Aion is the latest massively multiplayer online role-playing game to ditch the monthly subscription model. NCSoft has announced that come February 2012 Aion will be adopting the free-to-play model. The game has been seeing lower and lower playing hours in the last few months and hopes switch to F2P will improve the amount of persons playing the game and generate revenue through microtransactions.
Rise of Microtransactions
Fellow Geezam.com writer Ramano was spot on with his article titled Online Gaming: Rise of Microtransactions in which he describes how more and more Tripe A MMO titles are adopting the F2P model in an effort to remain profitable.
World of Warcraft is the undisputed king of the MMO genre both in player numbers and profits and it still retains a pay to play model. Interestingly enough another big game is about to enter the MMO field this week in the form of the uber expensive the make Star Wars: The Old Republic which also asks players to pay a monthly subscription. check out our Star Wars The Old Republic Beta Impressions.
Are free to play MMOs really the future or is the rise of micro-transactions just a natural evolution of a now competitive and some might say crowded MMO genre? Also, will you trying Aion when it goes free to play? Leave a comment below.
Is it that Aion is going completely F2P or is NCsoft taking a similar approach to several of the other top MMORPG titles and are offering a F2P account as well as the usually P2P account?
from what I read it is going strictly F2P