GDCO 2010: LotRO's revenues double as Turbine lays out a promising future

When F2P started we saw a huge influx of entirely new players. As the month since has progressed we've seen this settle out quite a bit. There are still new people coming to check out the game, but not the numbers that there had been.

On the other hand, my kinship is split pretty evenly between people who've been playing for a long time, people who had played and have now been brought back, and people who were enticed in by the F2P and have decided to stick around. A few in the latter two categories have converted to VIP, but most of them are sticking with the Premium option. (I don't think any have stayed fully F2P.)

Among the Freemium crowd in the kinship, not one is unhappy with the model. Nor do they feel like they're being nickeled and dimed to death. In fact, they are typically spending quite a bit less than $15 a month and are perfectly happy with that.

In short, LotRO has tapped a new revenue stream. Less is being made per person, but 75%, 50% or even 25% of $15 a month is still more than nothing. If Turbine can manage to release new content 4-6 times per year like they're hoping I don't see any reason why these many additional players won't stick around. With the improved profitability they're seeing, I don't see why that won't happen.

Good things for the future of Middle Earth.

From the company's view, so what if the boom turned to bust? They'd still have had the boom. And they can always tweak the pay plans for a new model if this one starts to die.

Totally... If Allods changed their game mechanics and had this payment model they would have my $$$ in no time.

When there is no money shortage no one really care my friend.

Don't know for sure, but I'd bet Codemasters distributes LOTRO in the EU, like they do (did? I'm not sure if Turbine took them out of the equation) for DDO. And it took them FOREVER to bring the DDO change over.

@Reagus:

I do weekly updates on the European transition for Codemasters on my website (mmofallout.com), but I understand why there hasn't been much coverage from other news sources. There isn't much story in their weekly forum updates of "sorry, we have no information or date to give you. It'll be somewhere between a few weeks and more than that."

@Callagan:

Codemasters published (and hosted servers) for Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the game didn't go free to play until Turbine ended their partnership and started hosting DDO themselves. I have a feeling Codemasters rejected the move for Dungeons and Dragons, and Turbine responded by saying "alright, we're not renewing your license to host." Seeing the boost that Dungeons and Dragons Online received, Codemasters would be daft to not continue hosting Lord of the Rings Online, even if they'd (presumably) screwed up their chances the first time. Fool me once, shame on you, as it goes.

Welll I've said it before and I'll say it again, Codemasters are a pile of $hit as a publisher and have been pathetic at supporting LotRO in Europe. They're a joke and the sooner Turbine pull the plug on them the better.

Nice to see the game doing well in other regions though :)