This was during a time when “free to play” was usually a post-launch salvage plan rather than a day one feature.Īnd even when Runes of Magic launched, that mostly applied to what one might call lesser tier games, like Asian imports and struggling titles such as Anarchy Online. Runes of Magic was going to bridge that gap, being more western in design… “western” really meant “like World of Warcraft” by then… and the Asian cash shop business model. I don’t think I will be covering them all.īut Runes of Magic is a bit special, both because I actually played it for a while and because it was kind of a big deal back when it launched.īack in 2009 there was still something of a divide between MMORPGs of the western, subscription sort and the free to play Asian imports. All the more so, I suppose, with a company like Gamigo vacuuming up strays and keeping them online to milk revenue out of them while putting in as little effort as possible to keep them viable.
As the genre continues to age I guess we will continue to have these sorts of anniversary milestones for those games that continue to hang on.
