Free-to-play games have become an ever increasing trend in the MMO industry, with titles like Lord of the Rings Online and Champions Online shifting away from the subscription-based format. However, Trion World's SVP of Publishing David Reid thinks there's still a lot of potential in the pay-to-play format. Trion's new marketing slogan for the MMO Rift is "You're not in Azeroth anymore," and the company believes it has enough to challenge World of Warcraft in the subscription business.
“We fundamentally are big believers in it,” said Reid. “In my mind, you see a lot of big publishers that have retreated from the subscription model and have gone away from the AAA business and approached the genre like it's free-to-play casual, but that isn't the business that harnesses the gamer with a capital G. If you have the content, players are happy to play to it. You want to make people realize the level of polish your product has. We think the subscription model is only growing; it just comes with a level of leverage F2P doesn't have.”
“So, we're very confident in the subscription business,” he added.
Check out the full interview with insights on Rift.
3 Comments
January 14, 2011
Trion is hardly a household name to gamers. How can they hope to take on the Blizzard juggernaut when they aren't even that well known. There was tons of chatter about WoW before it released and they were shocked by it's success vs. EverQuest and other competitors of the day. I foresee yet another "me too" MMO that will be crushed by WoW. I think The Old Republic is the only foreseeable MMO that can possibly make a dent to the market in the near future.
January 15, 2011
So I will not be in Azeroth any more!?!? Then where will I be? Talk is cheap, and gets free press it seems, but actual games we can try will tell the tale. Well I'm back to City of Heroes then.
January 18, 2011
Yeah, best of luck with that Trion. I agree that subscription MMO's aren't dead, but I also believe anyone who thinks they can take a battle to WoW IS dead in the water. You cannot directly compete with a juggernaut that has that much momentum. There is no better WoW than WoW, you need to make a not-WoW that is as compelling in a different way, then maybe with 3-5 years of your own momentum you could challenge the crown.
I don't know much about Rift, maybe that is what they aim to do. But their tagline doesn't inspire much confidence.