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Lord of the Rings Online To Go Free-To-Play
darkwing_bmf sends word of Turbine's announcement that Lord of the Rings Online will become a free-to-play game this fall. 'The move is another validation of the free-to-play business model, where gamers can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as better weapons or decorative gear for their game characters. The business model has been popular in Asia but only recently took off in the US. This move shows the pressure is building on game publishers to shift to the new business model or face declining audiences.' According to a post on the official website, LotRO's micro-transaction system will be "very similar" to how Turbine's DDO store works, and current subscribers will maintain all of their privileges.
This business model is a horrible example of how you can squeeze money from those individuals who pay to, "rent" your server space. To clarify on that statement, for DDO they stated that everyone can come back and experience the game for free. Those of us who had access to all of the content in the game originally had to repurchase the content as micro transactions. Your favorite quest hub prior to the business model is now only available by repurchasing what is on your installation disks to begin with. They niched all of the best quest lines and quest hubs as premium content, and forced players to repay via micro transactions to access it. This is pathetic.