Even if EA hadn't announced that WAR - and by implication DAoC - would not go F2P recentr announcements surely support this:

Lego Group's announcement that Lego Universe has failed to convert enough Free players to Premium players will serve as a warning that the F2P model is not a cure for all ills.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38401/Lack_Of_Subscribers_Forces_Lego_Universe_Offline.php

The news that DCOnline has only managed to attract 120,000 players following its F2P relaunch should send further shivers down the spine of Finance exec. Now maybe 120k free players will generate enough revenue but to me the number looks low and can be expected to fall.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38383/FreeToPlay_DC_Universe_Online_Sees_120K_Registrations_In_2_Days.php

And on top of this Zygna announced higher quarterly revenue of $306M (80% up on last year) but quarterly profits down 54% at $12.5M. (How many zillions were they talking about raising in their IPO? Good comment after the article as well.)

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38394/Zynga_Shows_Record_Revenue_Reduced_Profit_In_Quarterly_Filing.php

Signs maybe that F2P has hit a cap maybe. Players flipping from one F2P to another maybe whilst spending bery little?

I don't think DAoC was headed towards F2P anyways.

 

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There is still plenty of room for F2P markets out there, but those are all terrible examples. And if you don't have something that draws players away from other games, you won't get anyone.

Zynga basically makes one game and changes the art around a bit, and their model for expansion is based on exploiting friend's lists which is extremely short lived. And their games are terrible. They aren't the kinds of things that attract long term users. They try to make up for this by producing vast amounts of games, but none of them are going to have their initial success anymore.

As for Lego Universe, they had to compete with similar world styles that Disney and Cartoon Network already had going, and which were free from the beginning. There is not a large pool of children players that can do monthly fees, nor do they have a lot of expendable income for microtransaction styles. Ad-based is the only way I can see a child-oriented mmo having any real success.

And DC Online had the terrible misfortune of launching mere days before Sony's massive network outage. While I never played it, from what I understand the game really wasn't anything special.

Without a good product and without a way of drawing players to it, you won't be successful, no matter what you're doing. If EA wanted to take DAoC F2P, they'd have to polish the crap out of it first.

You didn't mention LoTR online in the above... They've had more success than anyone with the F2P model. It's really staggering what they've accomplished; population has risen from 250k to over 2million. They've also reported a HUGE increase in profits.

 

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^^^^
Have they reported a huge increase in profits? Serious question btw.

I have seen reports of the interview earlier in the year in which talked about the huge increase in revenue - incorrectly interpreted in some online stories as a huge rise in profits but I haven't seen anything about profit (from a proper source). And trying to get profit data out of WarnerBros results - LotR's owners - is well nigh impossible.

Indeed links to recent interviews would be good. Are concurrent players numbers still up? Hard to sort out with all the negativity that abounds most LotR forums.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/06/turbine-lotro-revenue-tripled-since-going-f2p/

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32322/Turbine_Lord_of_the_Rings_Online_Revenues_Tripled_As_FreeToPlay_Game.php

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/248518-lotro-becomes-free-to-play-profits-double-playerbase-expands-400/

http://www.vg247.com/2011/01/06/lotro-revenue-has-tripled-since-going-free-to-play-says-turbine/

So on and so on... Numbers are still up and seem to be holding strong; if not growing since going F2P.

 

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Well said. For some reason everyone assumes that a rise in *free* accounts equates to a rise in profits.

But that's only true if the new accounts are paying enough overall to offset the costs incurred by the additional resources needed to support those accounts.

More importantly, the new accounts must *continue* to pay as long as they play. An initial burst of income may look nice, and lead to press releases claiming success, but without continued income those new accounts become a financial burden rather quickly.

Honestly, I would be surprised if LotR Online is currently profitable.

bad games will remain bad games regardless of their revenue model.

 

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Zep beat me to it, but there seems to be a lot of similar reports from various websites. Most of the websites you'll find are getting their info from Turbine directly;
so as WhoNickedMyNick said it could also be the initial burst of income Turbine is just using as fluff to boost interest in the game.

Either way we all want more population in the long run, and LoTR online seems to be gaining leaps and bounds in that department.

As for profits, I can't be sure they're gaining or losing money. Me and a three friends frequent the game just to view all the quest pack, mount, gear, char slot, zones etc... you can buy with the Turbine points. It's overwhelming when you look at how much game content that can be purchased via Turbine; it would be hard for me to believe they're not making profit.

 

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I think this is another example of the gaming industry looking away from the real problem.

Crappy games.

I never played Zygawhatsit but the other two games I did play extensively and they sucked. Especially DCUO's one combo spamming 'action' and terrible stats system. These games failed hard and fast before they were F2P and then going F2P did not work. Hopefully someone looks at that and blames the games instead of the marketing so maybe the next time we get an action MMO or a kid's game with a decent budget it won't be a steaming pile of square super powered poop.

I hate to sound like a fanboi but it's really always been clear where the good games are coming from. High budget long dev hours with a focus on polish and not straying from a formula like WoW/CoD/Elder Scrolls, and low budget games made by small time companies that you only hear about because they're actually good. Killing Floor, counter-strike, torchlight. All these other companies throwing mediocre budgets at mediocre designers are not ending up with the mediocre games they thought they would and it's about time they figured that out.