Post by Morreion on Oct 16, 2019 8:15:08 GMT -5
The Game Archaeologist: The day Dungeons and Dragons Online dropped the free-to-play bomb (Massively)
With less than 100,000 players as of 2008, DDO wasn’t exactly the MMO of choice for most players. World of Warcraft was still on its way to peak subscribership, and newer titles like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online captured the excitement of the “what’s next?” crowd. In light of that, it’s not hard to understand why Turbine would take what was then seen as a great gamble with a product that had lost favor with players.
The change wasn’t chosen randomly, either. Turbine had done some research into trends and predictions, and it accurately saw that new business models were the wave of the future of MMOs. “With this model coming to DDO, and experimenting with alternative business models, it allows us to broaden the exposure of our games,” said Adam Mersky in a summer 2009 interview.
Previously, free-to-play wasn’t unknown, but it either only showed up in limited ways or for shoddy titles that nobody was playing anyway. Pairing the business model up with a full-featured, well-designed, and fairly well-known MMO was the actual pioneering move here...
Eberron Unlimited, the relaunch of the game for North American audiences, went live on September 1st, 2009. There was no going back after this moment. Ars Technica reported that by October, massive crowds were pouring into DDO. There were at least double the number of people trying it out than Turbine had anticipated, and even better, subscription numbers were up an amazing 40%. It was an instant success story.
DDO Executive Producer Fernando Paiz said at the time, “We’re hitting and exceeding our internal targets, so far we’re very happy. All aspects of our business are growing. Hundreds of thousands of new players in the world are playing for free, with a very high percentage using the store.
By February 2010 and the game’s fourth birthday, over a million people had sampled DDO’s free-to-play wares. Subscriber counts had doubled since the F2P launch and store sales were allegedly 500% the industry standard (whatever that may be). Turbine was invited to speak on the phenomenon at various industry panels...
Turbine wasn’t alone in sitting up and noticing the great fortune and success that came with Dungeons and Dragons Online’s transition. Several other studios scrambled to capitalize on the new business model, with titles such as EverQuest II (2010), Champions Online (2011), City of Heroes (2011), Fallen Earth (2011), DCUO (2011), Star Trek Online (2012), EverQuest (2012), Aion (2012), TERA (2013), and RIFT (2013) quickly following suit.
It still took the industry a while to shift course on business models, with many titles in development sticking to a “subscription only” plan even as free-to-play took root in gamers’ lives. Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in December of 2011 and less than a year later made the move to F2P. Some titles, like Warhammer Online, refused or couldn’t afford the resources to work up a F2P version, and suffered because of it.
However, it wasn’t long before everyone realized that the “new normal” of free-to-play wasn’t a guarantee of a game’s success. Vanguard and WildStar both made the switch — and both ended up closing up shop. With so many F2P MMOs on the market, players were flooded with choices and stopped giving the formerly few titles with this business model all their attention.
And yes, that included Dungeons and Dragons Online, which went from being a popular darling in 2009 and 2010 to just another solid if somewhat niche MMO that toiled away in the background. There’s a segment of the community that has come to curse the F2P model that it helped to make popular, but if we’re being honest here, it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Turbine’s moment of prescience in identifying and predicting the rise of alternative business models for online gaming is one of its greatest victories, even if it didn’t end up retaining the dominance it so briefly held from making the great switch.
The change wasn’t chosen randomly, either. Turbine had done some research into trends and predictions, and it accurately saw that new business models were the wave of the future of MMOs. “With this model coming to DDO, and experimenting with alternative business models, it allows us to broaden the exposure of our games,” said Adam Mersky in a summer 2009 interview.
Previously, free-to-play wasn’t unknown, but it either only showed up in limited ways or for shoddy titles that nobody was playing anyway. Pairing the business model up with a full-featured, well-designed, and fairly well-known MMO was the actual pioneering move here...
Eberron Unlimited, the relaunch of the game for North American audiences, went live on September 1st, 2009. There was no going back after this moment. Ars Technica reported that by October, massive crowds were pouring into DDO. There were at least double the number of people trying it out than Turbine had anticipated, and even better, subscription numbers were up an amazing 40%. It was an instant success story.
DDO Executive Producer Fernando Paiz said at the time, “We’re hitting and exceeding our internal targets, so far we’re very happy. All aspects of our business are growing. Hundreds of thousands of new players in the world are playing for free, with a very high percentage using the store.
By February 2010 and the game’s fourth birthday, over a million people had sampled DDO’s free-to-play wares. Subscriber counts had doubled since the F2P launch and store sales were allegedly 500% the industry standard (whatever that may be). Turbine was invited to speak on the phenomenon at various industry panels...
Turbine wasn’t alone in sitting up and noticing the great fortune and success that came with Dungeons and Dragons Online’s transition. Several other studios scrambled to capitalize on the new business model, with titles such as EverQuest II (2010), Champions Online (2011), City of Heroes (2011), Fallen Earth (2011), DCUO (2011), Star Trek Online (2012), EverQuest (2012), Aion (2012), TERA (2013), and RIFT (2013) quickly following suit.
It still took the industry a while to shift course on business models, with many titles in development sticking to a “subscription only” plan even as free-to-play took root in gamers’ lives. Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in December of 2011 and less than a year later made the move to F2P. Some titles, like Warhammer Online, refused or couldn’t afford the resources to work up a F2P version, and suffered because of it.
However, it wasn’t long before everyone realized that the “new normal” of free-to-play wasn’t a guarantee of a game’s success. Vanguard and WildStar both made the switch — and both ended up closing up shop. With so many F2P MMOs on the market, players were flooded with choices and stopped giving the formerly few titles with this business model all their attention.
And yes, that included Dungeons and Dragons Online, which went from being a popular darling in 2009 and 2010 to just another solid if somewhat niche MMO that toiled away in the background. There’s a segment of the community that has come to curse the F2P model that it helped to make popular, but if we’re being honest here, it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. Turbine’s moment of prescience in identifying and predicting the rise of alternative business models for online gaming is one of its greatest victories, even if it didn’t end up retaining the dominance it so briefly held from making the great switch.
