My coworker m3mnoch made a prognostication earlier this month, claiming that Runes of Magic will completely dominate subscription MMOs in revenue this year.
we all know that freemium games pwn subscription games as far as subscribers. this is what you don’t know yet: before the end of the year ‘09, runes of magic will announce they’ve also pwnt all of the subscription-based games’ revenue numbers — wow excepted, of course.
Looks like at 700,000 members in their Open Beta thus far, they’re paving the way. Good luck Runes of Magic, I’d love to see you do well and topple the traditional subscription model this year.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I am still playing it, although it hasn’t convinced me to spend money yet. Wizard 101 is a whole lot closer to earning my money.
Agree with that wholeheartedly. Wizard 101 is the first F2P game that I’ve wanted to throw my money at.
Amen! I’m a newcomer to the F2P model and I like the options it puts into the hands of the player. It really removes some of the “one size must fit all” gaming experience that we’ve come to assume is how it must be done.
W101 showed me how much fun a game can be when i free myself from having to farm gear to be competitive.
Runes is showing me that gear is such a tiny piece of the puzzle we’ve been hoodwinked into believing is what a game is about.
We need a really successful F2P that is more traditional in it’s content for the fantasy genre. I’m also tired of people assuming that F2P is only about buying gear. If I had a nickle for every idiot I’d like to slap over that comment…well I’d be less frustrated.
RMT is as broad as the creativity in the minds of the developers.
We really need to see other types of MMOs and payment models be successful to bolster investor confidence in something besides EQ2/LOTRO/WOW approach to content, options and payment models.
I think your friend is right. Runes is going to blow quite a few minds with the number of players it attracts.
Well said Saylah. I love the freedom of the F2P games. There are so many games I’d love to try but the thought of a subscription fee makes me cringe. I want to spend what I want to spend – and however much it might be, it would be better than the ZERO I spend on those subscription games now.
For example, I’d like to try out WAR again in the near future. I’m definitely not trying it if I have to subscribe though. And now with LOTRO – I did think it was fun, but I don’t think it was fun enough for me to subscribe. If it was F2P, I’d be glad to drop some change down from time to time on it.
I can’t really get into RoM, but it is a solid enough game, and hopefully it will do just as m3mnoch said.
I’ve played RoM off and on over the last several months. I even found a little guild to join, but I just can’t seem to get really sucked in. I feel it has a somewhat generic, WoW clone feel to it, and I wonder what the higher levels really hold in terms of exciting, new and different. The landscape seems rather flooded with Fantasy genre games these days as well. Looking forward to the next generation of hero and sci-fi games.
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