TERA MMO Reaps the Benefits of F2P and Hits 1.4M Players

Recently, quite a few MMOs have made the leap from traditional subscription models to the free-to-play model that's been so popular and successful in Asian markets. Even Blizzard's MMO giant World of Warcraft adopted the new model to an extent by making the game free-to-play up to level 20.

It appears that the mass exodus to F2P was a good move, at least for most developers. For Paragon Studios, the transition wasn't enough for City of Heroes, which shut down late last year.

Thankfully, En Masse Entertainment is having a little more luck with TERA. Since the developer made the switch to free-to-play back in February this year, the MMO's seen quite a jump in its player base. TERA's crossed the 1.4 million player mark and there's apparently been a tenfold increase in the amount of concurrent players.

"We've been blown away by the waves of players logging into TERA, and we're seeing amazing growth in both registrations and daily users. It's always great to eclipse the one-million-player mark, and at our current rate, it won't be long before we hit two million," said En Masse CEO Chris Lee.

To celebrate TERA's increasing numbers, En Masse is hosting a five-day Dracoloths Rising Event, allowing players to fight new large monsters and gain special item drops.

_{Contact Us for News Tips, Corrections and Feedback}

Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the US News comments forum about this subject

Title
Subject
Title

This thread is closed for comments

13 comments

Comment from the forums

Your comment

ET3D 5 years ago

The question is, how does this translated to revenue? If there are a lot more players but not a lot more money going in, that's a problem. While I think that F2P tends to help the bottom line too, it's more interesting to read these figures than about player count.
hunshiki 5 years ago

Meanwhile, the Europe version is still struggling. There was no content back in the old days, and the new patches are no different either. They basically just modify some values, call it a huge version number patch, and push it out.

In the game there are rarely any new players (the ones I met never bought any shop items).
All you see is alt-characters running around, RPing and doing stuff. Like hide n' seek. Kinda sums up the end game possibilities of TERA.
jalek 5 years ago

That's the norm in any MMO, but most have raids and things. Tera seems to be about battlegrounds, and grinding to get stuff for better gear... for battlegrounds.
fuzzion 5 years ago

I will stick with my gw2
tomfreak 5 years ago

ET3DThe question is, how does this translated to revenue? If there are a lot more players but not a lot more money going in, that's a problem. While I think that F2P tends to help the bottom line too, it's more interesting to read these figures than about player count.
put in the in game ads banner on the F2P accs. Pretty sure many F2P player wont mind having a banner at the bottom of the screen all the time while playing the games that doesnt come with pay to win/pay to access new area.

Why do u think google/youtube and facebook even this site can provide full service without charging? THINK.
icemunk 5 years ago

It would be neat if World of Warcraft did their FTP a bit different... maybe instead of FTP up to level 20, make it FTP when you reach max level. Then you get rewarded for making it to level 85 or whatever the max level is these days, and when an expansion comes out, you have to start paying again to make it to max level again and back to FTP. Just a thought :P
The_Trutherizer 5 years ago

From what I can see in the reviews its more about satisfying gameplay than anything else. But F2P is much more attractive than monthly subscriptions.
Yuka 5 years ago

Between TERA and GW2, I'd say that GW2 is more fun in PVE until you reach 80 and have 100% map... Then TERA all the way for PVP and WPVP, even for PVE, they have Raids WoW like and world events GW2 style. It's a good mix.

And also, TERA's gameplay/combat is the best out there. Could be better, but it's way more user dependent than all other MMORPGs and that's in a good way.

Cheers!
fritters 5 years ago

River City Ransom has a better combat system than any mmo.
maestintaolius 5 years ago

I enjoyed TERA until I got to the endgame. The random number generator just resulted in to much frustration, particularly with enchanting. It was also frustrating to kill the HM bosses and get no rares in the drops.
robochump 5 years ago

tomfreakput in the in game ads banner on the F2P accs. Pretty sure many F2P player wont mind having a banner at the bottom of the screen all the time while playing the games that doesnt come with pay to win/pay to access new area. Why do u think google/youtube and facebook even this site can provide full service without charging? THINK.

Better yet, integrate advertising subtlety. Like change skins on bill boards in town/city hubs with ads designed to fit into the genre. Just an idea.
spartanmk2 5 years ago

robochumpBetter yet, integrate advertising subtlety. Like change skins on bill boards in town/city hubs with ads designed to fit into the genre. Just an idea.

EA did this in BF2142 - Intel and the Batman movie were ones i remember seeing.
Stephane Boisvert 5 years ago

City of Heroes may not be the best example to use for a title not having F2P success, as NCSoft arbitrarily shut it down when it was still very profitable, and outright lied when they stated they had exhausted all options to keep the game going.

The firing of 80+ employees of Paragon Studios was unexpected, as the staff was actively working on new updates and was on the verge of releasing the latest one (of over two dozens).

NCSoft's decision to shut down CoH was never about lack of revenue, as Aion and other titles have been draining NCSoft revenues where CoH was still bringing in money, and consistently so since going F2P.

Display All 13 comments