According to Gibeau, “It is a complex and difficult market out there on the PC because of the availability of free-to-play products like our own, like World of Tanks, League of Legends… WoW is a free download that you pay a subscription to after a period of time. We’re cognizant - we see that.”
He then admitted that EA was paying attention to The Old Republic to decide when to transition to free-to-play, saying, “The advent of free-to-play is certainly a change in the dynamic of the PC market… when you have an IP as broad as Star Wars, we’re definitely going to look at opportunities to grow that business.”
“We’re going to be in the business from a long term standpoint so absolutely we’re going to embrace free access, free trial, ultimately some day we can move in and embrace that model. It’s all a matter of timing and thinking things through,” he continued, ”We have a great business right now and we’re not looking to make any abrupt changes. We made some good announcements in terms of giving you the first few levels free, because our telemetry told us that if we can get you to around level 8 or 9, you stick with us for the long term. So really the strategy right now is about opening up the funnel at the top so we can acquire more customers who are interested in Star Wars who perhaps aren’t ready to pay the full price.”
He stated that to last ten years, The Old Republic would probably at some point go free-to-play. ”The advent of free-to-play is certainly a change in the dynamic of the PC market. I don’t think subscriptions ever go away, but when you have an IP as broad as Star Wars, we’re definitely going to look at opportunities to grow that business and look at different ways of bringing customers in and serving them,” Gibeau concluded.
