Implementing both F2P/Sub is also an option

[DragonFlyy]

This right here. Patches would definitely not happen every 3 months anymore, it's impossible to budget on a F2P and make
any kind of road map. You don't know if you are going to have to fire staff or cut back on resources month-to-month.

Wouldn't be a fun time if that had to happen, you're looking at possible 6-8 months for 1 patch if not enough people play.

LotRO and EQ/EQ2 disagree. They both still get plenty of content and both are freeium (F2P with an option of monthly sub.)

EDIT: Oh and the amount of locked out content isn't too bad. (at least IMO).

[DoctorPepper]

LotRO and EQ/EQ2 disagree. They both still get plenty of content and both are freeium (F2P with an option of monthly sub.)

EDIT: Oh and the amount of locked out content isn't too bad. (at least IMO).

While I didn't play those games after they went F2P and can't really make an argument against them, there are also a large number of MMOs that do suffer from this issue. Rift, SWTOR, and Tera for example, all of which were originally sub based games that suffered drastically in terms of released content after going with the F2P model due to cutbacks in staff.

The problem with F2P games is that first of all you can't make a proper budget because the amount of income you make fluctuates too much from month to month and secondly that dev's have to spend more time working on cash shop stuff as opposed to real content, both of which take significant amounts of time to produce.