Switch to free-to-play working very well for DDO
by Rubi Bayer 
Oct 16th 2009 at 5:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Business models, News items
Executive Producer Fernando Paiz said that subscriptions have gone up 40% since the game went f2p. "All aspects of our business are growing. Hundreds of thousands of new players in the world are playing for free, with a very high percentage using the store." The topic of microtransactions is a hot one, but there is apparently something to be said for an a la carte menu when it comes to gaming. Offering the game free has given quite a few people the chance to check it out when they wouldn't have before, and in the case of DDO people are liking what they see enough to stick around.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jack said on 5:17PM 10-16-2009
Sure it may have worked out well for them on a marketing point but the game still is pretty bad on today's standards and it does not come anywhere near the real Dungeons and Dragons xp....
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Pedro said on 5:56PM 10-16-2009
And here is Jack bashing any MMO that isn't WoW.
DDO is a damn good game. Very different from all other MMOs out there.
It has some great graphics, a great character costumization, amazing dungeons filled with traps, puzzles and the usual NPC mobs and it plays very differently from WoW. it is way more interactive than WoW.
Glad to know that this change for a hybrid subscription/f2p model worked out so well for them. I can only hope that more games do the same.
Jack said on 6:21PM 10-16-2009
I still hope the f2p model dies real soon!
Wjowski said on 6:39PM 10-16-2009
Also in going F2P Turbine pretty much shat all over gameplay balance.
Firebreak said on 8:30PM 10-16-2009
Me and my friends are loving it now that it is f2p I would not give it a sub, but free is a deal we could not pass up. Once I can find a job again I might even sink some money and buy a module or two.
mpdivo said on 10:09PM 10-16-2009
Agree -
DnD without a Dungeon Master...I mean a real Dungeon Master...not some NPC.
DnD online had a chance to do something original and really make DnD online vice some WoW clone. They failed...thus the game failed.
I do like the free to play model though.
Opatha said on 5:31PM 10-16-2009
I started to play it recently and I have to say I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, I'm trying to get some of my friends to play even.
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max said on 5:36PM 10-16-2009
I started playing it after it went f2p and love it! Good job Turbine, you made a smart by inviting everyone to come play!
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Wisdomandlore said on 5:50PM 10-16-2009
DDO is a good game, but many MMO players just don't "get it." It's actiony, with lots of puzzles and platforming. It's also wildly unbalanced. It's pitifully easy on solo with some classes, punishingly difficult on solo with others. Some elite quests are a walk in the park while some will crush you. And since the most fun you'll have is with a group, your experience often boils down to the people playing with you.
Overall, I enjoy it in small bursts, which is why the F2P model works for the game, I believe. It doesn't have enough of the features of a real MMO to warrant the P2P model.
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Mike said on 11:01PM 10-16-2009
I was with you right up to the final paragraph. How can you drop a statement like "It doesn't have enough of the features of a real MMO to warrant the P2P model. " Would it be too much to ask you to expand on that statement?
ymrar said on 4:48AM 10-18-2009
I dont see DDO unbalanced. At least the little I've played it.The character creation tells you how challenging a class is to play solo. So if you want to tune your solo experience, that and the scalable instances are great for that. I love to try different classes to see how easy or how hard things can get...
I like the combat very much. Movement in combat can make a difference, even with melee. While in most MMOs moving while combating with mob, at least for melee, makes no difference.
Dude said on 6:57PM 10-16-2009
Love the Elven characters. Started a sorcerer. Low amount of spells, but I'm growing to like that class.
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Tom Luongo said on 11:41PM 10-16-2009
DDO is an excellent game. After finally succumbing to WoW fatigue I tried a number of games out there and paid Turbine to play it while beta-testing on the F2P model was going on. I dropped it for about a month and played through Guild Wars (which was also a very good time) and came back to it. Of all the games I tried, this one is worth my time.
Turbine has a really good model working here that I hope future games will emulate. They have a good balance between the free content and the paid content that allows the player to control his level of investment. Casual, hardcore, an all in between, this model seems to be the right direction for this industry to go.
Let me test drive the game for minimal investment and let me find out just how good it is as opposed to hyping it up and suckering me into playing/justifying my substantial investment in an inferior game. This model should put the onus of quality on the game designers to improve their products.
Ta,
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Hardy said on 12:04AM 10-17-2009
From what I played DDO is a solid game and the F2P model, in my opinion is far superior to a subscription model from a business perspective... People with no sense of control will suffer, but that's their fault.
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torak said on 1:50AM 10-17-2009
They shoulda did this at launch.
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craylon said on 4:05AM 10-17-2009
For me DDO is truely unique
Its the fisrt game me, as a Microtransaction-Hater spend money on (I bought the Favourit Soul Char and 1 Adventure Pack)
The Adventures/Quests, even tough the game is pretty old by MMO Standarts, feel to me the most clever and enjoyable Quests I have seen in the genre so far and group play is awesome.
I'm currently subscribed monthly to Aion and I feel really good to visit DDO once in while to play with my friends because the experienc is really different between these 2 games.
I wish Turbine can keep up their success and translate some of the money they make into new content. It would be awesome if there were like monthly adventure packs you could buy just like your favourite comic book or records and play them with your friends.
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Chicken Little said on 5:17AM 10-17-2009
Well as long as you are winning over all those bored WoW players like Jack looking for something different to spend cash on, a proven target demographic of millions, everything will be just fine :))
Game with few players spends loads on advertising, goes free, gets more players - too early to tell about player retention numbers goes missing from headline. You got to love these ad sheet pages and their news :)
And remember to keep modding down the folks who try to raise points about things like 'game play balance'... SSSssshhhhhh. It's only the long term health of the product, no ones going to notice... oh well.
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Chris said on 10:29AM 10-17-2009
I'm pretty sure that folks wouldn't get rated down so rapidly if they perhaps provided something other than "I hate this, it sucks".
Regarding gameplay balance? What the hell are people talking about? Balance against what? Certainly not other players, I hope. DDO has only the barest level of PvP so it can't be that.
Should every game balance the way WoW does? If so, I'll pass. I stopped playing WoW partly because they'd balanced the hell out of the classes and now they're balancing out the races. That got boring pretty quick.
Wjowski said on 1:30PM 10-17-2009
I'm talking about the about the potions, weapons, wands, and *permanent* stat boosts you can currently buy from the store. Nice of you and your anonymous gang to dodge the issue, though.
Chicken Little said on 3:42PM 10-17-2009
And that's where item shops fail you see in the long run, at least to a lot of players. Kind of like everyone taking part in a marathon race with people paying a little every mile for a taxi to give them that little edge. No ones forcing someone trying to run the race 'properly' to hitch a ride, but it would feel like a slap in the face as you slog along that road. You are not 'balanced' with that guy spending his way to the top, even if you don't want to play that way yourself and you could, it's crap that they're there in the first place.
All joking apart I actually wish DDO well, and given that it's an instanced game - you're right about the modules - then it makes sense in this case, let people pay for modules they want to play, that part of f2p I got little qualms with, even if it does break up the community experience somewhat. But not with no item shop, it's an insult to us who want the satisfaction of playing fully and I bet you there are a lot of us.
And as for articulating arguments, you're right there, not everyone puts up these walls of texts, but doesn't mean they don't have good reasons for the negativity, as irritating as they may seem :)