En Masse Entertainment and Bluehole Studios announced that their massively multiplayer online role-playing game Tera soon be switching from a monthly subscription plan to free-to-play. While the exact date for this switch from paid subscription to free has not been revealed, the companies say it will happen sometime in February.

In an update this week to the official blog for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Executive Producer Jeff Hickman detailed some of the changes that the next big update to the Star Wars themed free-to-play MMO will bring. Besides delivering changes to a special PvP area, the 1.7 update also sees the return of the Gree Enclave area, and details on why the inclusion of same-sex relationships has been pushed back slightly.

Funcom has decided to ditch the $15 a month subscription fee for its MMO The Secret World. The company announced today that players can now enjoy the game for free, though they'll still have to drop $30 to buy the game. After that players can opt for a special monthly membership or play for free and buy items from an in-game store as they see fit.

Brian Schneider and Steve Desilets, two former senior staff members at Zynga have assumed senior roles at free-to-play studio Rumble Entertainment. Brian Schneider will take on a role in Rumble’s executive team, where he will focus on retention and monetization strategies. Former Zynga design director Steve Desilets will serve as creative partner with Rumble co-founder and design director John Yoo. His goal will be to build new Rumble-developed games.

World of Tanks, World of Airplanes, and World of Warships creators Wargaming announced this morning that they are "fully underwriting" aircraft enthusiast David Cundall's efforts to recover British Spitfires reportedly buried in Burma at the end of World War II. The company's investment in Mr. Cundall's will allow him and the Burmese authorities to pursue the long-standing mystery of the Pacific theater.

Riot Games has released an infographic that illustrates why its MOBA title, League of Legends, is the most played game in the entire world.

According to data on that colorful infographic, League of Legends has a total of 70 million registered Summoner names, 32 million active monthly users, and 12 million daily active users. The infographic also claims that over 1 billion game hours are logged every month in League of Legends.

Free-to-play online games are non-existent on Xbox Live Arcade, but one of the very first is about to make its debut on Microsoft's platform next week. This is an important milestone because Sony - mostly through its subsidiary Sony Online Entertainment - has been offering several free-to-play games via the PlayStation Network.

That first Xbox Live Arcade free-to-play title is called Happy Wars and is being developed by Tokyo, Japan-based game developer Toylogic. The game will be available to all Xbox Live Gold member account holders for free beginning October 12.

BioWare Austin has begun consolidating Star Wars: The Old Republic servers together, leaving players with fewer world server choices, but providing a large population of gamers.

"By centralizing our player populations on these higher population destination servers, we feel that we can offer our players the best possible Star Wars: The Old Republic experience," wrote the SWTOR team on the game's website.

Cryptic Studios transitioned Star Trek Online to a free-to-play game recently and Perfect World Entertainment's wholly owned development studio revealed a little more on why they shifted the game from a subscription-based model to free-to-play in an exclusive interview with [A]ListDaily. Star Trek Online executive producer Dan Stahl and Perfect World vice president of business development and corporate communications John Young said the following:

In a recent interview with Develop, Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi said that most game publishers just don't understand how to create a successful free-to-play game. He also points out that most of those traditional publishers dipping their toes into the market have no idea how the free-to-play business model works.

BioWare's new General Manager says that shifting Star Wars: The Old Republic to a free-to-play model may not save the Star Wars themed MMO. When asked by Computer & Videogames in a recent interview if the transition would help the MMO, Matt Bromberg said with much frankness, "I don't know."

Following up on a story from earlier this week about Gotham City Imposters going free-to-play, we can now confirm that it was more than just a rumor. This morning Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment officially announced that the online multiplayer action game is now available for free through Steam.

Is Gotham City Imposters going free-to-play? According to data on the Open Steamworks Content Description Record Database (by way of NeoGAF), signs point to "yes." The Open Steamworks Content Description Record Database is an unofficial record of games and their descriptions provided by Valve.

There's been a slow slog towards bringing gaming to Smart TVs but Samsung is trying to lead the way with a new games portal designed for its Cinema 3D Smart TVs called Game World. Game World will offer both free and premium games to set owners and many of them will be playable in both 2D and 3D, according to Joystiq. Users will have to use either the Magic Remote that comes with the set or a supported third-party controller.

While Sony has had no problems bringing free-to-play games like Free Realms and DC Universe Online to the PlayStation Network, Microsoft has been very cautious in allowing online games (let alone free ones) onto Xbox Live. That is about to change when it launches ToyLogic's Happy Wars in the fall.

Happy Wars is described as a multiplayer combat game that will be free for Gold members to download and play. Being a free-to-play title, Happy Wars will also include in-game transactions so you can by various extras to enhance the gameplay.

If you thought the makers of World of Warcraft were sitting around wringing their hands over the trend to rush towards full free-to-play models, think again. Blizzard Entertainment's John Lagrave, the producer for World of Warcraft, tells Computer & Video Games that the company has no plans to raise the level cap for free players above level 20. The company introduced the free Starter Edition of the game in June, which lets players fool around within the virtual world - without too many restrictions - up to level 20.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says that the percentage of paying customers is about the same for free to play as it is for PC boxed product: around five to seven percent. Guillemot tells GamesIndustry International that using a free to play model in countries where piracy is a huge problem has proven to be an effective strategy.

Nexon America CEO Daniel Kim says that console developers need to take a chance on the free-to-play market, or risk a future where consoles are no longer around as platforms they can rely on.

I wonder how the citizens of Rhode Island feel about free-to-play games... Ultimately their opinion is of paramount importance now that the state owns the rights to Curt Schilling's first MMO project, Copernicus. So what does free-to-play have to do with it? Well, apparently the plan for 38 Studios' first MMO was to launch it as a free-to-play game, according to Boston Magazine. At least that is what Schilling told the publication...

Sony Online Entertainment has officially relaunched its fantasy MMORPG Vanguard Saga of Heroes as a free-to-play game worldwide. SOE claims that Vanguard Saga of Heroes' transition to a free-to-play model marks the beginning of an "exciting new direction" which will include entirely new game enhancements, regular updates and brand new content.

Former Empire: Total War designer Jan van der Crabben offered a dire prediction for companies thinking of swimming in the free-to-play pond: expect a 70 percent drop in initial registered users.

In episode 15 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Harry Potter games, OUYA's Kickstarter success and pre-order, a dehydrated teen, piracy, free-to-play spending, and Nintendo and Sony's trouble getting third-party developers to love their hand-helds. Download Episode 15 here: SuperPAC Episode 15 (1 Hour, 5 Minutes).

Oddly enough, “How much money have you spent on free-to-play games?” is not a stupid question.

As more and more games switch over to the “free-to-play” model, we find ourselves wondering how much gamers are spending on these “freemium” titles.  Luckily, we have our very own poll so those sleepless nights we've spent pondering this topic can kiss their butts goodbye!

In a shocking turn of events, Wargaming has purchased video game middleware company BigWorld for $45 Million, according to a GamesBeat report. Wargaming is best known for its wildly popular online game World of Tanks. That game has more than 35 million registered users who can play for free or buy virtual goods to enhance their game experience if they so choose.

You can't fight city hall, and apparently you can't fight piracy online either - at least according to Dead Trigger developer Madfinger Games. The company made news earlier this month when it turned the Andorid version of its zombie shooting game "freemium," claiming that the Android version of the game had such a high piracy rate that the game needed to be free with micro-transactions.

Dead Trigger developer Madfinger Games has made the iOS version of the game free, following reports earlier this month that it would make the Android version of its zombie shooter a free downloaded due to "unbelievably high" levels of piracy. Today the company has taken the same action for the iPad and iPhone version of the game, though its claims about piracy on this platform seem to be slightly more subdued.

While it has been hinted at for awhile today it's official: Star Wars: The Old Republic has gone free-to-play. EA made the announcement after revealing yesterday that the subscription numbers for the MMO developed by BioWare had fallen well below one million registered users.

Microsoft has confirmed in a statement this morning that it has discontinued Microsoft Flight and a children’s game for Kinect called Project Columbia. As a result the company has also laid off some staff at its Vancouver, Canada-based studio. How many employees have been given the axe we do not know as of this writing. Earlier rumors indicated that Microsoft had shut the studio down altogether, but those rumors turned out to be false.

Apple has found a way to fight against a Russian hacker who made it so that users could circumvent the in-game purchase system to get premium versions of freemium games for free. Apple claims that it has found a solution to the Borodin App Store hack operated by Russian hacker Alexey Borodin.

Borodin admitted on his blog that the party is over for his hacking service.

"Currently game is over," Russian hacker Alexey Borodin said.

Develop is reporting that Jagex plans to take its 200-million registered users-strong MMO RuneScape to the next level with some multi-platform versions of the game. Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard told Develop that the studio’s long-term plan for the game has always been to make it ubiquitous on any device that can connect to the Internet, and to make it available in multiple languages.