This is where we think the industry is maturing to. This isn't about saving LOTRO, but about growth. There are more opportunities for Fellowships to form, a lot more opportunity for players to socialise. We're very happy with what we've done with LOTRO, but as you say there is a lot more for people in-game with a larger population of players. The number of players obviously grows, as we saw with DDO, from a free game option. Paiz: I don't think we should frame this in terms of saving or needing, it's about opportunity. RPS: So this is about population? You need as many people as possible to keep LOTRO alive? Can't you survive on a hardcore of subscribers? There will be a lot of different flavours, but you will see more of this going forward. I think you're going to see this from our competitors. As soon as we saw that success we made moves to do that to LOTRO. That said, the success of DDO clearly validates what we believe the future of online entertainment could be.

There is still a subscription option, and the stores will be optional, you can play the game without ever going to that stuff. Let's be clear though, we are just expanding into a free-to-play option. The number one reason people play MMOs is because their friends do, and the number one reason they don't is because of a subscription.

That took four months of it being live last year. It has surpassed any of our expectations, because before we went free-to-play DDO was ranked eleventh out of the most-played MMOs in North America, and now it's number three. DDO we thought would be successful, because we worked very hard on it, but the day before launch, well, you never quite know how people are going to react. Your press release mentions DDO, did that prove the model for free-to-play?

They explained how they see this new model as the logical, mature direction for MMOs, and how removing the subscription could be the best approach for the future of online entertainment. We found out a bit more about what that means by talking to Adam Mersky, Director of Communications at Turbine, and Kate Paiz, Executive Producer for the project. It seems that after the success of Dungeons & Dragons Online going free to play, Lord Of The Rings Online is to adopt a similar model.

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