Games that jumped on the free-to-play wagon

We will get straight to the point with this one.

Here are some games that started life as retail titles but converted to the way of free-to-play. They now let you pay to advance, pay to look great, and pay to win.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bioware did not rush the full transition of the Star Wars MMO to a free-to-play game status. At first, the free-to-play version did not offer much – you got story content, but could not chat, receive messages, or even create your own character.

After a fan uproar, the game finally opened up more features and kept the in-game purchases few and far in between.

DC Universe Online

The DC MMO was one of the biggest releases of 2011, but the game slowly started to lose its fan base due to its pricey subscriptions.

After a while, the developers split the game’s subscription into different tiers – legendary, premium, and free – and players started to get back to the action.

Free players can access the full game, but cannot access the DLC packs.

Tera Rising

Tera Rising was a game that many people expected to be free-to-play in the fist place, but wasn’t.

A little while after its release, the developers received complaints about the subscription-based model and that switching to free-to-play was the best thing for the longevity of the title.

The advice was sound, with the player count almost tripled after the transition to F2P.

Age of Conan: Unchained

Age of Conan took about two years before it migrated to the free-to-play option, and when this took place its name changed from Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, to Age of Conan: Unchained.

The reasoning was that players were no longer “chained” down by a subscription. Haw haw.