Lord of the Rings Online MMO News, Guides, and Features at Ten Ton Hammer

The big question is whether more subscription-driven MMOGs will do the DDO shuffle, morphing into free-to-play games while attempting to maintain the quality that earned them primo advances and development budgets in the first place. Bjorn’s answer?  “Yes, as publishers realize that free-to-play doesn’t mean you won’t make money, that it builds a much bigger community and brand awareness. And if you build a great game, you’ll have a larger captive audience than you might otherwise."

Fernando agrees. "I'd be very surprised if we didn't see other games making this choice. I'm sure it's not right for every game. We were fortunate in that we felt there was a very good fit with DDO, with the way it was built, and also to an extent with the IP." Paiz noted that microtransactions are an easier sell for the Dungeons & Dragons crowd (accustomed to buying books, dice, miniatures, etc. a la carte) than a monthly subscription.

The Future of Free-to-Play

Assuming free-to-play games continue to enjoy the success and greater respect they've seen over the past year, that success may have its own costs. As Reuben Waters so artfully noted in last week's feature article, WoW's ascendancy spawned more stagnation than innovation among subscription MMORPGs. In like manner, Bjorn noted that higher quality doesn't necessarily mean more innovative games free-to-play games. “Because the really high quality games will require up-front funding, you can’t really experiment as much.“

But, the focus has shifted from quantity to quality, at least among tomorrow's successful free-to-play developers and publisher. "Quality is critically important, especially now, when you're seeing a flood of free-to-play games entering the marketplace," Fernando commented. "Ultimately the free-to-play space is going to become more and more competitive. We certainly believe in this business model, and from the success we've seen with DDO, we think more and more companies are going to go this way. The way you have to stand out is through the quality of the product."

In the meantime, publishers like GamersFirst will continue to bide their time as the world flattens out, picking and choosing from MMOGs the world over. "We see a lot of weird stuff," Bjorn laughed. “We do, at the moment, have the luxury of mitigated risk, partly because there’s so much product in other parts of the world that’s already finished, so we have the ability to pick and choose.”

That doesn't mean that GamersFirst is anxious to return to the bad old days of throwing free-to-plays against the Western wall to see what sticks. "There are costs associated with trying a game out, so we have to be reasonably sure there will be an audience for it. We actually do pretty extensive testing; we have a team based in China that does nothing but test new games. On the other hand, we don’t need these games to make an enormous amount of money to make them commercially viable."

Screencaps from Victory: The Age of Racing

Will the genre mix among free-to-play roughly mirror what we've seen with subscription MMOGs: fantasy RPGs first and foremost, with other genres working the edge of the crowd? Our respondents were much clearer on how you'll pay rather than what you'll play, but Bjorn noted that GamersFirst has two racing titles in the works -the casual carter GoGo Racer and Victory: The Age of Racing, which is sort of Speed Racer meets Mad Max. Victory, he explains, is being developed in an Italian studio. “It’s very different in terms of graphics and design than what comes out of Asia. We like that.”

But not all genres work in all markets. “We’re not really clear on what market these racing games will work in. We know they work extremely well in Asia. We suspect they’ll work well in Europe.  Some say the racing genre has a lot of potential in 2010 / 2011, however, just by volume and sales, I think the two traditional genres – the fantasy RPGs and FPS games – clearly should outsell anything else. RTS games are also starting to show up as well.”

Don't look for the unapologetically repetitive nature of MMORPGs - the grind - to disappear entirely, no matter how successful free-to-play games are in subduing the subscription, where time is often (quite literally) money. "free-to-plays must be designed to encourage you to pay us." Bjorn commented, with refreshing honesty. "It’s pay or spend time; one of the currencies is time.” He went on to note that in skill-based games like War Rock, GamerFirst's MMO first-person shooter, the grind actually plays an important role. If you pay, he explained, you better be good; the grind is an important part of the training.

Left to its own devices, Zynga could destroy us all.

Given their relative accessibility, free-to-play MMOGs may make serious in-roads into non-traditional mediums too. A billing system everyone can agree with (especially the players) has long been a major holdup in planting subscription MMORPGs on consoles, but free-to-play MMOs have no such qualms. Look no further than Facebook, where FarmVille and Mafia Wars mysteriously holds millions spellbound. But are these games social and interactive enough to attract a dyed-in-wool MMO developer? Bjorn thinks so.  “It doesn’t have to be that you go do something in a group, it can also be a performing a certain activity for status recognition... The sharing of results can be a social activity too.”

Taking Free-to-Play to the Next Level

All these positive indications notwithstanding, we might know that free-to-play has really arrived in North America when a high-powered license is developed from the ground up as a free-to-play MMORPG. It's one thing to convince a licensor that a maturing MMOG, like Dungeons & Dragons Online, might see a rebound with a microtransaction makeover, but it's quite another to develop a major license as free-to-play from the start.

“The problem," Bjorn explained, " is that in the traditional licensing model, the brand-holder has so much power to change the design.  It’s very hard to work with in free-to-play because it’s difficult to explain to the holder of the IP of a large franchise why a certain type of activity makes sense."

 That being the case, don't look for the Transformers or Harry Potter free-to-play MMO for at least a few more years. Do, however, look for free-to-play MMOGs like Mytheon and Allods Online, whose graphical quality and tilt can stand toe to toe with their subscription counterparts.

Ten Ton Hammer would like to thank Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of DDO Unlimited, and Bjorn Book-Larsson, CTO & COO of publisher GamersFirst, for their time. Pick out something nice from the store, on us!