Along with its ARG heralding the end of our days, Funcom decided earlier this week to kill the subscription fee required to play The Secret World, and has thus joined the select group of publishers who run MMO's that only require you to buy the box once, without any need to subscribe.
Granted, TSW still offers different levels of subscription, but unlike certain other MMO's who limit the freedom and options of the "free" players, Funcom offers everything that is in the game so far to every player, but gives subscribers and Grandmasters (the people who took the plunge and bought a lifetime subscription) a few additional extras.
Together with Guild Wars 2, TSW is one of the few MMO's that offers the "Buy-to-play" (B2P) model. It is an interesting model, since it offers a few advantages a "true" F2P model does not have. First of all, the obvious good thing is that the developers still earn some money from people who want to play the game. Next to that, an initial "buy in" creates a thin, yet efficient protective layer against armies of gold farmers and scammers. Funcom's Joel Bylos even points this out in an interview with IGN. Finally, and this is another strong argument coming from Bylos' mouth, an initial financial investment also comes along with an initial emotional investment. When you just dropped € 30 on a game (that's what you pay right now on Steam for this gem), you are more willing to join the community than when you download an F2P title on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
All in all, I'm more than pleased with the way Funcom is going with this. The optional subscription fee allows me to keep playing TSW even if I have some other title I'd like to check out, and if they keep up this pace of updates, I won't be bored pretty soon.
