Scott Hartsman – MMO Fallout

Trion: Hartsman Returns, Branch Closed

It is Christmas time, right? Trion has welcomed back Scott Hartsman as CEO. Some of you may remember back in January that Hartsman resigned from his position as Executive Producer on Rift, which some speculated had to do with disagreements over the then-rumored plans to make Rift free-to-play. If the move was to try and secure a higher position at Trion, then it was a success.

With all good news comes bad, however. Trion has also confirmed to Massively that the company has shut down its San Diego branch, moving operations to the Redwood City Studio. Many of the staff from the San Diego studio are expected to make the transition over to Redwood City.

“As part of this transition, we are working hard to ensure that a number of great people will be making the move from San Diego to the Bay Area and continue their work at Trion,”

Now about ArcheAge…

(Source: Massively)

Rift F2P? Over Scott Hartsman's Dead Body

Will Rift eventually become free to play? No one can say for sure. As long as Scott Hartsman has a say, however, anyone who wants to play the MMO will have to pay up. In an interview with Eurogamer, Scott Hartsman of Trion stated that Rift is still growing, and that there are absolutely no plans to change face and make the game free. After all, the game is so pupillary, why would they reduce to 85% of the community (ala the 85/10/5 rule) paying nothing?

“One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you’d have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be – that would be a fairly large net negative for Rift and Rift community.”

Sorry, folks! If you want to get into Rift, why not take advantage of Trion’s rather aggressive sales strategy? The game is on sale very cheap, very often.

Rift F2P? Over Scott Hartsman’s Dead Body

“One of the assumptions people make is you can just take a game and throw a switch and change the model. For starters, you’d have to decide that that would be a good thing, and I do not think it would be – that would be a fairly large net negative for Rift and Rift community.”

Sorry, folks! If you want to get into Rift, why not take advantage of Trion’s rather aggressive sales strategy? The game is on sale very cheap, very often.

Trying On Trion: Happiness And (Almost) A Million Sales

So much for the forum users claiming Rift had sold over a million copies since launch. According to Trion in an interview with Gamasutra, Rift is nearing its 1 millionth sale. Interestingly enough, VP of publishing David Reid also revealed that the 1 millionth customer, and whoever they refer, will get something special from Trion.

“We are on the verge of selling our 1 millionth unit of Rift,”

For some members of the community, Rift’s health has been in question since Trion announced the introduction of weekly allowed server transfers for no fee. With this announcement, Trion hopes to alleviate those concerns, while planting the idea that the free transfers are simply intended to be a convenience for players.

“The subscription market is not dying, we’re clearly seeing that. The MMORPG market is not declining. We believe a quality product is going to continue to be something that gamers are willing to pay for as long as we continue to run the service as we should,”

In an interview with Gamefront, Scott Hartsman made a great point on the evolution of the community:

Back in the day, WAY back in the day, in the Everquest, Ultima Online days, nobody had real life friends that played online games, so you made all your friends online. These days, you have friends all over the place, and you probably do have real life friends playing the game. The world has changed a little bit. For us, we want to make sure that when you suddenly discover that your buddy from college or from the old job is playing on another server, you can click a button and go play with him. Chances are, you’re going to be happy, you’re going to stick around longer, and then everybody wins.