Turbine: Subscription MMOs Aren’t Dying, Player-choice in Payments is the Future

The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online’s developer Turbine has commented to Eurogamer on the talks of the death of the subscription model for MMO. In short, they don’t think that subscriptions will disappear, but they see MMOs that use only one model of payment as “antiquated” and a dying breed:

“People now in the West expect to have full control over their entertainment dollar and spend it the way they want to,” explained Adam Mersky, Warner’s (Turbine’s owner) digital communications Witch King.

“It’s probably not right to say the subscription MMO is dying, it’s probably more right to say the idea of forcing a player to only have one option for having to consume your content – that’s probably dying.”

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“While we certainly pioneered [F2P changeover] in the online game space, and the industry is adopting it – this is pretty prevalent throughout the entertainment industry,” Mersky continued.

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“If we were going to release another MMO, we would not come out and – from my perception – launch it as a subscription game. The right choice would be to make it a player-choice of subscription or free-to-play.”