DC Universe Online Goes Free-to-Play
- Scribbled on September 19th, 2011 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in Game Deals, MMO, PC, Sony PlayStation 3
Even before DC Universe Online was launched, the question that was constantly asked of Sony Online Entertainment was, “Will DC Universe Online be free-to-play?” The reply was always that DCU Online would have a traditional subscription model. That ended today as SOE has announced that the comic book MMO would be going free-to-play in October.
SOE claims that the decision is not due to plummeting subscribership, but that they’d intended to go free-to-play all along. SOE executive producer Lorin Jameson claims:
“In terms of ‘Is it a result in a drop in subs’ – absolutely not. This is the right business model. If I can be honest, the game ended up costing a lot more than we thought it would, and this was our preferred business model from day one.”
Does Jameson mean that the subscription model was an early adopter tax?
One has to wonder if SOE was also influenced by the fact PSN Plus subscribers wouldn’t join an MMO and double their subscription duties.
DCU Online will go with three payment plans: free, premium and legendary. As one might expect, free will limit players to two characters and will be allowed to join a league. Free players will have limited in-game currency, and will have to buy game packs, more character slots, and some powers via microtransations. Premium players are players who used to be subscribers and now play for free, or players who have spent at least $5 USD in items. These players will get higher in-game curency limits, and more character and inventory slots.
As one might expect, Legendary players are those who continue to pay the $15 USD/month subscription fee. They get all downloadable content free, over 15 character slots, more than 80 inventory slots, and the ability to form leagues.
The Green Lantern-themed DLC “Fight of the Light” DLC was recently released.
September 21st, 2011 at 8:48 pm
[...] DC Universe Online goes free-to-play [...]
October 18th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
when when when
November 7th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
It went FTP on Nov 1.
November 8th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
More like FAIL-To-Play.
The chimpanzees running these server keep crashing them 24/7.