Funcom axed the subscription requirement for its supernatural survival-horror MMO The Secret World back in December , adopting a buy-to-play model that opened the game's content for all after a soul sacrifice to The Old Ones buying a download. It seems like it worked: in an investor notice published yesterday, Funcom noted The Secret World's "activity levels" rose 400 percent as a result of the model change.
The developer claimed "original players have returned to join thousands of new players" and that The Secret World sold more than 70,000 units since going subscription-free. I'm not exactly sure what "activity levels" translates to, but assuming Funcom isn't referring to recording how many times someone jumps in Kingsmouth, it's probably a measurement of player counts across each server.
This should hopefully provide Funcom more breathing room to focus on cultivating The Secret World's impressive writing and neat classless character system. A more active community could encourage faster content updates, as well, which means more of those amazingly crafted investigation missions. It might be time to dust off my Illuminati street samurai's magnifying glass for another trip into the unknown.
