Shocking absolutely nobody
Wildstar once stood firm in the face of a growing tide of MMOs ditching subscriptions and instead opting for Free-to-Play or Guild Wars-style one time purchasing. Developer Carbine has been pretty critical of F2P in the past and so it seemed unlikely to ever go completely down that route.
It turns out an MMO with dwindling popularity can’t actually stand firm. Whodathunkit? Games.on.net has reported that major Australian retailers EB Games and JB Hi-fi have been instructed to remove the game from sale. The Wildstar website is still selling the game, but otherwise good luck finding it in Australia.
This is a pattern of behaviour which The Elder Scrolls: Online also followed: remove from retail, then drop the subscription fee. It’s possible that’s what publisher NCSoft is doing with Wildstar. We don’t know anything for definite other than it’s been removed from retail, but the precedent is there and, let’s be honest, has anyone really paid attention to Wildstar recently? If it does go F2P, or adopt a pay-once model, we should hear about it soon.
WildStar possibly heading F2P as stock withdrawn from EB Games and JB Hi-Fi [Games.on.net]
