{"id":381,"date":"2005-10-29T19:18:21","date_gmt":"2005-10-29T23:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=381"},"modified":"2005-10-31T10:47:45","modified_gmt":"2005-10-31T14:47:45","slug":"sony-chasing-virtual-profits-with-free-mmorpg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=381","title":{"rendered":"Sony Chasing Virtual Profits With Free MMORPG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, while discussing Google’s latest moves into the realms of free wireless internet service, I mentioned that I expected the “free” business model would increasingly become the norm. After all, Google has shown that seemingly insignificant ads can bring in a ton of revenue. And only yesterday I posted<\/a> that the virtual world There<\/a> has also made their basic account free of charge (similar to Second Life<\/a>, Project Entropia<\/a>, and others). And now it appears Sony is joining the freedom movement.<\/p>\n

Blue’s News has posted notice<\/a> that Sony intends to release a free MMORPG next Fall. From the Dow Jones Newswire story to which they link: <\/p>\n

Sony Online Entertainment, a division of consumer electronics giant Sony Corp., expects to more than make up for the lost subscription revenue by selling optional add-ons, such as extra weapons or game levels.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Sony Online introduced a Web site, called Station Exchange, where players of some of its games can auction off characters or game items to other players for real money.<\/p>\n

The move was designed to give Sony Online a cut of an activity already happening on unauthorized sites.<\/p>\n

Smedley said Thursday that Station Exchange is paying off.<\/p>\n

“It’s a real business,” he said. “It has a very meaningful revenue stream, and it’s growing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Do I even need to link back to posts where I’ve discussed how big the virtual market is going to become?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, while discussing Google’s latest moves into the realms of free wireless internet service, I mentioned that I expected the “free” business model would increasingly become the norm. After all, Google has shown that seemingly insignificant ads can bring in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}