So Funcom surprised the world by *not* going Free2Play, but rather just dropping the subscription for The Secret World. You still need to buy the game to play, the same business model as Guild Wars 2 has. There aren't many subscription games left beyond World of Warcraft and Rift; and Trion is firing employees in time for Christmas, so you need to wonder whether they are next to give up subscriptions.

I find it somewhat ironic that MMORPGs are giving up subscriptions just as single-player games are trying to introduce them. We might very well end up in a situation where we buy our MMORPGs just once, while our single-player games demand regular payments for DLC.