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Free-to-play games have swiftly become the norm in the MMO space in the last year. In a new column, we take a look at the phenomenon and what it means to we, the consumer. Read on before heading to the comments to tell us what you think.
I think there’s no longer any argument about the direction in which the MMO market is heading, with the proliferation of free-to-play titles and decline of subscription-based games over the past five years. In fact, while there are still more than a few MMORPGs out there that employ a subscription-only payment model — you can find most of them on our game list — only a handful can continue to boast “blockbuster” success. This trend doesn’t necessarily suggest that subscriptions are completely going the way of the dodo, or that there is no room in the genre for pay-to-play monetization, but it does indicate that developers have been increasingly required to think differently about how to implement subscriptions within free-to-play and freemium models.
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