'Guild Wars 2' and the death rattle of the subscription game

You can't rely on subscriptions to make a monetarily successful massively multiplayer game, according to ArenaNet global brand manager Chris Lye.

Guild Wars 2 is continuing the movement of subscription-less gaming with a "pay to own" model used by its predecessor Guild Wars, requiring that the user only buy a physical copy of the product to access the full game. And while many developers are still wary of this new model, in today's climate subscriptions will do more harm than good for the success of a new massively multiplayer game, Lye tells Polygon.

"I can understand the psychology of somebody who is going to take on the development of an MMO," says Lye. "Taking on the development of an MMO period is risky enough. So people go '[W]ell, we're putting all the risk into the development of this game, let's not double-down on our risk and also try to do a whole new business model.'

Read more here:- http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/1/3188505/guild-wars-2-and-the-death-rattle-of-the-subscription-gaming

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