Gamasutra writer Simon Ludgate has an interesting blog today about SWTOR’s subscription launch and his experience in the beta of the game, which was fairly short-lived. Find out why he believes BioWare did the right thing by launching with a sub model and moving to a f2p model once they were unable to hold the numbers in subscriptions. Here’s a snippet: When I played the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta, I thought to myself that the game was fun, but that I would never pay a subscription for it. It lacked the key element of MMORPGs: players playing together in a persistent, mutable world. While it had nice graphics, decent gameplay, interesting storylines, and an amusing group story participation dynamic, it had no strong foundation as a “massively” multiplayer game. At best, a one-time box purchase with private multiplayer, kinda like Borderlands; but certainly no justification for a subscription. He goes… 1a4k5e
