It's been a little over two months now (http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/30/lineage-ii-awakens-to-free-to-play-today/) since NCsoft's (http://www.massively.com/tag/ncsoft) Lineage II (http://massively.joystiq.com/category/lineage-2) adopted a free-to-play business model that the studio has taken to calling "Truly Free." It would appear the transition went over well for the long-running title, as a new press release boasts that since the change, "[the game] has almost quadrupled its revenue and increased its concurrent player base by more than 800 per cent." Not a bad resurgence for a game that's been kicking around for the better part of eight years now. The studio attributes the success -- at least in part -- to the newly added Path to Awakening feature, "which provides helpful buffs, items and advice to accelerate new characters towards the level cap." If you'd like to get in the game and experience the freshly reinvigorated world of Lineage II for yourself, just click on through to the official site.
I find that more and more "reviews" seem like paid advertisements now aday so i don't trust them anymore when i want a new game I just ask people that have played it. The worst are the like Q&A sessions those websites have with them, they ask the PERFECT questions to make it a nice little info-mercial.
You will see that it was a crappy quarter for NCsoft. Whatever success NCwest had, it have close to zero impact on NCwest overall standing within NCsoft.
On a brighter note, I would LOVE to know what did NC Japan pulled out of the hat to accomplish such success. Their performance for Q4 is off the charts, considering.
ps. With regards to L2 in Japan. It seems our Japaneese friends managed put their performance on a balance sheet. But over here, free account creation seems to have little financial impact. (We do love endless stream of new players that seems to stop playing for good at 39 :D)