stuff every once in a while, mitigating the cost it takes to run and work on the game. The last 5% are the most hardcore about it, buying tons of stuff and making the whole thing profitable.

It seems like a strange strategy, but many MMO developers have said they actually make more money after they went free to play than when you had to have a monthly subscription.

 

TF2 revenues apparently went way up after it went free to play.

I would never had bought the game. But as a free to play, I ended up spending $5 on a key to open a dropped box and expand my inventory capacity. I don't regret it, and they got five bucks outta me they would never have seen before.

 

MMO subscriber numbers have peaked, says industry analyst

(5 hours ago)
Business models, MMO industry, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Miscellaneous
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Whether you love him, hate him, respect him, or ignore him, when Michael Pachter speaks, his voice carries. So it's of note that everyone's favorite videogame analyst is back with a few more controversial remarks concerning the growth -- or lack of it -- in the MMO market.

Speaking at the Evolve Conference, Pachter said, "It looks to me as though the MMO market is as big as it's ever going to be -- as far as subscription MMOs. People willing to play $15 a month, there are six or seven million of them. Period. If Star Wars couldn't expand it, when it's made by BioWare, nothing can do it. That's why Curt Schilling's 38 Studios went out of business, because he couldn't get financing."

In May, Pachter proclaimed that nobody was buying MMOs after Star Wars: The Old Republic's launch.
Source: Incgamers.com

 

How is DCUO online holding up? I'm too lazy to search.

 

DCUO It's doing very well. Even better on ps3 but over all still doing very well. And it's in the Multi plat part of the forum and it's still being updated on the up dates that been added to it. so it's not hard to find.

 

Anyone play RaiderZ? It's pretty good so far.

 

Do not forget to The Settlers Online.

 

I'm playing Age of Wushu.

Steep learning curve and horrible english translations, but the game is undeniably fun as hell.

 

I tried Lord of the Rings Online before. Been out of it for some months now. Anything new with it?

 

I just started playing Path of Exile. It's in open beta right now, so there are occasional disconnects, and somethings they bring down the server to apply a patch (but that's fast because you can log right back in and the patch will start downloading).

I'm a duelist right now, but wasn't having much fun in the beginning. Then I started figuring out how to use the gems to modify items, and it got better. Then, even though I'm a melee character, I tried the bow and arrow.

It instantly became awesome.

Unfortunately, this means the game is somewhat unbalanced against melee (at least in the early levels). But, it also means the game can be pretty fun. Especially if you like a Diablo-styled game.

 

Path of Exile and Guild Wars 2 is the perfect combo of free games

 

hi! I tried playing one of their new game for 2013, ArcheAge.. its fun!

 

and also I do have a review for that game.. here's the link..

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?p=25099645#post25099645

 

I believe ArcheAge is still in korean language.. is that correct?

 

ArcheAge, but you have to wait for it. I think it would be release by late 2013.

 

I made a thread asking about what new mmo to play. Anyone got ideas? Well besides Archeage, Path of Exile, and Ghosts and Goblins?

 

I recommend you TERA Online (it's free now) and LOL.

 

Just played The Old Republic F2P and Rift F2P (for first 20 levels)
Gotta say...neither were that great. Yes, they are free...but really not worth the time.

 

HOw is the questing?