Turbine has proven that giving a subscription game a free-to-play option can work and other developers have certainly taken notice. Cryptic Studios and Atari were obviously watching Kate Paiz's discussion about LotRO's success at GDCO and they decided to follow Turbine's lead today by announcing that they will be converting their superhero-based MMOG, Champions Online, to a free-to-play model starting in Q1 2011. Like Turbine, Cryptic has chosen to adopt a hybrid model of sorts, which will allow subscribers and Lifetime to create more kinds of characters and have access to current and future adventure packs without cost. Free-to-play players will be limited by certain character creation and adventure pack restrictions, but according to the FAQ they will have access to the full game otherwise.

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style="font-style: italic;">Champions Online players are getting a new subscription option.

Unlike Turbine's model, it doesn't look like Cryptic will be providing Lifetime or subscribing customers with a monthly dose of Cryptic Points to use on Cryptic Store items. As you might expect, with the similarity to the Turbine model, Champions Online players would also like to see a monthly point disbursement for subscribing and Lifetime members as well. Of course, that could very well change before the free-to-play version launches next year.

The only question now is - How long until Star Trek Online (STO) is converted? While we don't have an answer to that or if it will even happen, we do know that STO Executive Producer Dan Stahl is a fan of how Turbine treated their Lifetime and subscribers with their free-to-play transition and if STO is to travel the free-to-play road he would very much like to follow Turbine's lead in that area. For the time being Stahl has posted an official announcement stating that there are no plans to change the STO business model. But plans change like the winds in the gaming industry, so stay tuned and we'll keep you informed of any new developments.

As someone who has several lifetime accounts to LOTRO and has played since Beta, I'm very happy with how Turbine has handled my lifetime accounts and the perks I get in game as a result. (Speculating) If they ever asked STO to convert to F2P, I'd very much want to follow Turbine's lead for how they've treated lifetimers. It feels very fair and I especially love the fact that I can earn more points via missions/accolades. I've almost unlocked Mirkwood EXP simply by running missions on ALTs.

Also - as others have mentioned - STO is enjoying some success (especially in a market where a lot of newer games are struggling). I agree that STO needs to keep pouring our resources into more content and features and that is why our schedule is booked months in advance with new features and featured episodes. We are all still very busy updating the game!