Torchlight MMO Will Not Be Subscription-Based

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When a new MMO is announced, one of the most prevalent questions always seems to be “is it going to be subscription-based or free-to-play?” When you consider that most of the target audience of these MMOs probably already play the subscription-based World of Warcraft, it’s an important question, and if players are going to have to choose between WoW and another MMO, World of Warcraft is probably going to win.

Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer recently revealed in an interview with Charge Shot that their planned Torchlight MMO will not be subscription-based for that exact reason. “You can’t really approach any MMO project without taking into account World of Warcraft,” Schaefer said. “It’s the elephant in the room of every MMO company.”

“I don’t think really anyone can do [subscriptions] anymore because pretty much everyone that does subscriptions has one for WoW,” he continued. Of course, it isn’t as if going with a subscription-based model is a death sentence for a new MMO, but Turbine saw profits from Lord of the Rings Online triple after they switched from subscription-based to a free-to-play model, which makes for a convincing argument in favor of free-to-play.

There is no planned release date for Runic’s Torchlight MMO, but Torchlight 2 will be out for PC this summer.