Today Acclaim Games announced that its recently-announced subscription MMO Chronicles of Spellborn would be entering "re-development" and return in 2010 as a freemium title. The re-development process will combine the efforts of original developers Spellborn NV and the Korean company Frogster Asia Co., Ltd. Frogster Asia is expected to primarily contribute its expertise in handling freemium MMORPGs to the re-development process, as it is the Korean publisher of both the original Chronicles of Spellborn and the freemium MMORPG Runes of Magic.
Right now Acclaim is promising to refund current subscribers for any outstanding balances when Chronicles of Spellborn officially relaunches as a freemium title next year. Current subscribers and other players can keep playing Chronicles of Spellborn in its current form until the time of the relaunch, though it is not clear if expected content updates will happen during the re-development period.
Exactly why Acclaim is choosing to give Chronicles of Spellborn a full overhaul into a freemium title is not clearly known at the time. Admins at the official Spellborn forums have indicated that the decision was not made by Acclaim, but instead may be the result of financial problems at the game's original development company.
That said, Acclaim has made moves before to try and attract more free players to Spellborn. The company has previously expanded the amount of free content that users can experience before subscribing. Between this and the freemium overhaul that Turbine's D&D Online is currently undergoing, it seems that free-to-play overhauls may become a standard tactic for trying to make struggling MMORPGs generate more revenue in the future.
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