Research: Subscription model unappealing to vast majority of users
A survey performed by researchers Parks Associates titled "Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home II" concluded that there is very little room for market expansion for subscription-based MMOs. On the whole, users surveyed preferred the free-to-play model. The poll data suggested that mostly only the hardcore users already playing MMOs were willing to play subscription-based games, and that only 2% of gamers not currently playing MMOs would consider a non-free-to-play game.
Hardcore MMORPG players tend to frown on or look down on microtransaction-based games, but aside from World of Warcraft, most of the industry's growth has occurred via free-to-play. In fact, the director behind the research project (named Yuanzhe Cai) was quoted saying: "World of Warcraft, with over 10 million players, exceeded expectations for subscription-based MMORPGs, but it's unlikely any other publishers will achieve the same in the near term using a subscription model."
Perhaps we'd better get used to microtransactions, eh?
