Will Players Subscribe to an MMORPG After Years of Free-to-Play?

As our readers know, MMOBomb has a free-to-play focus. That doesn’t mean we don’t deviate a bit sometimes – covering things we’re not sure will be free-to-play, or games we know will be free-to-play at launch but have a purchase price for early access. Some of the games we cover are free-to-play in the sense that they have no subs but require players to purchase current expansions. The point is that we talk a good bit about monetization.

So, of course, there’s no real surprise that the monetization of Aion 2 is a topic we covered recently. If you’re familiar with the original Aion, you know it’s a free-to-play game. It wasn’t always. But as has happened to many an MMORPG, the game went F2P after a while. Not long after the launch of its first expansion, if I remember correctly. And it’s been F2P ever since.

So, I was a little bit surprised to see talk of an Aion 2 subscription earlier this week. Today, we got a few more details on NCSoft’s plans, with talk of there being two different sub tiers. Based on the description, the plans could be mistaken for a battle pass. There’s a base sub and a premium sub, and they’re not required. Sounds like a battle pass to me. But according to what people have been discussing, that’s not what this is. We don’t actually know what it really is at the moment. We just know it’s reportedly a subscription system.

There was no mention of an up-front purchase price. So it seems the game is not buy-to-play. And that’s really what we know. We’re not even sure what the proposed subscription tiers will get people at this point. And, well, of course, all of this can change by the time the game actually goes live in the West.

But seeing the information we have right now, all I could think was, “Are people really going to want to subscribe to the sequel to a free-to-play game?”

I feel like it will be difficult to convince players to take on that monthly (or rather 28-day, according to what we’ve been told) fee when the original game has been F2P for so long, more so because the game wasn’t originally free-to-play to begin with. It had to make the shift.

It’s a little weird when I think about it, because I don’t think players would be as put off by the idea of paying for a battle pass. Players drop cash on those all the time. And description-wise, this does sound like it could be a battlepass system. Although again, we don’t know what exactly we’ll be getting for paying for either of these tiers. Basically, we don’t know if it will be stuff we really need for a solid game experience, or just stuff that’s useful but that it won’t hurt us to live without if we decide not to pay.

I do think that by calling the monetization system a subscription, the developers may be hurting themselves when it comes to pulling in players. Despite it reportedly not being required, the word implies that it is something that will be required of players in order to play the game. That feels like a big ask for a fanbase that’s accustomed to a free-to-play system. And I’m not sure it will attract new players.

In some ways, I could almost see a one-time B2P purchase working better. The devs get money up front, and players don’t have to worry about a recurring sub. And it at least has the pretense of being something that could cut back on (although not fully eliminate) gold farmers and the like. And yeah, sure. Go ahead and throw that battle pass in. Because battle passes feel optional. We can easily drop in and out of those as we need without feeling obligated. I know I do it all the time.

Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how NCSoft actually handles the monetization come launch. But at the minimum, I think it would be wise for them to call the subs something else, particularly if they’re optional.