EA and BioWare have officially announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be adding a new, free-to-play option “this fall” (this spring, by local galactic standards).
“Players want flexibility and choice,” said BioWare Austin boss Matthew Bromberg.” The subscription-only model presented a major barrier for a lot of people who wanted to become part of The Old Republic universe.”
Or, perhaps more appropriately:
Episode IV, A NEW HOPE
It is a period of subscription decline.
Rebel spaceships lie abandoned and derelict, while the evil
Galactic Empire is busy playing other stuff.
During this time, a secret alliance of developer and publisher
managed to come up with a new ultimate weapon,
the FREE-TO-PLAY OPTION,
a new subscriber model with enough incentive
to maybe get some players back onto the empty servers.
Pursued by the bank’s sinister agents,
EA and BioWare race home aboard their rented Toyota,
custodians of the plan that can save their investment
and restore freedom (and players) to the galaxy…
The new, free-to-play option put a level 50 cap on players (also the current level cap, but EA will be increasing that to an as yet unconfirmed number for subscribers) and restricts a number of features like character creation, the Galactic Trade Network, and server access priority. For people who want to pay, the monthly subscription price will be dropped to $14.99 in August.
To encourage paying subscribers, the developer is also offering deals to both current and lapsed subscribers with 150 Cartel Coins for every month paid up to now, with an additional 200 Cartel Coins per month if they continue to subscribe through to the launch of the free-to-play option when it happens later this year. Collector’s Edition owners will also get a one-time cash bonus of 1,000 Cartel Coins.
There’s already a FAQ over on the official site, but this useful comparison chart has most of the relevant info:
Use the Force to enlarge the image, or simply click it if your midi-chlorian count is too low.
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Nothing will ever be “THE” WoW killer, but the old dog is getting tired. As a business model it can work because the people that want content (OPs) are now the ones that will be paying for it.