Dungeons and Dragons Online Reaffirms the Free to Play Model
As many of you know, Dungeons and Dragons Online has recently gone free to play. Originally released in 2006 under the traditional subscription model, the game failed to reach a large audience due to stiff retail and monthly recurring costs. Another major factor that contributed to the game’s troubles was the behemoth fantasy MMORPG known as World of Warcraft. Competing with WoW head-to-head in the subscription based fantasy MMORPG market is never a good idea, as many other developers have learned the hard way.
Fortunately for us, the folks at Turbine had enough sense to read the emerging industry trends and went to work at re-developing the game as a free to play title supported by the sale of optional content packs and other extras via micro transactions. The modular nature of the D&D franchise definitely made things easier for Turbine when coming up with what to offer for free and what to charge players for. The traditional pen and paper D&D product comprises three ‘core’ books but dozens of additional source books, pre-made adventures, and other products are available to enhance the gaming experience. Similarly, new players in DDO immediately have access to almost all low level content and only as they progress are there limitations in what adventures they can experience.
So how has the game performed since going f2p? According to Fernando Paitz, the Executive Producer, things couldn’t be better. In a recent interview with Ars Technica he revealed how things were going, “We’re hitting and exceeding our internal targets, so far we’ve very happy.” “All aspects of our business are growing.” “Hundreds of thousands of new players in the world are playing for free, with a very high percentage using the store.” What’s more surprising is that the actual number of monthly subscribers has gone up 40% since the re-launch. While the game is free, with additional content available on a per-item basis, players can still subscribe to gain ‘VIP’ privileges which automatically unlock most content so long as players continue to pay the $9.99 monthly premium.
Of course all this just proves once again the potency of the free to play business model which has been the norm in Asia since the inception of MMORPGs. Western studios took a little longer in realizing the model’s potential, but it is something Mr. Paitz and the DDO team has now picked up on, “We have a good chunk of the population that is spending more than $15 a month. The traditional subscription model can only make X Dollars of a player. This kind of removes that cap” he says. I give the Dungeons and Dragons Online team hardy congratulations on the success of Eberon Unlimited, as the new version is called, and urge all readers who haven’t already done so to check out the game. It is one of the few MMORPGs I’ve reviewed on MMOHut to which I’ve bestowed a perfect score so go try it today!
By, Erhan Altay
