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Is the big budget, high profile, pay to play MMO dying a long and painful death? There's no getting around the fact that the market and gamers can only support so many pay to play MMO's, and very few gamers have the time or money to play more than one MMO each month.

mens birkenstocks In the past year we've seen Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online forced into transitioning into a free to play model (subsequently leaping to the number three spot on the list of most popular MMO's according to the NPD group).

Not long from now, Lord of the Rings Online will also be going the same way as DDO, not because it was failing, but because the move proved incredibly popular and profitable for that game.

A year ago, Sony Online Entertainment launched its family friendly entry in the genre, Free Realms, which has proved to be a smash hit, drawing in millions and millions of players.

But why the success? Simple. Nothing draws the masses in like the word "free". It's like offering "no strings attached" AoC gold, or it's like when you're at the supermarket and that bored looking attendant shoves a free ice cream cone at you, or one of those little hot dogs on a toothpick. Sure, they might have been sitting there all afternoon, and you have no idea what they taste like or where they've been, but dammit, they're free!

birkenstock madrid sandals This is the way it is with MMO's as well. All you've got to do is slap the increasingly popular "free to play" sticker tag on it, and all of a sudden gamers are talking about your game and actively rooting for it to be good. The truth is that to most gamers, a decent free game is as valuable as a good pay to play game, there are simply too many pay to play massively multiplayer online games on the market asking for people's hard earned dollars, and right now free games stand out and create a buzz.

Pay Won't Go Away

That isn't to say however, that the pay to play MMO is going entirely the way of the dodo. Pay to play is a proven model, and it's not going anywhere. If the current pay to play MMO's on the market start getting into trouble, they can always do what Dungeons and Dragons Online did to breathe new into their sales... go free to play.

The fact is that there are two sure fire ways to survive in the pay to play space.

The first, most difficult, and most profitable, is to become the de facto standard, the one MMO that defines the genre, the one that everyone wants to play.

birkenstock mayari sandals Right now, that MMO happens to be World of Warcraft, 7 years ago, it was EverQuest. The standard bearer is always judged by a separate set of rules, actually, the truth is they make their own rules, and its loyal subscriber base is always willing to plow through quest after quest, raid after raid to earn XP and WoW gold.

There are secondary and tertiary successes, but MMO's like Warhammer Online, Age of Conan and Aion don't see anywhere near World of Warcraft's phenomenal level of success.