What the writer is missing is that those that play for free were never going to be paying customers in the first place, but they do enhance the experience for paying players by being a part of the community as well as act as free advertising for the game. They are not a cost other than in terms of bandwidth. If paying players get bandwidth priority then there really is no problem with them. There are more ways to extract value than just charging a credit card.

What's important in the F2P model is to give players who won't pay up front for a game to try it and become paying customers at whatever level of play they are comfortable with. It is a fine line to walk with any game, but that's what being an entrepreneur is... one who balances risk vs. the arbitrage opportunity by providing a good/service.

DDO's model is the closest thing I've seen to a properly functioning ala carte model for a game. Personally, I think they're too generous in their handing out of points for In-game rewards for any new game thinking of adopting this model. DDO is 3 years old, so much of the development costs have been recouped, presumably. A new game, or newer game (like the WAR example), may have to scale back the amount of F2P content up front.

Regardless, that's for the game publishers to figure out and tune as they move their game forward in time. If WAR went F2P like DDO, I would d/l and try it out in a second. If I liked it, I would certainly spend $20 to $30 on it to get some content and perks.

Ta,