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No room for growth in subs MMOs

Report reckons free-to-play is the future.

Oli Welsh avatar
News by Oli Welsh Former Editor-in-Chief
Updated on
21 comments

Market research firm Parks Associates has found that the majority of gamers have no interest in subscription-based MMOs, and concluded that free-to-play titles supported by micro-transactions are the only way to grow the MMO market further.

According to WorldsInMotion.biz, the Parks survey of over 2000 online gamers found that 14 per cent currently not playing MMOs would be interested in playing them if they could for free, while only 2 per cent of gamers from the same group were interested in playing a subscription MMORPG. The latter, the report found, were all hardcore gamers.

"World of Warcraft, with over 10 million players, exceeded expectations for subscription-based MMORPGs, but it's unlikely any other publishers will achieve the same in the near term using a subscription model," said Parks' Yuanzhe Cai.

Sounds reasonable, but we're fairly sure the same things were being said about EverQuest before WOW launched. Never say never, market researchers.

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