Our Predictions For Free-to-Play In 2015

I could preface this by saying that 2014 was a wild year, and then list off all the crazy things that happened in gaming. But every such article does that, every year, and people just skip by those to get to the nice, easy-to-digest bolded points in the heart of the article. Blah blah blah lorem ipsum, etc. You're going to ignore all of this anyway, so let's get right down to it, shall we?

Disclaimer: These views represent my half-assed predictions and nobody else's. As with all predictions, results are not guaranteed, no matter how smart the writer thinks he or she is. Do not use these predictions while operating heavy machinery. MMOBomb.com is not liable for any costs or damages associated with taking these predictions way too seriously than you should.

No major subscription-based MMO will go free-to-play

Granted, there aren't a whole lot of sub-based games left to choose from, even with the spate of new releases over the past few years, like The Elder Scrolls Online, WildStar, and Final Fantasy XIV. I know this is a point on which Magicman will disagree with me, because he thinks TESO will take the plunge, whereas I think it's more likely that, if it changes at all, it will go to a buy-to-play system. And WildStar, for all its troubles, I think generated enough initial sales and has the CREDD system in place to keep it going for at least the year – though I'd almost give it good enough odds of shutting down altogether if it keeps struggling.

As for the “old guard,” World of Warcraft, Eve Online, and Final Fantasy XI don't seem like good candidates to make the change either. WoW's doing fine, Eve players would revolt, and FFXI, like FFXIV, is run by Square Enix, which seems firmly opposed to free-to-play for its MMOs. We could see a smaller game or two make the changeover, as we saw with Defiance this year, but if you're holding out for something to go F2P, I think you'll have a while yet to wait.

Overwatch will be free-to-play

It seems all but a given that Blizzard's upcoming arena battler will be free-to-play, even if the company is being coy about its plans. The question is, will it be more like a MOBA, like League of Legends or Smite, where a few champions are available on rotation for free and you have to buy the rest? Or something more like Team Fortress 2, where all characters/classes are available for free? I'm leaning/hoping toward the latter, but I could understand if Blizzard takes the former approach, though I'd expect some kind of Smite-like bundle that lets you buy all characters for a reduced price. Some way to buy characters (and skins) through gameplay would also be nice.

Regardless of exactly how it's implemented, Overwatch will probably quickly rise up the ranks and be one of the most popular new games of 2015. It wasn't officially announced as F2P, so we couldn't include it on any of our end-of-year lists, but we think it'll make its way onto our polls in the coming year.

EverQuest Next will not exist in a playable form

Here's another one Magicman and I disagree on. Given how long it's taken Landmark to get through its alpha and beta stages, and the pains SOE has taken to keep H1Z1 under wraps, I think they'll take their time, and then some, before EQN is available to the masses – no matter how much anyone wants it to be otherwise.

The MOBA train will slow down

Which you could follow up with “darn” or “finally,” depending on your point of view. I think the MOBA craze has finally crested. That doesn't mean we won't see new ones announced or released, but I don't think we'll be covering a new one every other week, like it seemed to go for a while over the last two years.

None of this is based on any extensive analysis of trends or numerical data or even personal opinion (though I wouldn't mind if it came true). It's just that it seems like we've been reporting on fewer new MOBAs over the latter half of this year than we did prior to it, and I think that trend will continue. Also, when you have one high-profile, big-budget game like Dawngate going down the tubes, I think that's a wake-up call to all the smaller MOBA makers that, yeah, maybe you can't carve out part of LoL/Dota 2/Smite's niche, no matter how good you think you are.

One long-running Free MMO will shut down

It seems like we lose one venerable MMO every year. It's not always free-to-play, but each year we seem a little surprised when “that game” shuts down. In 2011, it was Star Wars: Galaxies. In 2012, City of Heroes. 2013, Warhammer Online. 2014, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. And all of the subscription games I mentioned above are in good enough shape (with the possible exception of WildStar), so I think we'll be “shocked” again when some F2P game shuts down for good.

As for who will get the axe – that's tougher to predict, because games that have been around for years, like the aforementioned bunch, seem like they'll be around forever. That said, with the financial issues some companies have faced lately, it's easier to imagine them pulling the plug on underperforming games. Specifically, Turbine (Dungeons & Dragons Online), Funcom (Age of Conan), and Perfect World (Champions Online) would seem like good candidates to cut some dead weight.

If you really wanted to think outside the box, too, would it be impossible to imagine SOE culling EverQuest 2, or even the original? They shut down four games in 2014, and it might make sense to “clear some space” to make room for the next incarnation of EverQuest. Then again, if you thought people went ballistic over SWG's shuttering... yeah, it'd probably be that multiplied by 10 if EverQuest went away.

So what are your predictions for F2P gaming in 2015? Note that commenting on this post grants us the right to poke fun at your insane predictions when we do next year's version of this article. Don't worry, I'll do the same with my own predictions. That way, we can all look stupid together.