Massively multiplayer online games (mmo's) have always had a different business model then most games. Instead of a one-time purchase, mmo's have subscription fees to help pay for on-going development and server fees.
Those $15 a month subscription fees add up quick. Playing a typical mmo steadily for just a single year totals $180 (not counting the price to buy the game in the first place). While this sounds ridiculously expensive, it might be cheaper then purchasing new games throughout the year. Now you can see why publishers slather their lustful lips over creating a top-shelf mmo: it's a licence to print money.
...As long you're popular. MMO's have a chicken and egg problem: players flock to games with a sizable population of players. Nobody wants to log on and find an empty world with no other players.
A great example of this was Warhammer Online. Despite being a well-crafted game, they over-estimated the number of players, and set up too many servers. Lower server populations meant that players had a hard time finding others to group with, and many left. WAR will likely flounder around for another year or two before collapsing. Maintaining a player population can mean life or death for a game.
To boost populations, many games are switching to a free-to-play model (f2p). Accounts are free to create and play without a subscription. Instead, players pay to unlock parts of the game: certain races, classes and quest areas. While free-to-play is a deceptive title, it does allow for the player to control how much they wish to play for the game. This acts as a price discrimination for players that might not wish to feel they play $15-worth of game a month. Many games that are having problems keeping their population levels are shifting to this new scheme.
The community often views going f2p as admitting failure, while in reality this is branching out to a different audience. We're watching the market innovate right before our eyes here!
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