In an article on Joystiq posted last night there are some interesting numbers coming from Turbine’s Kate Paiz (currently at GDC) about the changes since LOTRO has gone Free to Play roughly a month ago.
Lord of the Rings Online Executive Producer Kate Paiz announced during a panel at GDC Online 2010 today that Turbine has done it again: Lord of the Rings Online has doubled its revenue and created over a million new accounts since going free-to-play early last month.
This is wonderful news for us players. More money means more development available for the game we love to play! Have we really seen a million more people join our game? That’s amazing!
Paiz also shared that 20% of LotRO‘s former players have returned to the game since the switchover, and that the game has seen a 300% increase in peak concurrency, with three times the number of players online simultaneously, and a 400% increase in active players total. 53% of players have used the in-game microtransaction store (which sells everything from mounts and outfits to XP boosts and character slots)[…]. And even paid subscriptions have increased.
The thing still needs to be worked on of course is opening the Free-to-Play system in Europe for all those players eager for the new content and for the LOTRO Store to play with.
This is only the first month of release and naturally it’s got a ton of draw for people curious to try the game. What will be interesting is if these new players stay for the long term and join our community. I’m sure Turbine is hard at work developing new content to keep their now greatly increased player-based happy and entertained in Middle-Earth.
October 8, 2010 at 9:05 am
Funny how a game goes “free to play” and makes more money than ever.
Glad to see it’s doing well. While I’m still not a big fan of in-game shop setups, I do love Lotro still and want to see it do well.
October 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
hmm… I wonder if Codemasters is happy to hear this.
October 8, 2010 at 10:55 am
I thought that Ms. Paiz’s powerpoint slide detailing the top grossing sales in the LotRO store over the first 25 days was pretty interesting (it appears everyone loves shared storage). I must admit that I’m surprised to see MoM expansion make the list when you can still buy it for so little on Amazon. Actually, I’m very surprised that Turbine is charging as much as they are for MoM and SoM. I thought those prices would actually drop.
October 8, 2010 at 10:56 am
If chat channels on landroval are anything to go by then the starter areas are still busy but it tapers off very quickly in the next tier of quest pack zones.
October 8, 2010 at 11:16 am
On Windfola, a usually “emptier” server (except those of us who have been there for over 2 years and know each other), the f2p changes are very obvious. There are actually people running around, looking for groups to do the group quests at all the lower levels.
October 8, 2010 at 11:21 am
On the Nimrodel server the shire is very busy. Its a new sight for me to see more than 3 people under 65 running around. People are also using trade chat to actually trade in the newbie zones. That has to be a rare sight in any game.
October 8, 2010 at 2:32 pm
On Gladden, another typically lower population server, the lower level areas are just bursting with activity. Dynamic layer’s abound everywhere in the lower areas. A /who search of Archet, Bree, all these areas usually show the limit of 100 characters (no idea how many more than that there are) and the chat channels are extremely active. And it is spreading into other areas as well. There were 85 people last night just in the vicinity of Forsaken Inn last night. So, yes, I’d say it is definitely picking up and I hope that it means more players, revenue, and content for us all going forward.
October 9, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Those are impressive numbers. As soon as the new blood simmers down a bit with the tom foolery on the chat channels, i’ll be glad that it all happened. But even if they never do i suppose it’ll be worth it for the increased revenue.
October 9, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Tomfoolery indeed. I’ve been unsubscribed to OOC and General since day 2.
October 10, 2010 at 11:34 am
I am a bit annoyed by the immature chat in the GLFF and all the others that has dramatically increased with F2P, however I am also glad to have more players to group with. However, I have noticed a significant decline in skill level of the players I have been grouping with lately. May be just a string of bad luck, we willseee.
October 10, 2010 at 9:27 pm
While I don’t doubt that they got a huge influx of new/returning players, the “one million new accounts” should be taken with a severe grain of salt. How many new accounts have existing subscribers made? I’ve made more than one myself for testing purposes. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on that.
It too early to tell yet if this will have a lasting effect of impressive numbers down the road. I’m sure it will remain positive for the long term but levels will drop after the initial shinyness of F2P wears off.
I’m happy for all the new players that now get to experience JRR Tolkien’s world in a form other than pages in a book. Turbine has done an amazing thing here so far. Let’s hope they continue to do so and not let the $$ signs of a cash shop cloud their judgement on future developement.