News Rift shifting to free-to-play

MMO Rift is to make the transition to free-to-play next month.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/05/15/rift-shifting-to-free-to-play/1

 

Interesting.

As a free-2-play model I feel this game would do quite well. I reckon it's got a great feel to it and easily beats most other free-2-play games out on the market at the minute, if the game stays at least similar to how it is at present.

Quite a lot of dynamic events happening all the time, interesting world environment and fairly easy to jump into without feeling out of depth.

I've only just recently picked it up thanks to the great Raptr awards offer - free game, free expansion and 30 days game time - and I'm quite enjoying it.

 

Called it!

 

and yet another MMO that simply cannot keep a player base interested. the market really needs a whole re-vamp now with the release of something totally different that will re-define the genre

 

If only there was some massive, gargantuan, almost TITAN size of a PROJECT out there, being developed by a company who has millions of subscribers...

 

personally i dont think that will be a game changer, sure it will be the biggest thing since WoW but i dont think it will having the same enduring player base. star wars was supposed to be the WoW killer and it failed miserably

 

I'm waiting on Star Citizen to be my WoW killer and more enhanced version of EvE!

 

Why does a game need to be a WoW killer? As long as it gains a player base and is successful shouldnt that be enough?

 

i agree but the problem is that isnt how most of the new MMO are being designed. The are big production high cost money sinks given a short amount of time to prove themselves. I think the major problem is they are attempting to gain the same amount of subscriptions as WoW (hence WoW killer) and failing every time. Personally i think thats the wrong angle to come from as just about every MMO since WoW is based on WoW mechanics. They are basing profitability from massive amounts of subscribers then when the player base dips they HAVE to make it free to play and add micro-transactions.

If the game cost less to produce the player base could be smaller to sustain profit.

FFXI is still going after 10 years and the latest expansion has just being released. The player base is small (500K or less) but SE makes money from it and that has always been a subscription game.