News on business model change continues apace. This time, it’s the Korean-developed MMORPG ROSE Online’s turn to leave the subscription model behind in favour of an all-free service. They state, quite simply, that the decision is based on the desire to ‘attract more users than ever before’. The service, which used to cost $12.99 / month, will now be entirely free.
Existing subscribers will no longer have to pay, and will receive compensation from the in-world currency for each day of subscription they have left on the change over date, in a more which the company will be hoping avoids any angry backlash from paid customers who feel hard done by. All subscriptions will be cancelled on July 29th.
This comes in a week where Second Life’s Joe Miller gave an interview in which he discussed Second Life’s need to embrace open source alternatives such as OpenSim, implicitly acknowledging that the days of their subscription model are numbered. This isn’t exactly a surprise, given the already plummeting numbers of paid users of Second Life.
The possible collapse of one of the incumbent business models needn’t necessarily be too concerning to the industry, however: there are plenty of others to chose from. Both advertising and virtual goods sales seem likely to grow well in the future. In the meantime the paid business model is still undeniably doing well for some, most notably World of Warcraft. And Twin Skies, an MMO announced yesterday, is also intending to use the subscription model.
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