JUNE 4, 2010 • A little over a month after Warner Bros. Interactive Ent. acquired MMO maker Turbine Inc., the latter announced that it was quickly transitioning its Lord of the Rings Online property into a free-to-play (F2P) business model. The revamped MMO will launch this fall in North America and Europe. Turbine had already taken its Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited into F2P territory with great success last fall.

Impact: It came as quite a surprise that Lord of the Rings went to a free-to-play model. Unlike Dungeons and Dragons, the Lord of the Ring franchise seems to be a strong enough brand to attract a premium subscription.  Furthermore, we question how easy it is to turn a game designed for premium subscriptions into a F2P product.  Our main question is was the conversion of DDO to a free model so successful that it clearly made economic sense to make the Lord of the Rings Online free?  Another possibility is that Warner Bros is looking at a transmedia play for its Lord of the Ring properties.  In this case the goal would be to use the free online game as a way to attract as many users as possible to the experience in the hopes of upselling them on the brand.