LOTRO: Lord of the Revenue Online

Money money money…..MONEEEY!

According to Rock Paper Shotgun and Develop Turbine has scored another
success with their newly turned free to play MMO, Lord of the Rings
Online. Apparently since the game went free to play they’ve
increased their revenue three fold.

I have to
imagine the guys at Turbine are both extremely pleased and very
angry at the same time. Sure, they’re making much more money now
with their two free to play games than they ever did before, but
now they’ve used up all of their MMOs. What are they gonna make
free to play now? Perhaps we’ll see a relaunch of the Turbine
website in the near future. They could add a cash shop to purchase
forums, help, game information etc. They’d probably also make a ton
of money doing it.

I’m personally pretty happy
about this. I only have so much money, but I have a ton of MMOs I’d
love to play. Turbine succeeded this well with both of their games
could lead to many more MMOs going free to play. As long as they
aren’t SOE I’d say there is a good chance I’ll enjoy any of the
MMOs I’m interested in going free to play.

Well,
back to gaming.

Champions Online Free to Play!

I woke up this morning to some of the best news I’ve heard in a while.

That is from an email stating that in Q1, 2011 Champions Online will have a free-to-play option. I have wanted this since I played it for a free month thanks to BlueKae. This game is very fun, but it always seemed too shallow for me to pay a subscription fee, especially compared to all of the other pay to play MMOs out there, including their own Star Trek Online (I still need to try those episode dealies).

Now from this little email I can’t tell whether they will make a good implementation of F2P gaming, but I do have a theory. Based on the wording, note that Champions Online is not “going free to play” but is instead gaining “a free to play option”. My guess is that it will be implemented more along the lines of Evequest II Extended. You’ll have a free server, and very limited character customization options, which you can pay for. No travel powers unless you pay a one time fee, etc.

However this turns out, I am at current VERY excited about this news. If it’s done even half decently I will have gained a new F2P game to mess around with, for which I have gained a new found enjoyment. I’m currently playing LOTRO, Runes of Magic, DDO and Vindictus. I have EverQuest II Extended on my hard drive, but I only want to play as the Ratonga and I haven’t bought them yet.

Edit: I found an FAQ for Champions Online F2P thanks to Tobold, and most of my predictions are wrong. Take special note of this.