Should All MMORPGs Be Free to Play?

Should All MMORPGs Be Free to Play?

What’s up guys – Stix here. Today, I would love if you gave me a few minutes of your time to go over a thought I had recently.
Then, if you could give me your opinion in the comment section, we might actually be able to spark a discussion on this!

What if all MMORPGs were Free to Play?

I’ve been a longtime subscriber to World of Warcraft, having played it since Wrath of the Lich King ten years ago.
I’ve supported Blizzard through many changes to the game, many ups, many downs, and I’m still actively subscribed to them, looking forward to both Classic Servers, and Battle for Azeroth.
I’m aware that a significant portion of players that have never tried WoW are due to the fact that there is a subscription barring them from gaining access.
Yes, I’m aware there is a free trial for WoW, but it’s locked at such a low point that you barely even get to scratch the surface of what it offers.

Then, I took a moment to take a look at Final Fantasy XIV – which I am also actively subscribed to – and a lot of complaints were that players didn’t want to have to pay to continue playing.
Although Final Fantasy XIV does an outstanding job at retaining their playerbase between expansions – more players are always wanting to jump in, but are further unable to due to the cost required to invest.

Then you have games like Black Desert Online and Elder Scrolls Online, which both have large populations with a Buy to Play model.
Both are flourishing under this model, but again, there are a significant percentage of players that are against purchasing an MMORPG – even for something as cheap as BDO has been on occasion, a mere $5.

MMORPGs That Found Success Through The Free to Play Model

Then you have games that have buckled under the pressure of a declining playerbase, like Guild Wars 2, TERA, EVE Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rift and more.
They all began as either Buy to Play or Pay to Play MMORPGs that transitioned over to Free to Play models with critical success.

Problems That Plague The Free to Play Genre

However Free to Play MMORPGs have a lot of problems that prevent them from remaining viable for long-terms, as evidenced by the fact that Free to Play MMORPGs are filled with spam-bots and microtransactions.
You combine spam-bots, microtransactions that promote pay to win like Blade and Soul or Aion, an ever-declining player population, irregular updates, and a team that prioritizes money-making over a fun use experience and you get what?
The Free to Play MMORPG Genre.

People often complain about having to pay for an MMORPG. However, high quality games normally require a paid investment. Especially if they want to retain that quality of service that they provide.

Pay to Win in Free to Play MMORPGs

Take a look at any Free to Play MMORPG that has launched over the last 10 years. How many of them still have active communities?
Now have many of those in specific, which I can think of maybe.. 1? Maybe 2. How many of those MMORPGs don’t have any pay to win at all?

See, if you look at stores in games like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, you’ll notice that the items for sale through the stores are cosmetic. Are just fluff items.
Things like outfits. Things like special mounts. Character slots.
Then you look at games like.. well, I’m not actually going to list any names because I feel like we all already know what they are.
Regardless, they often offer you the ability to bypass months worth of progression with real life money, sounding off “pay to win” alarms everywhere.

The Three Main Problems With Free to Play MMORPGs

So once again, I reiterate:

Spam-bots filling up every area with “buy free gold at blahblahwebsite.com”
Microtransactions that promote pay to win, bypassing progression without time investment.
Irregular updates, coming infrequently, with developers that don’t listen to their community because they would instead rather push what will make them the most money from the least minimal effort.

Final Thoughts on the Free to Play MMORPG Market

Is that what you would prefer the MMORPG market to turn into?
The market itself used to be oversaturated by Free to Play MMORPGs. There were new ones seemingly coming out every other month.
These days it’s quite different, with a few releases per year of low quality Western ports of Chinese or South Korean MMORPGs.

While the Pay to Play market isn’t perfect, while people may want to remain entitled and not have to pay for their games.. the fact of the matter is that without these large, paid MMORPGs.. we’d be left with the rest of the garbage.
Those games that you play for a day or two, realize nobody else is playing, nobody else is queueing for anything, nobody else is running anything at all.. then you join the masses and just give up on the game.
Yeah, those games.

Now, while there are still some Free to Play MMORPGs out there with a semblance of popularity left in them – they will not retain their playerbase.
There’s a reason people always flock back to World of Warcraft whenever they push out a new expansion: They want what they used to have, that current MMORPGs just.. can’t offer them.
And although they might end up disappointed for the most part, there really aren’t any Free to Play MMORPGs out there currently that can do what Pay to Play or Buy to Play MMORPGs do.

So that’s my opinion. I don’t believe all MMORPGs should be Free to Play – hell, I feel like the best MMORPGs were all Pay to Play or Buy to Play.
What do you think? Let me know down in the comment section below!

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