The sea change in the MMO business is just the latest step in what has been an entire restructuring of how people view and pay for content. "When you took away that gym membership business model, you suddenly open yourself to a whole new customer base." "There's a huge and diverse market of players," says Kate Paiz, executive producer of Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online. So EA and its rivals are trying out plan B. That leaves the hard-core players, who are often reluctant to split their time between more than one or two MMOs at a time. The subscription business model cuts off casual players, who can't justify paying $15 a month (particularly in this tough economy) for a game they only touch on occasion. It's a straightforward economics problem. "The message from players exiting the game is clear: 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription, and many indicate they would come back if we offer a free-to-play model," Electronic Arts ( EA) CEO John Riccitiello said on a recent call with investors. EA won't comment on the game's current paying audience, saying only that it's north of 500,000. But within a few months, the subscribers began drifting away. It started off strong, attracting more than 1 million players in its first three days - a record pace.
The Old Republic, which launched in late December, was supposed to be the next Warcraft.
But even Blizzard now allows players to explore its first 20 levels of content for free - and the company is increasingly selling in-game virtual items and services.
There's only one notable absence: Activision Blizzard ( ATVI) money machine World of Warcraft, which has 9 million subscribers and generated more than $1 billion in revenue last year.
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