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Lord Of The Rings Online Thrives With Free-To-Play Model
I enjoyed Lord of the Rings Online when it launched back in 2007, but after the first few months I dropped the game to try out other MMOs. When it finally went free-to-play last month, I jumped back in eagerly and discovered a very polished, fun, and content-filled world, a huge portion of which can be accessed for no cost at all. In other words, it's totally awesome. Luckily, financial success has reflected this, as Turbine is apparently doing extremely well since the change.
Joystiq has the details given during a GDC Online panel. In the month since going free-to-play, revenue from Lord of the Rings Online has doubled, and over a million new players have signed up for the game. LOTRO producer Kate Paiz explained that the change to free-to-play wasn't about the game running out of steam; it was because they crunched the numbers and realized they had more to gain with the new model, as they had previously with Dungeons & Dragons Online.
Other noteworthy numbers divulged at the panel:
-20% of former Lord of the Rings Online players have returned to the game since the free-to-play conversion
-the game now has three times the number of players online concurrently compared to when it was subscription-only
-the total number of active players has increased 400%
-53% of players have used the microtransaction store, spending some amount of money on the game
I haven't bought anything from LOTRO's new in-game store yet personally, but I have no doubt that since I'll be able to return to the game without having to set up a subscription, I'm inevitably going to spend some money on opening up a new area or buying new quests. Turbine clearly has a winning formula at work with Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, and I'm glad to see it succeeding.
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