Bioware's Star Wars MMO To Be Free To Play

No, really.

Eventful day, huh.

(12/10 edit: The whole thing’s a misunderstanding, really.

Electronic Arts has responded to Shacknews, reiterating that “no statements have been made about the Star Wars business model,” and attributing Mr. Riccitiello’s comments to a misunderstanding.

That crazy John Riccitiello, who can control what comes out of his mouth?)

  • Triforcer

    Wow, there went all my interest in playing the game. Fuck you EA. And double-fuck you if this means (as some think from the wording) that the subscription model that does exist is going to be hourly. Didn’t we get past that sort of thing in like 1993?

  • Alexandru

    Free to *pay* :P

  • UnSub

    The millions of people currently playing f2p titles can’t hear you over the sound of their fun.

  • http://themmoexperience.blogspot.com Danshir

    I hear a single sound.

    The sound of a great business move.

    Kudos Bioware/EA.

  • http://simple-n-complex.blogspot.com/ Openedge1

    This is….

    I am speechless.

    I also will be buying the box and playing.

    Kudos!

  • Triforcer

    NO. THE WORLD HAS ENDED FOREVER.

  • chacmool

    just removed that from my favs…

  • Mercury

    Wow, what a polarizing move. There is no half-full or half-empty action going on here.

    The only way for me to be divisive is to not take a stand. I’ll just wait and see how the market receives the game. It should be very interesting.

  • Boanerges

    I’m not sure they could have offered it any way.

    1. WoW is still #1. This game is highly unlikely to change that. A free offering means you at least get people in the door, especially in this economy

    2. Star Wars as a franchise has suffered. I think SWG has faded sufficiently from memory but SW just doesn’t have quite the draw it used to.

    3. NGE. Those of us who follow MMOs will never forget NGE as long as we live, even if we didn’t live it personally. There’s something about a MMO self destructing in grand fashion (a la the Death Star) that you don’t easily forget. No matter how good Bioware is, they’re got to overcome the problems of SWG and NGE. Free is a good way to do that.

  • http://ansonthegnome.livejournal.com/ Matthew Weigel

    Wow, a lot of hate for f2p games. Some of these games are great, and I was honored to work on one myself – I’m genuinely proud of Dungeon Runners.

    On the other hand… TORO sure looks like a big budget game, and big budgets are hard to recoup under the best of circumstances. When (as is typical) only a fraction of your player base is paying, it gets a little harder and more complicated.

    They can do it, but I think they’ve got to be careful. I’ll be watching with quite a bit of curiosity :-)

  • etherealwolf

    help us bioware. you’re our only hope.

    star wars can suck in players if its done right. thankfully they are in the old republic time frame so they aren’t tainted by episodes 1-3, and not alot of canon restraints.

    i just hope lucas doesn’t get too involved in the story, he has a knack for screwing the story up.

    and free to play. i have mixed feelings about that. the potential player base just grew exponentially. the downsides to that are, you may be overrun by 12 year olds, you may get nickle and dimed by micropayments every time you turn around, or there will be in-game ads. i really hate in-game ads, especially in games that i paid money for, like ET:QW.

    it’ll be interesting to see if the game servers are chained together like Eve, or seperate like most MMOs.

    please please please do this game right bioware. star wars fans have suffered enough over the last 10 years, with KOTOR being one of the few exceptions.

  • Iconic

    With no real details about what they are going to monetize, how is it possible to draw any conclusions?

  • Raelyf

    I think alot of the hatred for micro transations is that, in many (most? all?) EQ-DAOC-WOW-Whatever style MMOs, just playing them isn’t fun – *Acheiving things* in them is. That is, 99% of the time anyway. When someone can simply pay more to get the same acheivements we’ve worked hard for it cheapens what we’ve done. It takes the carrot from the stick.

  • http://www.dragonsmind.co.uk DraconianOne

    That link has been updated to say that EA haven’t actually decided on what the business model is going to be.

    Plus what Iconic said.

  • glasseye

    So it’ll be filled with even more brainless 12-year olds than the usual MMO. Gee, great.

  • http://bifftheunderstudy.wordpress.com Dan Gray

    EA has stated that there was a misunderstanding, and have not officially confirmed a F2P model yet.

    Even if the plan is F2P, I think it’s a little silly to compare it to the average low budget/low player base games like Dungeon Runners. Instead look at something like Guild Wars, a F2P MMO that is very well polished, has plenty of content, and has always had quite a large player base.

    F2p can definitely work, and we certainly don’t have enough detail on Bioware/EA’s plans at this point to speculate much further.

  • Freakazoid

    I find it interesting f2p/rmt was given serious thought. Coincidentally, the increased seriousness is coming at an economic recession. Double coincidentally, eq/eq2 now has some rmt type stuff on top of a monthly payment, at a time of economic uncertainty.

    I guess what I’m trying to say is, trying out f2p/rmt is purely an act of desperation.

  • Cedia

    Makes perfect sense to me. The game is sounding very much like Guild Wars with its focus on storytelling. Private instancing is really the only way to do this meaningfully.

    As for me, I’m tired of paying $15 a month for a game I may or may not play. At this point the only subscription I keep is CoH (thank you NC for making that bogus name-squatting policy), and just pay for a month and cancel whatever other game I’m interested in at the moment. My lifetime LotRO account is also something I definitely have gotten my money’s worth out of.

  • http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com Darius K.

    Story’s been updated. EA denies it.

  • CuppaJo

    Let’s be clear. There is a big difference between Free to Play (F2P) and Microtransactions (MT). F2P is the Guild Wars Model of no sub fee and MT is Rappelz – free software (free beer) and no sub fee. Usually MT games are also F2P, but that is not always the case. Many times they do a small sub fee for a premium package deal. (aka velvet rope)

    My point in all of this is that in order to make a MT-based MMO you have to make sure you design the game that way from the start. (See Lum’s post about EQ/EQ2). You can’t let marketing decide 2 months before beta that you should do MT. There are a ton of design decisions and back end billing decisions that have to be made and planned for. If they *are* doing MT, I sure hope they have been planning this for a long time and designing based on that.

    It’s also worth noting that while MT games have come a long way, being an MT game has a lower quality level associated with it. It usually means “Not AAA.” I know that’s not really fair considering some of the newer MT games, but that’s what it is.

    If you want to use F2P ala Guild Wars you *can* decide that later in the production cycle simply because the game doesn’t change much based on the finance model. Of course, you better have made that game for as little money as possible, made it so one GM can support it, and have figured out how to churn out expansions for cheap pretty damn quick or you might find yourself running low on cash after 6 months.

    Also – I would be *shocked* if you didn’t have to at the very least buy this game in a retail box. I doubt they will give the software away for free.

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  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    I still play Guild Wars… Every time I log on, every town or out post I hit is literally full of people.

    F2P != Bad.

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  • TPRJones

    I predict a box price, and a small monthly fee to play. Plus microtransactions for upgraded goodies.

  • JuJutsu

    “When someone can simply pay more to get the same acheivements we’ve worked hard for it cheapens what we’ve done.”

    Yet another confused player that can’t distinguish spending a long time from working hard.

  • http://tidehorizon.blogspot.com Tide

    EA has lost nearly 25% of its overall value in trading the last 36 hours in earnings restatements. DOW is only down maybe -0.3%. Trouble ahead.

  • http://themmoexperience.blogspot.com Danshir

    I love the complete misunderstanding of a game being free to play. Yes the game makes it money by selling in-game items , most of them for simple apperance items, or EXP boosting items etc.

    If people have the money to waste on such things let them, it doesn’t lower your enjoyment of the game unless your main goal is to do nothing but grind exp away.

    As for most F2P mmos having nothing but 12 years old, from Beta Testing MegaTen and playing other free games I must say the general populaces intellect is significantly higher then paid ones, such as World of Warcraft.

  • Tesh

    I agree wholly with Cedia. On top of that, who cares if the WoW crowd doesn’t like the business model? It’s not for them anyways. That market segment is saturated; it’s smart business to find new customers who won’t go back to WoW in three months.

    Bioware’s game design to date is more GW than WoW. The business model should match the game design.

  • Staryx

    Just saw this(pops) story over at 1up. Apparently BioWare is using an “off the shelf” MMO engine for development. Guess that means we won’t have to wait 5 years for the game at least. But I wonder if the stories are related somehow.

  • etherealwolf

    never heard of Simutronic, hopefully the engine won’t suck too bad. XD

    but this means they get to spend more time on content, which is good.

  • http:///www.fatfoogoo.com Dan Taylor

    An interesting turn of events for sure. At any rate, a good story to watch and follow. Did John simply have a slip of the tongue? Did he prematurely let the cat out of the bag? Is EA possibly testing consumer reaction and feedback?

    Remember, Star Wars wouldn’t be EA’s first foray into the f2p space – we’re still waiting on Battlefield Heroes.

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