In his latest interview, he states that free-to-play and subscription based MMOs aren’t two separate categories. In fact, non-MMOs can have subscriptions as well.
“I think subscription is just one way delivering content. In the case of Battlefield Premium, we have a million-and-a-half subscribers and that’s moving along nicely. At the same time, other types of products like Star Wars are probably better positioned around having a free-to-play model,” he stated.
He went on to hint that Star Wars: The Old Republic was going free-to-play chiefly due to consumer perception.
“With Star Wars, you have a broad-based IP that pulls the widest possible audience, we can bring in a large number of people. I think we’ve been fairly upfront with the fact that we course-corrected on Star Wars because we felt like we were fighting too many headwinds in the marketplace and it needed to be repositioned to fall with what customers were telling us,” he claimed.
“Frankly, when we made the switch, one of the big things that we were concerned with was that the existing subscriber base would freak out. And there will be a subscription layer. If people prefer to pay through subscriptions, they can do that.”
Star Wars: The Old Republic will be going free to play November 2012.
