SWTOR designer cops to "looking at free-to-play"

Star Wars: The Old Republic lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi has said BioWare is scoping out competition from the free-to-play scene very carefully.

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well," Lusinchi told GamesTM.

"Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

It seems the developer didn't mean BioWare is investigating the possibility of taking The Old Republic entirely free-to-play - it's already set to go free to level 15 - but rather, that the team is checking out what competition exists in the freemium sphere. Additional comments suggest BioWare is aware of a pinch from a number of competing products.

“I think it’s more than the free-to-play model – it’s more that there is a lot of competitive offers," Lusinchi said.

"If it was just free-to-play games and they weren’t very good it wouldn’t even be a question but there are definitely good games out there and good games coming out, so of course all of this competition impacts your plan with what you want to do.”