Over the last few months, City of Heroes: Freedom, Lego Universe, DC Online, Lineage II and yet to be release Neverwinter Nights (by Cryptic) have all announced that they will be converting from a Subscription Model to a Free2Play Model.
DC Online noted that in 2 days they had an increase of 200K subscribers while Lego Universe announced they will be shutting down. Previous MMOs that have converted to this model also had a mix of success and failures. The most successful conversions have been Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of The Rings Online which are both run Turbine. The majority of other games that have undergone this conversion have failed.
What separates the winners from the loser? The most important thing to note is that converting form Subscription to Free2Play is not a panacea. It will not fix your game if your game inherently is not very good. Developers need to take a deep look inside to see if a game is not doing well because it is fundamentally flawed or if having a subscription is causing too much friction. If the game is fundamentally flawed, what changes need to be made to make it "fun"? Switching to Free2Play can help give your now improved game a 2nd life because players can now experience the "new and improved" content with no blockers. Free players can then help evangelize your game, but if the game is not very fun, these free players will just help spread negativity about the game. If the game is fun but is not superior to an older competitor, going free might give the game the edge to overcome your competition. In a market where you need to steal market share, going free will allow players your competitors products try your game for free. Playing for free will helpfully help "hook" these players and thereby increase your usage and revenue.
Going Free2Play is just half the battle. What made Dungeon and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online successful is because they spent a lot of time redesigning the game and testing the F2P model in the context of their game before fully converting. Converting to Free2Play is not just simply adding a free component monetized by a combination of area fees or micro-content. Converting to Free2Play means adding a frictionless in game payment system, adjusting the economy to account for free versus paid items, developing a complex and dynamic business model, creating natural friction that not only increases micro-transaction purchases but does not lead to so much friction that causes free players to quit, and developing a more streamlined registration to login system. Working on Free2Play games, one of the biggest hurdles one faces is just having a player register and download a client. You will experience drop off from these steps so they need to be optimized.
As Mike Morhime noted in an interview with Eurogamer.net, Free2Play is not for everyone and subscription is optimal for games like WoW and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game you develop must be developed with the business model in mind. Converting from one model to another means you need to change fundamental aspects of your game.
Some things to also note is that you need to adjust your costs per user to account for free users if you convert from subscription to Free2Play. Your Customer Service, Billing, and Server Infrastructure all need to be adjusted.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Lineage II and Star Trek will both be going F2P.
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