Star Wars: The Old Republic could be the last MMO with a subscription
SOE boss sees free-to-play as the future of MMO gaming
The boss of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley, reckons the time for subscription MMOs is coming to an end.
With more and more MMOs making the switch from a subscription model to a free-to-play model and seeing a jump in users Smedley predicts that BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic may be the last MMO to follow the subscription model.
Smedley said: "There's another large juggernaut coming out soon in Star Wars: The Old Republic from EA/Bioware. That's a game that I think has a legitimate shot at a 2 million subscription user base and I believe they will stick with the subscription method. This is going to be the last large scale MMO to use the traditional subscription business model. Why do I think that? Simply put, the world is moving on from this model and over time people aren't going to accept this method. I'm sure I'm going to hear a lot about this statement. But I am positive I'm right."
He reasoned that the current economic climate is a major contributing factor for the switch adding: "Economic times are hard out there and a recurring subscription is something that glares at you from a credit card bill every month. For some people, saving money starts with getting rid of subscriptions that hit the credit card."
Thanks GamesIndustry.biz.
