Star Wars: The Old Republic Lead Designer: We are Looking at Free-to-Play

While I think it's safe to say now that BioWare's MMORPG — Star Wars: The Old Republic — won't be able to wrestle the crown away from World of Warcraft anytime soon, would the game going free-to-play (F2P) signal the "death" of EA's ambitious foray into the MMORPG space?

The Old Republic has not been in good shape since its launch in late-2011. EA has admitted in a financials call that the game had lost a whopping 400,000 subscribers earlier this year…and that's not even considering the breadth of F2P MMORPGs gaining steam.

So what does BioWare think about all these?

BioWare's Lead Designer for SW:TOR, Emmanuel Lusinchi, discusses the effects of stiff competition being F2P and how these games being good impact their decisions.

I think it’s more than the free-to-play model – it’s more that there is a lot of competitive offers…If it was just free-to-play games and they weren’t very good it wouldn’t even be a question but there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out, so of course all of this competition impacts your plan with what you want to do.

Yes, what Lusinchi has just said does make sense, but does this mean The Old Republic is going free-to-play?

The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well.Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.

It might just be me, but that's not what a paying subscriber wants to hear out of his MMORPG. While this isn't a guarantee that the game is going the F2P route, it sure seems like that's where the game's headed if things don't pick up soon.

Are you okay with The Old Republic going F2P? If you're a paying customer now, what do you want to see different if the game indeed goes down that road?

Source: GamesTM