That’s right, City of Heroes/Villains is joining the ever expanding “Free to Play” MMO club. They must have had to be sponsored by Fallen Earth or APB to get in. OOH, wonder if they get one of those sweet jackets.

But all kidding aside, this is most likely a brilliant move for the “City of” franchise. It’s almost assured that any “on the fence” players who have been looking for a super hero fix have been playing Champions Online for free (or for small bits of money from their wallets) rather than dropping the coin to play a more visually antiquated (yet more fun, IMO) version. Add in those potential customers with those who jumped ship to the new hotness DC Universe Online, and you have competition.

So with all the rivals that they once never had, it’s time shake things up to make the game profitable again. But besides the obvious points of this all making perfect business sense and the usual sarcastic, “oh, never saw THAT coming” comments, what does going Free to Play really mean, and why are games even coming out anymore with a monthly payment model?

I ask this because of a tweet that fellow blogger Scopique laid out on the Twitters,

I’m REALLY starting to think that if you release an MMO with a monthly sub at this point, you’re about 6 months to a year too late

That’s a fair point, right? It’s all the rage, and it’s proven to have made a financially huge difference for some studios. So why WOULD you release a game with a monthly sub nowadays? The only answer I can think of is that “Free to Play” adds a stigma to your game. Until now, most FTP titles have been, for lack of a better single word to describe them, Janky. There’s nothing wrong with most of them. Heck, I’m loving the re-released APB: Reloaded, but I’ll be the first to tell you it’s an inherently janky game when compared to other third or first person shooters.

The reason games like World of Warcraft, Rift or Star Wars: The Old Republic (most likely) has or will have released with a monthly subscription model, is because it separates them, even if only via subconscious marketing, from the “janky” FTP games. Will there be a “Triple-A” MMO to break out of the mold and be FTP on day one of its release? I kind of doubt it. Instead, what we will most likely continue to see are games that try their hand at a subscription model in order to make themselves appear as card carrying members of an elite squad of super MMO’s, but will make the move to FTP once it seems financially beneficial, thus giving everyone who doesn’t watch the MMO market as avidly as we, the warm fuzzy feeling that what was once a high quality game, is now super affordable.