The Old Republic may go free-to-play

June 16, 2012

Bioware’s highly anticipated subscription-based MMORPG The Old Republic landed with a big splash, but popularity seems to have dropped off since then.

After hitting a million subscribers in a very short space of time, the subscriber eventually settled around 1.7 million. However, just a few months later this had dropped quite drastically to 1.3 million, mostly due to the lack of renewed subscriptions after the trial period.

Introductory trials were offered to help combat the drop in subscriber numbers, but it looks like EA may be considering a free-to-play model.

In an interview with GamesTM that has since vanished from the website, Bioware lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi said that free-to-play was something that had been discussed.

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” Lusinchi allegedly said.

“Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations.

“So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

The MMORPG market has proven very difficult to break into, particularly for subscription-based services, as juggernaut World of Warcraft has dominated the genre. In addition, The Old Republic is competing with the likes of Diablo 3 for gamers’ attention.

Free-to-play models have proven to be quite profitable, particularly in the MOBA and RPG genres, so if The Old Republic’s subscriber numbers continue to fall this may become a reality in the near future.