Xfire free to play vs subscription MMO debate today

by Krystalle Voecks Feb 24th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Events, real-world, MMO industry, Opinion

If you were a follower of the Xfire Debate Club before you'll be glad to hear that they're starting the Debate Club back up again, as of today. That's right, at 5pm EST / 2pm PST (22:00 GMT) today, you can join a group of MMO journalists, developers, and other industry insiders as we debate the ins and outs of free to play vs subscription models.

Some of the many points that will undoubtedly come up over the course of the Xfire debate are:

Free sounds good, but what are the trade-offs?
Does quality or quantity matter more?
Is one business model more sustainable than the other?
With Free 2 Play games becoming such a driving force, where do you see MMOs going in general?

I'll be there to speak as part of the Massively team, but we'll be fielding some questions from those who show up to participate as well. Among the other guests are Cody Bye from Ten Ton Hammer, Randall Price from ArenaNet, Arend Stührmann from CCP, Christian Wehrlin from Games Masters, Josh Sell from Aeria Games, Adam Mersky from Turbine, Fred White from YNK Interactive, and Tony Colafrancesco from MMO Life as special guest moderator.

With such a great group of panelists to debate this with, it should prove to be an interesting and lively discussion. So be sure to grab a copy of the Xfire client if you haven't already, and come by to discuss the future of MMOs with us!

Tags: adam-mersky, arend-stuhrmann, christian-wehrlin, cody-bye, fred-white, free-to-play, games, mmo, mmorpg, randall-price, subscription, tony-colafrancesco, xfire, xfire-debate

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rhys said on 4:58PM 2-24-2009

As an initial comment on the issue, I would say that what is unsustainable is too many subscription based MMOs. The majority of gamers aren't going to shell out a monthly subscription for too many games, so you are looking at a finite market. It is much more sustainable to have a group of AAA titles people are willing to pay for, and then a subgroup of free-to-play titles and other alternative payment systems. I definitely like the idea of the pay as you go system suggested, whereby you only pay for actual time in-game. However, it will be interesting to see how that dynamic cuts against the people who play tens of hours a week.

-Drexel- said on 6:09PM 2-24-2009

Rhys I agree with your first statement wholheartedly. I'm a bit confused by your second point though, can it be all bad if the power-gamer, live-in-the-game crowd stays away from some of our casual freindly options?

Skypp said on 9:40PM 2-24-2009

Pay as you go sounds too much like the old days of the internet where you payed per hour. So that seems to me going backwards.

As for quantity vs quality... as I KNOW subscription games generally have the higher quality, does that mean that free to play games have quantity? Cause the ones I've played certainly had neither of the two.