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  • Enter at Your Own Rift: Is the subscription justified?

    by 
    Justin Olivetti
    Justin Olivetti
    09.05.2012

    I wonder whether the folks at Trion Worlds feel as if they're on an ever-shrinking island, holding fast to the subscription-only model while the world erodes into the sea of free-to-play. It's got to be an unsettling feeling, particularly as the competition continues to press in from all sides. Is clinging to RIFT's subscription worth it? When even Star Wars: The Old Republic flinched and buckled to F2P, what chance does RIFT have to stay its course? Is Trion hurting or helping this game by holding fast to the business model? It's a tricky question that's made trickier by the scarcity of facts. Trion's expressed strong confidence in the way it's steered RIFT so far, and I wonder whether that's a genuine confidence based on numbers that I don't see or a brave front for a duck that's paddling furiously under the calm pond surface. So is RIFT really so good that it justifies a monthly subscription, and if so, what makes it OK to stay above the F2P waters on that tiny island?